iPhone iPhone 6 8.4 horrible battery drain after update

[thebigmeowski]

I tried to read every thread there is about battery life on 8.4, here and on the Apple forums as well, however I cannot find anyone who also has problem so severe.
I was behind updating my phone, so I decided to do that just a few days ago. Since then, I experience very bad battery life on my phone.
After the update, while doing the same things iPhone eats up so much more battery life, i.e: on an 1 hour long walk I would listen to music, get back home, battery would be around 90, 95% depending if I use the Internet a bit along the way etc. Now, it's down to almost 70, even 6x if I receive a call.
Last evening I left my phone unplugged on purpose, on standby, with all apps closed, wi-fi, bluetooth etc disabled at 51%. I woke up to see 41% (?!) and after using it (Safari, Instagram, Facebook, no games) for 10, 15 minutes the battery was down to 35%.

I have to add, that I eventually disabled AppleMusic, Apple Connect, but all to no avail. Before the update I paid attention to battery as well; I always review the apps that use mobile data in the background (just a few are enabled), close apps after use, Auto-brightness is obviously disabled, I actually use my phone on about 20-40% brightness. It used to work just fine and prolonged my battery life.

Am I missing something? Is there a way I can fix it? Can this be a hardware problem, even though I started to experience it only after installing the update? I'm quite frustrated, cause I used to go full day on one charge, now sometimes I need to recharge just a bit when I'm home, because I know it won't survive the next couple hours and i.e I'm waiting for an important call, and I know that charging your battery not to 100% will only worsen its performance; it seems like a vicious circle.

 

[Ultra AleM]

Hello! Try to reset settings, network and privacy and try to delete your email accounts and set them back. Let us know!

 

[pinebeltdesign]

I tried to read every thread there is about battery life on 8.4, here and on the Apple forums as well, however I cannot find anyone who also has problem so severe.
I was behind updating my phone, so I decided to do that just a few days ago. Since then, I experience very bad battery life on my phone.
After the update, while doing the same things iPhone eats up so much more battery life, i.e: on an 1 hour long walk I would listen to music, get back home, battery would be around 90, 95% depending if I use the Internet a bit along the way etc. Now, it's down to almost 70, even 6x if I receive a call.
Last evening I left my phone unplugged on purpose, on standby, with all apps closed, wi-fi, bluetooth etc disabled at 51%. I woke up to see 41% (?!) and after using it (Safari, Instagram, Facebook, no games) for 10, 15 minutes the battery was down to 35%.

I have to add, that I eventually disabled AppleMusic, Apple Connect, but all to no avail. Before the update I paid attention to battery as well; I always review the apps that use mobile data in the background (just a few are enabled), close apps after use, Auto-brightness is obviously disabled, I actually use my phone on about 20-40% brightness. It used to work just fine and prolonged my battery life.

Am I missing something? Is there a way I can fix it? Can this be a hardware problem, even though I started to experience it only after installing the update? I'm quite frustrated, cause I used to go full day on one charge, now sometimes I need to recharge just a bit when I'm home, because I know it won't survive the next couple hours and i.e I'm waiting for an important call, and I know that charging your battery not to 100% will only worsen its performance; it seems like a vicious circle.

Your experience sounds normal. The battery will have a lower capacity over time. But you do want to check for any software issues. Go to Settings > General > Usage > Battery Usage and look at the percentages by app. Do you see any over 20%?

It does not sound like a hardware issue, but you can have it tested by having Apple do a diagnostic on the phone. First, try these steps to maximize your battery life. https://www.apple.com/batteries/maximizing-performance/ It includes some helpful tips such as turning off background app refresh for certain apps.

Also, what type of phone do you have? A small number of iPhone 5's qualify for a battery replacement program: https://www.apple.com/support/iphone5-battery/

 

[uhaas]

I've had the same issue since going to 8.4; battery usage always has a huge percent used on "Home & Lock Screen". I think 8.4 introduced some battery draining bugs that I'm hopeful 8.4.1 fixes.

 

[madara889]

It's perfect for me

 

[maxsix]

I've been watching mine closely... because like so many of my fellow engineers have experienced with their iPhone 6 Plus models, after the upgrade we took a major hit to battery life.

Apple doesn't seem to care about battery life. Oh sure they say they do, but real world experience proves otherwise. When subject to work and consistent heavy usage, iP6 models are a bit weak in that area.

 

[C DM]

I've been watching mine closely... because like so many of my fellow engineers have experienced with their iPhone 6 Plus models, after the upgrade we took a major hit to battery life.

Apple doesn't seem to care about battery life. Oh sure they say they do, but real world experience proves otherwise. When subject to work and consistent heavy usage, iP6 models are a bit weak in that area.

Seems like they are making a fairly specific and big point about it being one of the improvement features in iOS 9, so it would be hard for them to get away from that and to say that they don't care.

 

[maxsix]

Seems like they are making a fairly specific and big point about it being one of the improvement features in iOS 9, so it would be hard for them to get away from that and to say that they don't care.

The main reason I believe Apple doesn't truly care is they know that most will believe anything Apple says and they talk a very good game. Second is Apples addiction, passion and stubborn insistence on making their phones, pads and laptops as thin as humanly possible, is far and away their highest priority. Form over function is the Apple way. Always has been for decades. I don't agree, yet I do accept it.

Let's face it, Apple is extremely clever. That's the good news.
Right up there with the wonderful fact I can buy a very high quality Anker Exrernal Battery that makes my iPhone useful. I've been using external batteries for years, since iPhones are consumer devices not designed for serious business days on the road where they're used like smartphones to handle heavy email traffic, work done on the web and in the cloud. Or sure I also carry my MBP, but often hit three cities in a day, so the more I can do on my iPhone 6 Plus the better.

Standing in line at the Airport I can knock out quite a few emails thanks to Swype. And by looking around at my fellow business travelers, so can they.

 

[amoergosum]

I've had the same issue since going to 8.4; battery usage always has a huge percent used on "Home & Lock Screen". I think 8.4 introduced some battery draining bugs that I'm hopeful 8.4.1 fixes.

I've also had the same issue since going to 8.4.
8.4.1 didn't fix it.

 

[sw6lee]

Does your iPhone heats up easily too on iOS 8.4? My battery is terrible too on 8.4, but it heats up a lot as well. It doesn't heat up when on standby, but when using it, even just a few minutes of instagram or web browsing, it gets pretty warm. My iPad mini 2 on 8.4 doesn't heat up much though, so I'm not sure if it's because of the software..I did have my battery replaced for my 5S, so maybe the shop gave me a cheap battery, but I'm not sure..My iPhone 5C with 8.3 isn't heating up at all, and battery is excellent, but that one doesn't have a sim card in it. Only Wifi.

I did clean install on my 5S for 8.4, don't have background refresh on, only few apps have location service, and a lot of system location service off. Brightness only about 50%.

Do you think it's the iOS 8.4, or hardware??

 

[jwball]

My battery was horrible on 8.4.1 and usage showed that a massive amount of battery was being used by "Messages -Low Signal" (I did create a thread but got no response) Before I would easily get 24 hours standby whereas with the problem I couldn't get 12 hours. To resolve this I installed the iOS 9 beta and I'm pleased to report it seems to have fixed whatever the issue was.