iPhone 6 battery drain accelerates

[XTheLancerX]

As my iPhone 6 discharges, it seems to accelerate. I can get 2 hours out of 100-80%, but then I can only get 45 minutes from 80-70% at the very most. From there, it goes to about 30 minutes per 10%, and it makes my phone go from what looks like will be a 9-10 hour cycle to a 5 hour cycle. Any tips? I can't get my phone to last more than 5-5.5 hours at 15% brightness and all battery draining settings disabled.

My iPad frequently gets 9-11 hour cycles, and the drain is very linear, doesn't seem to accelerate much as it discharges. My phone generates warmth just from Safari at 15% brightness while my iPad requires high brightness/games to do this. Any ideas? I've tried restoring and the phone always behaves the same. Can't find anything similar to this around the Internet either.

 

[Coupz]

Mine seems to start draining faster when it's under 50% and I haven't found a solution yet.

 

[T5BRICK]

The battery indicator and percentage are just an estimate. Turn the percentage off, use your phone as you normally would (except for the obsessing about battery life), and charge your phone when it gets low.

 

[XTheLancerX]

Mine seems to start draining faster when it's under 50% and I haven't found a solution yet.

Finally, someone else acknowledges this behavior. My iPad was at 85%, 1 hour 44 minutes of use, on par with the 10% per hour - 10 hour cycle sort of thing. My iPhone 6 was at 85% at 1 hour and 42 minutes of use. Later, it was 67% on my iPad, 3 hours and 27 minutes of use. My phone is at 56% after 3 hours and 27 minutes of use. Usually there is a lot more of a difference even, seeing 85% at just 45 minutes to an hour of use isn't unusual.

The battery indicator and percentage are just an estimate. Turn the percentage off, use your phone as you normally would (except for the obsessing about battery life), and charge your phone when it gets low.

I really would like to stop but the battery still seems like it drains too fast even when I can't see the percentage. I will try this because I'm sick of worrying about it, but I just really really want to get battery charge cycles that are closer to Apple's projected times, especially since most iPhone 6 users on this forum are hitting these times easily with their phones.

 

[heyyitssusan]

Finally, someone else acknowledges this behavior. My iPad was at 85%, 1 hour 44 minutes of use, on par with the 10% per hour - 10 hour cycle sort of thing. My iPhone 6 was at 85% at 1 hour and 42 minutes of use. Later, it was 67% on my iPad, 3 hours and 27 minutes of use. My phone is at 56% after 3 hours and 27 minutes of use. Usually there is a lot more of a difference even, seeing 85% at just 45 minutes to an hour of use isn't unusual.



I really would like to stop but the battery still seems like it drains too fast even when I can't see the percentage. I will try this because I'm sick of worrying about it, but I just really really want to get battery charge cycles that are closer to Apple's projected times, especially since most iPhone 6 users on this forum are hitting these times easily with their phones.

Have Apple run a diagnostic test and see if there's anything wrong with the battery. If yes, they'll replace it for you since you're under warranty.

 

[sunking101]

My 6+ acts like this. I can get 49 minutes from the first 1%, then I end up getting 30 minutes from the last 10%.

 

[Shadowbech]

The battery indicator and percentage are just an estimate. Turn the percentage off, use your phone as you normally would (except for the obsessing about battery life), and charge your phone when it gets low.

This, I've had my battery % turned off from the beginning and have no problems with the battery life.

 

[XTheLancerX]

This, I've had my battery % turned off from the beginning and have no problems with the battery life.

I would only like to use that as a last resort... This 6 hour sort of charge cycles with minimum brightness and all draining settings turned off, with only safari use and social media sort of usage doesn't cut it.

My 6+ acts like this. I can get 49 minutes from the first 1%, then I end up getting 30 minutes from the last 10%.

How much time do you usually get out of a charge and does your phone get warm at minimum brightness like mine does?

Have Apple run a diagnostic test and see if there's anything wrong with the battery. If yes, they'll replace it for you since you're under warranty.

I'm not sure Apple will find anything wrong with it, on iBackupBot I had 1751 mAh out of 1800, not too shabby. But I still can't shake this short battery life. Don't understand why past 80% it drains insanely fast.

 

[sunking101]

I would only like to use that as a last resort... This 6 hour sort of charge cycles with minimum brightness and all draining settings turned off, with only safari use and social media sort of usage doesn't cut it.


How much time do you usually get out of a charge and does your phone get warm at minimum brightness like mine does?



I'm not sure Apple will find anything wrong with it, on iBackupBot I had 1751 mAh out of 1800, not too shabby. But I still can't shake this short battery life. Don't understand why past 80% it drains insanely fast.

My 6+ gives me anything from 9.5 hours of usage to 10.5
I once got over 12, and 11+ regularly but those days are gone for some reason.
Regardless, the battery percentage meter is most definitely not linear. If 100% down to 99% returns me almost an hour of usage time and yet 80% to 70% gives me 55 minutes, and 15% to 5% gives me 30 minutes, then this proves it.
All those who say to switch it off are living with their heads in the sand. How will they know if an iOS update has caused any battery drain, unless it is obviously catastrophic? I like to know so that I can look into it and hopefully rectify things.

 

[XTheLancerX]

My 6+ gives me anything from 9.5 hours of usage to 10.5
I once got over 12, and 11+ regularly but those days are gone for some reason.
Regardless, the battery percentage meter is most definitely not linear. If 100% down to 99% returns me almost an hour of usage time and yet 80% to 70% gives me 55 minutes, and 15% to 5% gives me 30 minutes, then this proves it.
All those who say to switch it off are living with their heads in the sand. How will they know if an iOS update has caused any battery drain, unless it is obviously catastrophic? I like to know so that I can look into it and hopefully rectify things.

I sort of agree with you with the whole turning off the percentage thing. I mean, I see where people are coming from with that, and I applaud them for being able to relieve themselves of stress related to battery usage, but I personally can't do it. I still feel that my phone is draining faster and faster, and that it's getting warm from light usage at like 15% brightness. It bothers me. I don't know how to properly get ahold of Apple though since I live 2 hours away from the nearest Apple Store and don't have AppleCare+ and can't use chat or anything.

My iPad mini 2 is having pretty linear drainage though... It was what, 67% at 3 hours and 27 minutes like I said earlier? Right now I'm at 46% with 5 hours and 45 minutes of usage. With that usage, my phone would be at 10% right now. It's really aggravating.

 

[sunking101]

I sort of agree with you with the whole turning off the percentage thing. I mean, I see where people are coming from with that, and I applaud them for being able to relieve themselves of stress related to battery usage, but I personally can't do it. I still feel that my phone is draining faster and faster, and that it's getting warm from light usage at like 15% brightness. It bothers me. I don't know how to properly get ahold of Apple though since I live 2 hours away from the nearest Apple Store and don't have AppleCare+ and can't use chat or anything.

My iPad mini 2 is having pretty linear drainage though... It was what, 67% at 3 hours and 27 minutes like I said earlier? Right now I'm at 46% with 5 hours and 45 minutes of usage. With that usage, my phone would be at 10% right now. It's really aggravating.

Excess heat, unless gaming or browsing using 3G/LTE in the midday sun, is not normal. I would do a clean install as you may have some kind of software bug. It won't cure the non-linear battery depletion though...

 

[XTheLancerX]

Excess heat, unless gaming or browsing using 3G/LTE in the midday sun, is not normal. I would do a clean install as you may have some kind of software bug. It won't cure the non-linear battery depletion though...

I have restored 3 times and this has always occurred for me. Should I try a DFU restore to get a completely fresh piece of firmware? I have just been doing the usual iTunes restore, set up as new sort of thing.

Let me add that the phone isn't exactly hot, it's just warm to the touch on the back. However this seems abnormal since it's at 20% brightness and I'm browsing on WiFi.

 

[sunking101]

I have restored 3 times and this has always occurred for me. Should I try a DFU restore to get a completely fresh piece of firmware? I have just been doing the usual iTunes restore, set up as new sort of thing.

Let me add that the phone isn't exactly hot, it's just warm to the touch on the back. However this seems abnormal since it's at 20% brightness and I'm browsing on WiFi.

A clean install will always update the firmware.
A DFU install will thoroughly wipe the phone and start afresh with no messing, so I would do that (despite it being overkill).
Heat is normal when using the phone; it's powerful, thin, and has a metal casing. Excess heat sufficient to fry an egg is not normal however...
My phone gets warm in use, and warmer still whilst charging. It doesn't get anywhere near as hot as my old iPhone 5 though.

 

[XTheLancerX]

A clean install will always update the firmware.
A DFU install will thoroughly wipe the phone and start afresh with no messing, so I would do that (despite it being overkill).
Heat is normal when using the phone; it's powerful, thin, and has a metal casing. Excess heat sufficient to fry an egg is not normal however...
My phone gets warm in use, and warmer still whilst charging. It doesn't get anywhere near as hot as my old iPhone 5 though.

Okay, I may try it in the future. Haven't ever performed a DFU restore, before. Anything to be careful of when doing one or is it pretty safe to do?

May do it on my iPad as well since it is acting funny if I don't restart it daily. Takes forever to turn, and open and close app animations are really jumpy, even though the battery life is great despite all of that.

 

[sunking101]

Okay, I may try it in the future. Haven't ever performed a DFU restore, before. Anything to be careful of when doing one or is it pretty safe to do?

May do it on my iPad as well since it is acting funny if I don't restart it daily. Takes forever to turn, and open and close app animations are really jumpy, even though the battery life is great despite all of that.

Make sure you back-up first (I use iCloud) and then go for it. It's very painless and I've never once experienced any problems from doing this 20+ times with my iPhone 4, 5, and 6+.
Aside from putting the phone into DFU mode, the procedure is just the same and takes just as long.
You could always just do a 'reset all settings' on your iDevices and see how you go from there. You'll need to retoggle every setting again afterwards but it sometimes cures bugs.
Next up from that is an 'erase all content' command which will bring the phone back to a fresh out of the box state. You'll lose all your data but can install a back-up just like you did when you first got your phone.

 

[imagineadam]

Install "AppSwitch" from the App Store and check your cou usage. It should hover between 2-8% when idle. If it's higher than that consistently something is going on in the background and sucking your battery. I check mine periodically throughout the day and make sure nothing is going wacky. I've had safari and Facebook do weird stuff to the cpu when they are "suspended" in memory. Once I closed them they usually went away. Sometimes the iCloud can do weird stuff too where it's constantly synching. (mstreamd) Gotta watch out for that too! If all else fails reboot. A clean install won't help when iOS 8 is still overall pretty buggy. (In my experience. I've ran clean stock 8.1.2 and currently jailbroken same behavior for me)

I've noticed I can get a strong two hours of battery life from 100-80% also on my 6. And then the meter starts starts to catch up to the real reading. It's just the way the algorithm is set up I think. Kind of how they "fixed" the signal bars back with the iPhone 4! They want you to think it's better than it really is and it kind of works! I do agree that my iPad battery drains evenly though. Not my iPhones though! I just got used to the behavior! You should be able to pull at least 6-7 hours of onscreen usage with your 6 though. Thats what I get when on wifi all day with low brightness and mostly Safari usage and tweetbot and some FB. If you are pounding away and loading up page after page on safari or continuously scrolling feeds the cpu will heat up and use up the battery faster like every iPhone before this one. So 5-5.5 hours might be about right for how you use your phone. Keep the cpu idle longer and you could maybe get closer apples rosy estimates but nobody ever realistically hits those!

Here's a screenshot of my current usage today which has been a pretty typical day of use for me. This is all onscreen time too. A lot of times I'll leave my screen on the usage page so I can open up to it later on and see how much my usage climbed while it is supposed to be sleeping. Generally it shouldn't rise more than a few minutes over the course of 8 hours or so if all is working well and you haven't had many push notifications come through. If it's climbing with the standby time you've got a stuck process. Sometimes I take a screenshot right as I put the phone to sleep at night (I know OCD!) and check in the morning to see how much percentage I've dropped and how much the usage has climbed. Sorry for the long post I hope some of this helps!

 

[technosix]

I get more battery life than I expected considering how thin the phone is. I'd be happier if it was 2 mm thicker and used that space for a larger battery. Yet I'm very aware of how much Apple values style over function.

 

[C DM]

As my iPhone 6 discharges, it seems to accelerate. I can get 2 hours out of 100-80%, but then I can only get 45 minutes from 80-70% at the very most. From there, it goes to about 30 minutes per 10%, and it makes my phone go from what looks like will be a 9-10 hour cycle to a 5 hour cycle. Any tips? I can't get my phone to last more than 5-5.5 hours at 15% brightness and all battery draining settings disabled.

My iPad frequently gets 9-11 hour cycles, and the drain is very linear, doesn't seem to accelerate much as it discharges. My phone generates warmth just from Safari at 15% brightness while my iPad requires high brightness/games to do this. Any ideas? I've tried restoring and the phone always behaves the same. Can't find anything similar to this around the Internet either.

Pretty much all iPhones I've had have been like that as far as how usage and battery percentage go. It's not something that's linear by nature really.

 

[duffman9000]

I have restored 3 times and this has always occurred for me. Should I try a DFU restore to get a completely fresh piece of firmware? I have just been doing the usual iTunes restore, set up as new sort of thing.

Let me add that the phone isn't exactly hot, it's just warm to the touch on the back. However this seems abnormal since it's at 20% brightness and I'm browsing on WiFi.

If you're going to restore, restore from iCloud, not iTunes. The restore process is different. That's what Apple help has told me.

If your phone is warm to the touch then you have a misbehaving app.