Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

TheAnimal

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 1, 2010
82
161
I've had the iPhone 6 for a few months now. When I first got it, for the first few days, the battery was like a champ. Went down very slowly. Lately, however, it's acting like my old iPhone 5. I'm practically tethered to a charger. Anyone else experience this?
 
Got my 6+ late December, honestly couldn't be happier. I haven't seen much degradation of battery. This is highly dependent on actual use though. Does your usage change much?
 
No, my usage is pretty consistent. I will say that I use my phone in a lot of low service areas (ferry, subway and high rise building where I work). So I would expect that would take a toll on the battery. But even on the weekends where I have pretty much perfect service wherever I go, the battery drains quickly.

Got my 6+ late December, honestly couldn't be happier. I haven't seen much degradation of battery. This is highly dependent on actual use though. Does your usage change much?
 
I haven't mainly because I hate using solutions to extend the battery life of my iPhone at the expense of useful features (ie high speed connection). But you're right. I should do it to at least eliminate it as a problem. Right now I'm disabling background app refresh and location services for Facebook only as I suspect that's a big culprit.

Cell tower searching does use a significant amount of battery. Have you tried flicking between 3G and 4G/LTE? Disable LTE and see what happens, etc?
 
I agree you should never have to actively change your style. But in this circumstance where you are unhappy it's best to try and zero down to the problem. Best of luck..
 
I haven't mainly because I hate using solutions to extend the battery life of my iPhone at the expense of useful features (ie high speed connection). But you're right. I should do it to at least eliminate it as a problem. Right now I'm disabling background app refresh and location services for Facebook only as I suspect that's a big culprit.

Yep, background app refresh and location services are big battery killers.
 
I've had the iPhone 6 for a few months now. When I first got it, for the first few days, the battery was like a champ. Went down very slowly. Lately, however, it's acting like my old iPhone 5. I'm practically tethered to a charger. Anyone else experience this?

My 6+ battery was exceptional when I first got it, but since installing 8.1.2 and then 8.1.3 (I actually reverted back to 8.1.2 because it was better), my battery life just isn't the same. I used to get 11-12 hours of usage and now I get 10 tops.
 
My 6+ battery was exceptional when I first got it, but since installing 8.1.2 and then 8.1.3 (I actually reverted back to 8.1.2 because it was better), my battery life just isn't the same. I used to get 11-12 hours of usage and now I get 10 tops.

Odd. I can get a full day, if not more. That is even with spending 3-4 hours tethering to my notebook...
 
I also just disabled location services for Google Now. I take public transportation to and from work, so Google telling me there's heavy traffic on the highway doesn't really help me much anyway. :rolleyes:

Odd. I can get a full day, if not more. That is even with spending 3-4 hours tethering to my notebook...
 
I've had the iPhone 6 for a few months now. When I first got it, for the first few days, the battery was like a champ. Went down very slowly. Lately, however, it's acting like my old iPhone 5. I'm practically tethered to a charger. Anyone else experience this?

Did you just update to 8.1.3?
I have had battery issues with 8.1.1/8.1.2 and at first I thought 8.1.3 didn't change much but after 1-2 weeks it seems almost back to normal. I'm not sure if there is even any truth to this but there is the saying that it takes ios 1-2 weeks to settle after an update and that seems to be the case for me with 8.1.3.
Even my iPad Air 2 was pretty bad since 8.1.2 (8h average) but after running 8.1.3 for about a week I was basically back to 9-10 hours.
Otherwise just do a restore and set it up as new as I'm sure people have mentioned above, that usually fixes battery issues.
 
Last edited:
Nah, my problems pre-date 8.1.3.

Did you just update to 8.1.3?
I have had battery issues with 8.1.1/8.1.2 and at first I thought 8.1.3 didn't change much but after 1-2 weeks it seems almost back to normal. I'm not sure if there is even any truth to this but there is the saying that it takes ios 1-2 weeks to settle after an update and that seems to be the case for me with 8.1.3.
Even my iPad Air 2 was pretty bad since 8.1.2 (8h average) but after running 8.1.3 for about a week I was basically back to 10 hours.
Otherwise just do a restore and set it up as new as I'm sure people have mentioned above, that usually fixes battery issues.
 
Nah, my problems pre-date 8.1.3.

Fair enough. Restore I guess and set up as new, if that doesn't fix it try the restore through itunes to reinstall the whole os from scratch. I also read that iCloud Keychain causes issues and a solution is to turn it off and see what happens and than turn it back on. Otherwise Apple store I suppose.
 
Yeah, trying to avoid the nuclear option. I'm pretty much at my desk the entire day, so it's not even that much of a bother to have it hooked up. It's just annoying me that at one point it was demonstrating outstanding battery life and now it's not. Maybe next upgrade I'll get the iPhone Plus.

Fair enough. Restore I guess and set up as new, if that doesn't fix it try the restore through itunes to reinstall the whole os from scratch. Otherwise Apple store I suppose.
 
Yeah, trying to avoid the nuclear option. I'm pretty much at my desk the entire day, so it's not even that much of a bother to have it hooked up. It's just annoying me that at one point it was demonstrating outstanding battery life and now it's not. Maybe next upgrade I'll get the iPhone Plus.

Any particular app that shows high usage?
Try closing all apps and than do a soft reset (hold home-button+off switch), don't worry it won't delete anything.

Other options without doing a full reset
1) reset your Network settings
2) re-calibrate battery 1-2 times (100% till phone turns off)
3) turn keychain off if you use it (I read it could cause issues with ios 8)
4) reset all settings (NOT the option with erase content). This will keep your data (apps, music, pictures etc) and will only reset your settings (wifi, wallpapers, sounds, notifcations etc) so it's not to much of a hassle.
 
My battery is dropping like a stone when I'm under 50%. 10min of Safari have cost me almost 8-9%, while when I'm over 50% it would be like 0-1%.

And most features are turned off and I installed 8.1.3 with DFU restore. I think I'll call apple and let them run diagnostic.
 
It's a little early to tell yet, but I disabled location services for Google Now around 3 hours ago and I have seen a SUBSTANTIAL improvement in battery life so far. It's interesting because Google insists that the location services don't drain the battery in any significant way, but in this case that doesn't seem to be true.

Got my 6+ late December, honestly couldn't be happier. I haven't seen much degradation of battery. This is highly dependent on actual use though. Does your usage change much?
 
My battery is dropping like a stone when I'm under 50%. 10min of Safari have cost me almost 8-9%, while when I'm over 50% it would be like 0-1%.

And most features are turned off and I installed 8.1.3 with DFU restore. I think I'll call apple and let them run diagnostic.

I used to have this problem on my iPhone 6, wasn't that drastic but it would keep accellerating past 80%. I could get 2 and a half hours out of the first 100-80%, but 80% to 70% would have gone by once I reached the 3 hour mark. 60% would go by once I reach 3.5 hours. So yeah. Not sure how I fixed it, I changed a bunch of things all at once. Like lowering brightness to about 0-15%, turning off cellular data when I don't need it, turning off wifi when I'm away from wifi connectivity, turning off Bluetooth when I don't need it, etc. gave me easily an extra 2-3 hours of charge, 8-9 hours with a day and a half of standby.
 
I've done the diagnostics and talked today with Apple. They told me everything is alright and I've done a dfu restore without a backup and have installed only 3 apps. We'll see how it goes.
 
I have

Take it back. I used to get 10, not like 6-7.

Took it back. New one is like old 10 hours average use.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.