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Nr123*123

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 1, 2014
296
1,014
Just wondering why it does this? I've been having terrible battery life.

The phone is also now exactly one year old. Is the battery on its way out?

I went to the Apple store and got a generic response. Apparently I shouldn't keep plugging it in when it isn't dead. This causes the battery to miscalculate the remaining charge.

I know that continually plugging it in doesn't harm the battery, but is it causing it to incorrectly read the remaining charge?
 

BenTrovato

macrumors 68040
Jun 29, 2012
3,048
2,222
Canada
It's always possible the battery is on the way out however many people are reporting their iPhone dies when when it hits 20-25%. http://www.cultofmac.com/446228/ios-10-users-complain-poor-battery-life-updating/

I'm confident it's a software issue since I've found a temporary workaround when it dies at 20%.

  1. Wait a few minutes before turning it on. If you try to turn it on right away it will display the plug in to power screen and not boot.
  2. When it boots up, go immediately to settings/battery and enable low power mode. If you try to do anything else the phone will die immediately.
  3. There you go, you should now be able to use the iPhone until the battery is completely drained.
 

Nr123*123

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 1, 2014
296
1,014
It's always possible the battery is on the way out however many people are reporting their iPhone dies when when it hits 20-25%. http://www.cultofmac.com/446228/ios-10-users-complain-poor-battery-life-updating/

I'm confident it's a software issue since I've found a temporary workaround when it dies at 20%.

  1. Wait a few minutes before turning it on. If you try to turn it on right away it will display the plug in to power screen and not boot.
  2. When it boots up, go immediately to settings/battery and enable low power mode. If you try to do anything else the phone will die immediately.
  3. There you go, you should now be able to use the iPhone until the battery is completely drained.

Hmmm, it turns on again, but only for a second or two. By the time I get to the password it shuts down again.

I think moving to iOS 10 fixed my wife's 6S which was doing it at 40% eventually.

I'm on the latest iOS. To be honest, the battery has been quite poor for the past few months.

The charge cycle count at the Apple store was around 350 and 86% battery health.
 

rainafterthesun

macrumors 6502a
Jun 23, 2010
859
1,103
Hmmm, it turns on again, but only for a second or two. By the time I get to the password it shuts down again.



I'm on the latest iOS. To be honest, the battery has been quite poor for the past few months.

The charge cycle count at the Apple store was around 350 and 86% battery health.

And I'm betting when you plug it in to an actual outlet, that's the only time it goes back to "normal".

Same thing happened to me.

You have corrupt software.

You can't save the backup, or at least I couldn't. The technician said I shouldn't anyways because then I would be bringing the corrupt software over again after the phone wipe.

Make sure you turn your iPhone iCloud library on so your photos are saved. Go in and have the technicians run their diagnosis on it, they'll either wipe it and restore or swap out.
 

Nr123*123

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 1, 2014
296
1,014
And I'm betting when you plug it in to an actual outlet, that's the only time it goes back to "normal".

Same thing happened to me.

You have corrupt software.

You can't save the backup, or at least I couldn't. The technician said I shouldn't anyways because then I would be bringing the corrupt software over again after the phone wipe.

Make sure you turn your iPhone iCloud library on so your photos are saved. Go in and have the technicians run their diagnosis on it, they'll either wipe it and restore or swap out.

Okay thanks, I'll give that a try. Most of the stuff is linked to iCloud services anyway.
 

idoccurt

macrumors regular
Aug 25, 2006
131
15
Just wondering why it does this? I've been having terrible battery life.

The phone is also now exactly one year old. Is the battery on its way out?

I went to the Apple store and got a generic response. Apparently I shouldn't keep plugging it in when it isn't dead. This causes the battery to miscalculate the remaining charge.

I know that continually plugging it in doesn't harm the battery, but is it causing it to incorrectly read the remaining charge?
My battery is VERY poor since iOS10
 

Galacticos

macrumors 6502a
Apr 5, 2016
692
379
As another suggestion I'd recommend is to do a battery recalibration. Some may say that those don't help but in my experience they do. I've had phones that jump from say 20% to 5% or just turn off at 15% or so, and this usually helps.

Roughly the way is;
I) plug your phone in and charge it to 100% and then leave it charging for 2hours beyond 100% (there is normally quite a bit of battery life beyond 100%)
II) unplug it and use it normally until it runs out of battery and shuts off (best timed to happen overnight) and then leave it for 5 or more hours without charging again.
III) plug it back in and give it a full charge.

I do something similar for my mac of the battery seems to get out of whack and it helps that too. See how you go
 

nanocustoms

macrumors regular
Jun 23, 2010
158
29
if its still under warranty, take it in. I had the same problem with my 6S. They were going to replace the battery but ended up replacing the phone.

I was literally 4 days before warranty expiration.
 

TrueBlou

macrumors 601
Sep 16, 2014
4,531
3,619
Scotland
As another suggestion I'd recommend is to do a battery recalibration. Some may say that those don't help but in my experience they do. I've had phones that jump from say 20% to 5% or just turn off at 15% or so, and this usually helps.

Roughly the way is;
I) plug your phone in and charge it to 100% and then leave it charging for 2hours beyond 100% (there is normally quite a bit of battery life beyond 100%)
II) unplug it and use it normally until it runs out of battery and shuts off (best timed to happen overnight) and then leave it for 5 or more hours without charging again.
III) plug it back in and give it a full charge.

I do something similar for my mac of the battery seems to get out of whack and it helps that too. See how you go


This!

Definitely the first thing to try in that situation i the battery recalibration. Discharge completely, fully charge again then use normally. If it doesn't make a difference then what to do is backup your phone using iTunes. Then do a clean install of iOS, not from a backup, completely clean (you still have the backup you just made if you want to go back to it.) Use your phone for a few days until the indexing and so on has finished and see what your battery life is like then.

If it's still bad after both of those things, take it to the store, it probably needs a new battery.
 

Nr123*123

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 1, 2014
296
1,014
Tried it all guys. Apple replaced the phone....with a "service unit (refurbished)". This is quite obviously of inferior quality. The build is just shocking.

The glass panel sticks out, the headphone jack sticks out and the taptic engine feels tinny. It feels like a knock-off iPhone. Annoyed isn't the right word. I've had this before with the replacement phones, they're definitely not new and not made to the same standard as new ones.
 

TrueBlou

macrumors 601
Sep 16, 2014
4,531
3,619
Scotland
Tried it all guys. Apple replaced the phone....with a "service unit (refurbished)". This is quite obviously of inferior quality. The build is just shocking.

The glass panel sticks out, the headphone jack sticks out and the taptic engine feels tinny. It feels like a knock-off iPhone. Annoyed isn't the right word. I've had this before with the replacement phones, they're definitely not new and not made to the same standard as new ones.


Hell if it's like that get back into the store or on the phone, that's not acceptable at all. If they're going to replace it surely it should as a minimum be of the same quality as the one you returned.

My replacement 6+ was perfect in every way, you wouldn't have known it from a brand new one out of the box and I wasn't even under warranty.
 

Mlrollin91

macrumors G5
Nov 20, 2008
14,172
10,181
Tried it all guys. Apple replaced the phone....with a "service unit (refurbished)". This is quite obviously of inferior quality. The build is just shocking.

The glass panel sticks out, the headphone jack sticks out and the taptic engine feels tinny. It feels like a knock-off iPhone. Annoyed isn't the right word. I've had this before with the replacement phones, they're definitely not new and not made to the same standard as new ones.

All service units are 'remanufactured' and not 'refurbished'. This means they receive a new battery, new casing and a new screen. Its possible you just got a defective unit. But all service units are individually tested unlike retail units that are tested in batches. Also, service units are a mixture of new and remanufactured devices. You have a 90 day warranty on the replacement device, just contact Apple, they will make it right. But always inspect the device before leaving the store, makes it a lot easier to deal with it right then and there. I don't even sign the work order until I have inspected the device.
 

Stq

macrumors member
May 1, 2016
49
54
Same for me. The phone shuts down at around 30% battery, even if the environment temperature is warm enough. Charge for a minute and it can be used all the way to 1%. The battery capacity is around 80% at 250 cycles, checked with coconutbattery. I sent it to Apple repair center claiming this issue but it turned out they didn't replace the battery or do anything related to battery life. Instead they replaced the display as they found image quality issues, which of course didn't fix this problem.

I didn't notice this before upgrading to iOS 10 but that's also possibly because the battery life was better with iOS 9 so that I never had to use until 30%.
 

Jtradar

macrumors member
Sep 10, 2016
44
22
Randolph Mass
I had Apple care on my iPhone 6 . Every time they replaced phone 5 times in two years I got brand new phone . It was out of smaller box but new. Tech told me Apple care replacements are brand new. He said old phones taken in are sold off to third party's .
 
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