iPhone Air iPhone Air battery life screenshots thread

[ScottM1988]

How long have you had your Air? I’d give it a few days to settle down as there’s a lot of stuff happening in the background following the first set up and transfer etc.

Yesterday I had over 8 hours of screen on time and got down to 35% by 8:30pm. I could’ve got into the next morning but I’m not one to let my phones go into the red, so I gave it a quick top up charge to 50%.

I got it last night and set it up about 8pm. Charged it fully overnight and currently I’m at 55% battery with 2 hour 32 screen active time.
Will give it a few days as you suggest to see if it improves once it’s finished doing all the background stuff etc

 

[FeliApple]

Here are my Monday screenshots:

Longtime 12P, 15P user who regularly tops off the battery or uses a MagSafe battery to keep it at 100%.

Monday’s test was use the Air off charging until it dies and then use the Air MagSafe battery to charge while using.

View attachment 2556905

Was able to use the Air from 8am to 7pm before the battery fell thru 1% and turned off. Usage was mostly Safari, Reddit and Mail. On WiFi.

What was your brightness level? Frankly, Safari, Reddit, and mail are all a bit too light for only 8.5 of SOT to 0%, especially on Wi-Fi. Do you have Push enabled for mail?

In comparison, how was your 15 Pro with that usage pattern?

High brightness kills everything so I’d understand, otherwise it looks poor to me.

 

[FeliApple]

How today’s gone.

After 3 days with the Air I’m happy and satisfied that the battery is more than enough to get through a day at least, possibly with some to spare depending on the usage that day.

View attachment 2557297View attachment 2557296

Consistently getting 10 hours.

Like I have repeatedly stated for years, battery life is predictable almost to the minute if your usage pattern is repetitive. (And if your iOS version is constant).


My iPhone Xʀ got 5 hours of SOT with 70% remaining. For all of the six years I used it. Always on iOS 12. With this light usage pattern, I never got less than 5 hours, and I got 6 hours to 70%, once.

My iPhone 16 Plus seems ever so slightly different, with a little variation, but still. Consistently gives me around 6 hours of SOT to 80%, perhaps with 30 mins of variation either way.

Granted, this is obviously excluding those cycles in which standby was heavy. Standby battery life is poor on the Xʀ on iOS 12, and it is great on the 16 Plus on iOS 18. I don’t know why, but I got similar results with iPads: poor on my Air 5 on iPadOS 15, grea on my 11th-gen iPad on iOS 18.

With no significant standby, you’ll pretty much get 10 hours every time with that usage pattern. Your usage pattern seems to be moderately heavy, so it’s quite normal.

Believe it or not, this usage pattern: “Monday was a normal day, phones calls, emails, social media, watching YouTube, a few photos, safari browsing etc” with varied usage, a little camera, phone calls, social media, and YouTube (with speakers), is rather heavy.

I reckon that on my 16 Plus I’d also get half-spec with that usage pattern (about 14 hours). As I said, battery life - on original iOS versions especially - is predictable. Partly why I like to stay behind: I keep devices for years on end. My 16 Plus will get me x amount of hours with light use, x amount with moderate outdoor brightness and cellular use, x amount with high brightness and cellular camera use. Today, next year, in four years, in ten years. I’ll know what I can expect and I can act accordingly.

 

[FeliApple]

I got it last night and set it up about 8pm. Charged it fully overnight and currently I’m at 55% battery with 2 hour 32 screen active time.
Will give it a few days as you suggest to see if it improves once it’s finished doing all the background stuff etc

That looks awful, but yeah, if it is brand new, give it a couple of days. I don’t buy the “it is indexing for a year” trope that many people consistently state after major iOS updates, but I’ve experienced 24 hours of horrible battery life on a brand new device a couple of times. It always resolves itself rather quickly.

 

[FunkyTang]

What was your brightness level? Frankly, Safari, Reddit, and mail are all a bit too light for only 8.5 of SOT to 0%, especially on Wi-Fi. Do you have Push enabled for mail?

In comparison, how was your 15 Pro with that usage pattern?

High brightness kills everything so I’d understand, otherwise it looks poor to me.

Brightness was set just above the brightness sun icon in ControlCenter.

For mail I have Fetch New Data = off, Push = off, all email accounts set to Manual.

My 15P with 85% battery health would typically drop to 65% around 1pm.

 

[FeliApple]

Brightness was set just above the brightness sun icon in ControlCenter.

For mail I have Fetch New Data = off, Push = off, all email accounts set to Manual.

My 15P with 85% battery health would typically drop to 65% around 1pm.

Way too efficient for 8.5 hours of SOT to 0%. I would’ve expected at least 14-15 hours with that usage.

I have a similar usage pattern on my 16 Plus and I get far more than that.

Nothing you mentioned indicates any reason for such a low SOT. I’m not sure what happened there.

 

[tolili alert]

For me, more than 5-6 hours SOT is not possible with the Air in one single charge.

It's something I've accepted, but it's the reality.

My first days with the Air:

BATTERY USAGE - SOT
98% - 6h 8min
115% - 6h 40min
107% - 5h 20min
131% - 5h 54min
63% today at 3pm - 4h 11min



In my case, I'd like to clarify that I'm a normal person with many (not all) apps running in the background, email push notifications, and things like that that aren't particularly extravagant. Just like with my old 13PM.

 

[FeliApple]

For me, more than 5-6 hours SOT is not possible with the Air in one single charge.

It's something I've accepted, but it's the reality.

My first days with the Air:

BATTERY USAGE - SOT
98% - 6h 8min
115% - 6h 40min
107% - 5h 20min
131% - 5h 54min
63% today at 3pm - 4h 11min



In my case, I'd like to clarify that I'm a normal person with many (not all) apps running in the background, email push notifications, and things like that that aren't particularly extravagant. Just like with my old 13PM.

You must be a pretty heavy user. High brightness, intensive apps, cellular, or all three.

 

[tolili alert]

You must be a pretty heavy user. High brightness, intensive apps, cellular, or all three.

Brightness normal levels I would say. Right now at +/- 50%. Less when I’m at home. More when I’m outside under the sun.

I don’t play games or do anything special. Safari/mails/telegram/messages/whatsapp/apple music/photos/a few calls some days/take some quick photos… Nothing special.

When I am at home I use wifi, 5G outside. Almost like everyone.


With my old 13 PM (when new) the battery was great for me. I could last two days without charging it. Now, with the Air, I need to charge it twice a day (at least one complete charge and other quick charge).

It’s just Air’s battery is what is. At least, this is my experience with the phone. Best phone I never had beside that.

 

[profets]

I'm perplexed by all the screenshots. I've been using my Air since Friday, though figured first 2-3 days it'll be heavier battery usage than usual (using the phone a lot more than usual, background indexing, etc).

Past few days I've needed to top up quite frequently. I tend to get 3 hours of SOT at the most when battery gets below 20%. Feel like I'm babying the phone and avoiding using it just to see how much I can improve battery life.

Wondering if I should try a clean install and setup everything by scratch, just to test it out. I absolutely adore this phone, I can live without stereo speakers and willing to give up the additional cameras, but boy is battery life killing me.

Today for example pretty traditional day in terms of phone use (I really don't use anything computationally taxing), messages, mail, podcasts (with AirPods), some camera use:

 

[ScottM1988]

This is at 15:40. Hoping mine does improve over the next few days as this is my first full day with.
12 hour shift at work. 5g. Mostly safari and messages with the occasional video

 

[surferfb]

I'm perplexed by all the screenshots. I've been using my Air since Friday, though figured first 2-3 days it'll be heavier battery usage than usual (using the phone a lot more than usual, background indexing, etc).

Past few days I've needed to top up quite frequently. I tend to get 3 hours of SOT at the most when battery gets below 20%. Feel like I'm babying the phone and avoiding using it just to see how much I can improve battery life.

Wondering if I should try a clean install and setup everything by scratch, just to test it out. I absolutely adore this phone, I can live without stereo speakers and willing to give up the additional cameras, but boy is battery life killing me.

Today for example pretty traditional day in terms of phone use (I really don't use anything computationally taxing), messages, mail, podcasts (with AirPods), some camera use:

View attachment 2557790

For point of comparison, yesterday I ended the day at 41%. Screen active 3h 21m, screen idle, 4:42. Yesterday was on the lighter end of normal, but I'm not babying it or anything. Safari: 1:15, Reddit: 30m, YouTube: 20m.

Maybe I've been a super light user all this time?

 

[byron_hinson]

I'm perplexed by all the screenshots. I've been using my Air since Friday, though figured first 2-3 days it'll be heavier battery usage than usual (using the phone a lot more than usual, background indexing, etc).

Past few days I've needed to top up quite frequently. I tend to get 3 hours of SOT at the most when battery gets below 20%. Feel like I'm babying the phone and avoiding using it just to see how much I can improve battery life.

Wondering if I should try a clean install and setup everything by scratch, just to test it out. I absolutely adore this phone, I can live without stereo speakers and willing to give up the additional cameras, but boy is battery life killing me.

Today for example pretty traditional day in terms of phone use (I really don't use anything computationally taxing), messages, mail, podcasts (with AirPods), some camera use:

View attachment 2557790

That’s not far off my 17 pro. Still feeling it is more iOS26 more than the phones as it killed my old 16 pro max’s battery too.

 

[Rob838383]

I'm perplexed by all the screenshots. I've been using my Air since Friday, though figured first 2-3 days it'll be heavier battery usage than usual (using the phone a lot more than usual, background indexing, etc).

Past few days I've needed to top up quite frequently. I tend to get 3 hours of SOT at the most when battery gets below 20%. Feel like I'm babying the phone and avoiding using it just to see how much I can improve battery life.

Wondering if I should try a clean install and setup everything by scratch, just to test it out. I absolutely adore this phone, I can live without stereo speakers and willing to give up the additional cameras, but boy is battery life killing me.

Today for example pretty traditional day in terms of phone use (I really don't use anything computationally taxing), messages, mail, podcasts (with AirPods), some camera use:

View attachment 2557790

That’s crap, I would be sending that back personally.
But I don’t think it’s the air battery as such, mines used a couple more % than yours, but whilst you unplugged earlier than I did it’s still 5 hours later in the day and almost 4 hours more screen usage.

Time to start looking at what’s using your battery and why

 

[profets]

Yeah, I usually start the day at 4:30am. Roughly 6.5 hours in, battery is at 55% with 90 minutes of screen on time. Really not much to it when scrolling through.

Not that I have much energy myself for it but going to use a 17 Pro that I got for my son, restore my same backup to it and try it day to day to see how much of a difference there is, as well as compare it to restoring the Air and setting up from scratch.

That’s crap, I would be sending that back personally.
But I don’t think it’s the air battery as such, mines used a couple more % than yours, but whilst you unplugged earlier than I did it’s still 5 hours later in the day and almost 4 hours more screen usage.

Time to start looking at what’s using your battery and why

 

[FeliApple]

I'm perplexed by all the screenshots. I've been using my Air since Friday, though figured first 2-3 days it'll be heavier battery usage than usual (using the phone a lot more than usual, background indexing, etc).

Past few days I've needed to top up quite frequently. I tend to get 3 hours of SOT at the most when battery gets below 20%. Feel like I'm babying the phone and avoiding using it just to see how much I can improve battery life.

Wondering if I should try a clean install and setup everything by scratch, just to test it out. I absolutely adore this phone, I can live without stereo speakers and willing to give up the additional cameras, but boy is battery life killing me.

Today for example pretty traditional day in terms of phone use (I really don't use anything computationally taxing), messages, mail, podcasts (with AirPods), some camera use:

View attachment 2557790

There is definitely something wrong here. Usage sounds moderate enough. How high is brightness?

I mean, 57% by 10:30 am with 1.5 hours of SOT is the worst I’ve seen on an original iOS version iPhone since… I don’t know, a weird background task glitch on an iPhone 6 screenshot I saw years ago.

That’s ludicrous, I get more on a garbage, updated 6s to iOS 13 with 77% health. (Which I only mention because it is updated, otherwise health is irrelevant)

 

[tolili alert]

In fact, my old 13 PM had a pretty heavy use phase.

While designing and building my new house, I used A LOT (A LOT) an app called BIMx. That app was pretty battery and chip demanding (especially with 3D model). My 13 PM often gots hot to the touch.

The Air has arrived just in time to avoid that phase. And thank goodness, because with the Air it would have been more problematic.

I mean, I couldn't fool a friend and tell them the Air has a great battery because, in my experience, that's not true. It's pretty close to a four-year-old 13 Pro Max with 80% battery health. It’s just… ok… being optimistic…

 

[James6s]

Some really wild variations with battery life on people’s Air’s! I know everyone’s usage & expectations are different, but wow!

It seems long stints on 5g are very hard on the battery’s, I’ve seen others say the same on X.

I wasn’t sure what to expect and I’ve been pleasantly surprised for what I would call my normal daily usage (over 8 hours screen time yesterday, 100% to 35%)

I was sceptical of Apples claims but also want expecting Pro/Pro Max levels of battery performance.

Today isn’t looking so good, the difference today is that I took a tonne of photos this morning and done some editing & a quick top up charge this morning.

Also only charged to 95% limit first thing when I got up.

 

[profets]

There is definitely something wrong here. Usage sounds moderate enough. How high is brightness?

I mean, 57% by 10:30 am with 1.5 hours of SOT is the worst I’ve seen on an original iOS version iPhone since… I don’t know, a weird background task glitch on an iPhone 6 screenshot I saw years ago.

That’s ludicrous, I get more on a garbage, updated 6s to iOS 13 with 77% health. (Which I only mention because it is updated, otherwise health is irrelevant)

Honestly it feels a bit stupid, I legit am babying it just to see how long I can make it last today before needing to charge. Brightness I keep low. At points low enough that its tough to read LOL.

All in all I'm happy that what I'm experiencing isn't the norm as I love this phone and hoping it's some software issue or something. I'm not opposed to topping up during a busy day but this is just a bit too much.

Tonight I'm going to try a fresh restore for the first time in geez, I can't even remember. Curious to see how it goes.

 

[FeliApple]

In fact, my old 13 PM had a pretty heavy use phase.

While designing and building my new house, I used A LOT (A LOT) an app called BIMx. That app was pretty battery and chip demanding (especially with 3D model). My 13 PM often gots hot to the touch.

The Air has arrived just in time to avoid that phase. And thank goodness, because with the Air it would have been more problematic.

I mean, I couldn't fool a friend and tell them the Air has a great battery because, in my experience, that's not true. It's pretty close to a four-year-old 13 Pro Max with 80% battery health. It’s just… ok… being optimistic…

I wish I could try the Air, because you know, maybe, just maybe (and this is just a theory), the Air is very well-optimised for light use, but suffers tremendously with moderately heavy use.

I used an iPod Touch 5G on iOS 6 and an iPhone 6s on iOS 9 (and another one on iOS 10), all had decent SOT with light use (6 hours for the iPod and 8-9 for the iPhone 6s), but heavy, outdoors camera use would kill both relatively quickly.

The iPhone Xʀ I have on iOS 12 is a middle point: absurd SOT with light use (I got 16-18.5 hours of SOT with efficient use), but moderate, outdoors cellular use would make it drop quite a bit (to around 11 hours). Heavy camera, cellular use would make it collapse like every other iPhone. I’ve repeatedly tested it with multiple outdoor, heavier cellular usage patterns and it would collapse to about 40-50% of my high-end light SOT, to about 8 hours.

The 16 Plus I have now is the true standalone: Ridiculous efficiency even with heavy camera use, barely dropping when compared to my light SOT usage pattern. Literally two days ago, I went to watch a tennis tournament and shot video, cellular, outdoor brightness. Final result: 2h 45 min of SOT with 89% remaining. That is insane. Other cycles have shown similar results with even more use.

But, the 16 Plus has a 4,674 mAh battery vs =~ 3,100 mAh for the Air. The A19 may be efficient, but the heaviness of iOS 26 and the small battery vs other recent iPhones (my 2,942 mAh iPhone Xʀ runs iOS 12 and still suffers), makes it so the processor efficiency cannot be a substitute for battery capacity with heavy use. (Or even moderate use).

Some really wild variations with battery life on people’s Air’s! I know everyone’s usage & expectations are different, but wow!

It seems long stints on 5g are very hard on the battery’s, I’ve seen others say the same on X.

I wasn’t sure what to expect and I’ve been pleasantly surprised for what I would call my normal daily usage (over 8 hours screen time yesterday, 100% to 35%)

I was sceptical of Apples claims but also want expecting Pro/Pro Max levels of battery performance.

Today isn’t looking so good, the difference today is that I took a tonne of photos this morning and done some editing & a quick top up charge this morning.

Also only charged to 95% limit first thing when I got up.

View attachment 2557813

View attachment 2557812

This result also seems to indicate a similar result: 63% used with 5h of SOT is not that great.

So, due to processor efficiency: light and optimised use, will be very decent for its battery size.

Push it, even a little (as you said, 5G alone seems to have a massive impact, like it did for me with the 5c, for example), and it suffers far more than recent, larger iPhones.

 

[James6s]

@FeliApple

What do you make of this poor performance from the 17 Pro? iOS 26 to blame? Even more shocking screen time than some screen shots in here!

Post in thread 'iPhone 17 Pro battery life is poor.'
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/iphone-17-pro-battery-life-is-poor.2466890/post-34174640

 

[mhunt407]

I definitely think theres something funky happening - I restored from backup, was using light mode and had been averaging around 4 hours SOT on my Air over the past few days.

I wiped, set up as new last night (downloaded contacts etc from iCloud and reinstalled my apps manually) and set it to dark mode - today I'm on track for ~7 hours of SOT based on current numbers. Bit early to draw any concrete conclusions but interesting nonetheless...

 

[ofarlig]

@FeliApple

What do you make of this poor performance from the 17 Pro? iOS 26 to blame? Even more shocking screen time than some screen shots in here!

Post in thread 'iPhone 17 Pro battery life is poor.'
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/iphone-17-pro-battery-life-is-poor.2466890/post-34174640

My 16 PM had a noticeably higher power draw on the iOS 26 public betas than before (even the last ones), so I wouldn’t be surprised if optimisations will bring improvements over time.

 

[FeliApple]

@FeliApple

What do you make of this poor performance from the 17 Pro? iOS 26 to blame? Even more shocking screen time than some screen shots in here!

Post in thread 'iPhone 17 Pro battery life is poor.'
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/iphone-17-pro-battery-life-is-poor.2466890/post-34174640

That post showcases the importance of information. That looks appalling, of course, but apart from SOT and battery life used, I have absolutely no information. What did they do with the phone? Cellular or Wi-Fi? Brightness? Heavy settings like mail? Was it a one-off or does the user get that battery life every single day?

No idea - which is why I always mention that information is key, and share my own when I share my battery life results.

Sadly, that post only has that result as relevant. Not much I can say. But hopefully the Air’s results can be explained by what I mentioned earlier - battery size can’t compensate inefficient use, whereas the Air’s efficiency is good for light use. If the entire lineup is like this with real-world use, iOS 26 is worse than I thought.

Battery tests have shown that the 17 Pro Max is actually better than the similar-battery iPhone 16 Plus and 16 Pro Max, so if the whole 17 lineup is compromised it may be difficult to determine why.

 

[James6s]

My 16 PM had a noticeably higher power draw on the iOS 26 public betas than before (even the last ones), so I wouldn’t be surprised if optimisations will bring improvements over time.

Let’s hope Apple are working on some iOS 26.xx optimisations for future releases! I heard iOS 26.0.1 is coming soon, but think that’s to do with some camera issues on some models.