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bigjnyc

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Original poster
Apr 10, 2008
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Hey guys - I just traded my iPhone 6 and picked up a 6 plus model. I thought I was going to be getting more battery life from what I've read but its actually worse. I haven't changed any usage habits and pretty much use the same apps for the same amount of time roughly each day.

- I am getting about 6 hours of use since last full charge
- I checked the battery with coconut battery and it said the battery was at 99% health and still had full capacity
- I took the phone to apple and they ran the diagnostics which confirmed coconut battery's information
- The genius suggested wiping the phone clean and not using my iphone 6 back up to restore it. So I did that and still the same issue.

From everything I've read I was really expecting something along the lines of 9 hours use or so

(and yes I've turned off background refresh, turned off location services for most apps and performed all of the battery saving tricks)

Anyone else experiencing or experienced this issue? was there a solution?
 
Man I have really good battery life on my 6 plus. As good as my note 5

I've had both....I think the Plus is actually about 20% better than the Note 5 if I had to guesstimate. And that's using the Note 5 conservatively without going bonkers on widgets and refresh rates.
 
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Hmmmm that's pretty frustrating then, Apple obviously won't swap it out unless their battery diagnostics report that something is wrong with the battery. So if the battery is fine, what else could be causing the discrepancy? software issue? defective chip maybe? everything else works just fine
 
Sell it if it's not good enough for you.

Apart from that all I can say is the iPhone 6 plus has the best battery life right now, at least for mainstream smartphones including the note series.
 
Did you you set it up from scratch, or restore some backup? I've seen people have weird behavior with backups reporting on here. I'd at least try a fresh setup before assuming its defective.

If you are still getting less battery than a 6, I think something is wrong with it. The 6s Plus has amazing battery life.
 
Did you you set it up from scratch, or restore some backup? I've seen people have weird behavior with backups reporting on here. I'd at least try a fresh setup before assuming its defective.

If you are still getting less battery than a 6, I think something is wrong with it. The 6s Plus has amazing battery life.

Yeah per the Apple genius' advise I set it up as a new phone from scratch and that didn't solve the issue.
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Sell it if it's not good enough for you.

Apart from that all I can say is the iPhone 6 plus has the best battery life right now, at least for mainstream smartphones including the note series.

I can live with it until the 7 comes out, was just throwing it out there in case somebody else had the same issue and perhaps there was a possible solution.
 
That is quite strange. In my brief time with a regular 6, I was probably getting battery life equal to what I remember from my 5s, which is to say around 6-7 hours? Moving to the 6 Plus brought me to around 10-10.5 hours of battery life, even with gaming.

Surprisingly, my 6s Plus seems to be mostly matching and in some cases, exceeding that. I generally get close to 12 hours of usage, though I rarely game on my phone anymore. That did drop to the 10.5 hour range after upgrading to iOS 9.1; since going to 9.2 my battery life seems to have returned to around the 12 hour mark...
 
Check if you have iCloud Keychain turned on. My phone was draining 20% overnight without use 100% -> 80% (every night). Slowly deleted app by app, diagnosed with Genius Bar, swapped replacement phone, setup as new, etc nothing helped. Turned off iCloud Keychain completely, using 1password, phone battery is amazing again!
 
Apart from that all I can say is the iPhone 6 plus has the best battery life right now, at least for mainstream smartphones including the note series.

There must be something causing your battery draining, but I have no idea, actually iPhone 6 or 6 plus has the best battery life as I ever know.
Turned off iCloud Keychain completely, using 1password, phone battery is amazing again!

1Password is great choice, you'll like it!
 
Check if you have iCloud Keychain turned on. My phone was draining 20% overnight without use 100% -> 80% (every night). Slowly deleted app by app, diagnosed with Genius Bar, swapped replacement phone, setup as new, etc nothing helped. Turned off iCloud Keychain completely, using 1password, phone battery is amazing again!
Keychain enabled on any of my iDevices: it doesn't affect battery life.
I was getting 6-7 hrs from my iPhone 6, now I'm getting a little more from my iPhone 6S.

The most prominent factor influencing battery life is network signal strength. I've seen variations up to 3 hours depending on it.
 
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Maybe Location Services is hammering your battery?
I found some apps (probably buggy) would keep the location services running. This is a conceivable possibility.

OP, look to see if Location services (the little arrow in the top corner) is active and/or turn it off for all software that you don't think needs it.
 
Check if you have iCloud Keychain turned on. My phone was draining 20% overnight without use 100% -> 80% (every night). Slowly deleted app by app, diagnosed with Genius Bar, swapped replacement phone, setup as new, etc nothing helped. Turned off iCloud Keychain completely, using 1password, phone battery is amazing again!

Didn't think iCloud keychain would be a culprit, but I'll definitely try this and report back.

I found some apps (probably buggy) would keep the location services running. This is a conceivable possibility.

OP, look to see if Location services (the little arrow in the top corner) is active and/or turn it off for all software that you don't think needs it.

I tried turning off all location services except for the crucial ones, or at least selecting "only while in use" option and had no luck.
 
Please don't pass on a defect device to a genuine buyer but try to swap it from the store instead.
 
Please don't pass on a defect device to a genuine buyer but try to swap it from the store instead.

It's going to be a hand me down to my sister when the 7 comes out. I'm sure she wont mind being that its a free phone and she is still using an iphone 5
 
care to post a screenshot with your battery usage screen? Make sure you tap so it shows all the screen on time and such. Get an app such as "Stitch it!" to put the series of screenshots into one long screenshot if you like.

I would make sure you have your brightness low (30%-50%). If you are on a carrier that supports Wi-Fi calling, turn on airplane mode and force wifi calling only. However if this makes it so you can't get calls or text because you don't have wifi calling, don't bother. You could just try turning cellular data off when you are on wifi. You will still get calls and texts. I have done this before. Only things you will miss are mms messages.

I'm using an iPhone 6 and I usually get 6 hours usage tops. Before iOS 9 it was 6-8 hours. I am also a lot less anal about battery consuming apps and settings though so yeah. In my experience, these are what hit the battery the worst.

1. Screen Brightness
2. Extensive camera usage
3. Using cellular data rather than wifi/bad cell service
4. Games

Stick social media in there too, not sure where exactly but it's bad.

Are you sure there isn't anything different about your usage? If it's exactly the same as before then something is up. However if it is 6 hours of all screen on time thats not too bad actually, still not great though...
 
op I have a launch day 6 plus and even after a year the battery is epic. My brightness stays at 50% and I mostly use YouTube and safari all day and I can go almost a day and a half before I need to charge.
 
care to post a screenshot with your battery usage screen? Make sure you tap so it shows all the screen on time and such. Get an app such as "Stitch it!" to put the series of screenshots into one long screenshot if you like.

I would make sure you have your brightness low (30%-50%). If you are on a carrier that supports Wi-Fi calling, turn on airplane mode and force wifi calling only. However if this makes it so you can't get calls or text because you don't have wifi calling, don't bother. You could just try turning cellular data off when you are on wifi. You will still get calls and texts. I have done this before. Only things you will miss are mms messages.

I'm using an iPhone 6 and I usually get 6 hours usage tops. Before iOS 9 it was 6-8 hours. I am also a lot less anal about battery consuming apps and settings though so yeah. In my experience, these are what hit the battery the worst.

1. Screen Brightness
2. Extensive camera usage
3. Using cellular data rather than wifi/bad cell service
4. Games

Stick social media in there too, not sure where exactly but it's bad.

Are you sure there isn't anything different about your usage? If it's exactly the same as before then something is up. However if it is 6 hours of all screen on time thats not too bad actually, still not great though...

I got some screen shots today. With 19% battery left I've only gotten just under 4 hours of use and 8 hours standby. I'll be lucky to get 6 hours by the time it hits 0%
 

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