Possible workaround for iOS 8 battery life issues

[eicca]

So yesterday at some point I disabled Spotlight Suggestions in both the Spotlight settings and Location Services, and today my battery seems to have lasted a bit longer than usual. My usage habits have been fairly consistent. Give it a shot and report if that makes a difference.

 

[chekz0414]

I found that if you disable Cellular in the iOS Settings app you can easily save loads and loads of battery but that only applies if you're in a place with low cellular signal. While it is off you can still make phone calls and get SMS, However your MMS will not send.

 

[Armen]

I found out if you turn off your phone completely it saves a lot of battery.

Come on you people, you bought a phone with features. Use them. Unless you live on a deserted island or in a forest there are plenty of places to recharge your phone.

 

[eicca]

Never mind, I won't post helpful tips.

 

[scjr]

Thanks for the tip.

Don't be discouraged by Armen's reply. That's his MO.

 

[MartyCan]

Thanks for the tip.

Don't be discouraged by Armen's reply. That's his MO.

Well he might have been a bit harsh in his approach but really you should not have to start turning things off to get acceptable battery life. Granted that if ou are in a very low service area and it's dropping and searching for service frequently it will burn battery much faster.

I don't see how turning off Spotlight search would have any meaningful impact on battery life.

 

[Armen]

Thanks for the tip.

Don't be discouraged by Armen's reply. That's his MO.

This obsession with battery conservation needs to come to an end already. If you are going to dumb down your smartphone by disabling features that actually make it smart you may as well get a flip phone.

I don't understand what the driving force is behind this obsession. We live in a modern world where there are chargers and power sources around every corner to recharge our phones.

You can buy a candy bar portable battery charger on Amazon for $15.00 that has enough juice in it to charge your phone 2 times to it's maximum charge in case you happen to be away from a power source for 2 days straight.

You want a battery tip I'll give you one:

- Settings > General > accessibility
- Enable "Grayscale".
- Set Accessibility shortcut to "Grayscale" so you can toggle it with a triple click anytime.

Not only will this mode conserve battery but it will give you a taste of what it was like to use a Palm Pilot back in 2002.

 

[eicca]

This obsession with battery conservation needs to come to an end already. If you are going to dumb down your smartphone by disabling features that actually make it smart you may as well get a flip phone.

I don't understand what the driving force is behind this obsession. We live in a modern world where there are chargers and power sources around every corner to recharge our phones.

You can buy a candy bar portable battery charger on Amazon for $15.00 that has enough juice in it to charge your phone 2 times to it's maximum charge in case you happen to be away from a power source for 2 days straight.

You want a battery tip I'll give you one:

- Settings > General > accessibility
- Enable "Grayscale".
- Set Accessibility shortcut to "Grayscale" so you can toggle it with a triple click anytime.

Not only will this mode conserve battery but it will give you a taste of what it was like to use a Palm Pilot back in 2002.

You are welcome to start your own thread.

To everyone else, I used the word "workaround" in the thread title because, yes, Apple should be more proactive in making sure there aren't battery issues in the first place. So in the mean time, I have found what seems to be a temporary solution

 

[Armen]

Possible workaround for iOS 8 battery life issues

You are welcome to start your own thread.



To everyone else, I used the word "workaround" in the thread title because, yes, Apple should be more proactive in making sure there aren't battery issues in the first place. So in the mean time, I have found what seems to be a temporary solution

You're assuming everyone has battery issues. I get 10-12 hours of battery life out of my iPhone 6 plus with 33% battery left over and I have:

Spotlight suggestions On
Location services On
Background App Refresh On
Auto brightness On

The "suggestions" to turn above settings off are from every other tech site that has no clue what they are talking about.

 

[eicca]

Goodness gracious, people get soooo up in arms when somebody just has a good idea to try and help out other people who may have a similar issue...

 

[scjr]

This obsession with battery conservation needs to come to an end already.

Op recommend turning off spotlight search, because it helped battery life. Maybe it does and maybe it doesn't. Maybe the Op doesn't use spotlight search at all. Not every feature is utilized by every user. It may be the obsession is on your end and not the Ops. Everyone uses their phones differently. That may be due to the fact that everyone is different. Think about it, Armen.

 

[Armen]

Op recommend turning off spotlight search, because it helped battery life. Maybe it does and maybe it doesn't. Maybe the Op doesn't use spotlight search at all. Not every feature is utilized by every user. It may be the obsession is on your end and not the Ops. Everyone uses their phones differently. That may be due to the fact that everyone is different. Think about it, Armen.

Sc, I understand what you are saying and I agree with you. Understand where I am coming from also.

The iPhone is designed/engineered to have optimal battery life with all its settings enabled.

It seems like every tech site's solution to battery woes is turn settings off (which takes away from the user experience) rather than to set you down the path on how to get to the root cause of a battery drain issue.

I had a contractor at my house the other day and he's not really tech savvy but bought an iPhone 6 plus. I took a look at his phone and almost everything was turned off. I asked him why and his response was "the guy at the Verizon store told me to". Because of this nitwit at Verizon this guy:

- Can't see the weather where he is
- Can't use maps or navigation
- Can't use iMessage
- Has no iCloud backup

I had to enable all these settings and explain to him what they do. He must have said "Oh! I didn't know it could do that!!" at least 25 times when I showed him how to use his phone the way it was intended.

 

[eicca]

Ah, so we're all clueless then.

 

[Armen]

Ah, so we're all clueless then.

That is not what I said. I said people who do not understand iOS or tech turn to websites which give them the wrong advice/instructions on how to deal with battery issues.

 

[eicca]

And if they're happy, your problem is...................?

 

[Armen]

And if they're happy, your problem is...................?

huh?

 

[XTheLancerX]

This obsession with battery conservation needs to come to an end already. If you are going to dumb down your smartphone by disabling features that actually make it smart you may as well get a flip phone.

I don't understand what the driving force is behind this obsession. We live in a modern world where there are chargers and power sources around every corner to recharge our phones.

You can buy a candy bar portable battery charger on Amazon for $15.00 that has enough juice in it to charge your phone 2 times to it's maximum charge in case you happen to be away from a power source for 2 days straight.

You want a battery tip I'll give you one:

- Settings > General > accessibility
- Enable "Grayscale".
- Set Accessibility shortcut to "Grayscale" so you can toggle it with a triple click anytime.

Not only will this mode conserve battery but it will give you a taste of what it was like to use a Palm Pilot back in 2002.

Actually grayscale won't do anything because LCD displays illuminate all the pixels even if they are black, etc (I think, I'm not an expert on this stuff). The reason a grayscale mode helps the Galaxy S5, is because it uses an Amoled display which dynamically illuminates the pixels, so black/gray pixels won't be illuminated as much, saving power.

I think that's how it goes anyway, but to put it short, I know that grayscale on LCD is pointless, grayscale on Amoled actually does save power.

ANYWAY. I have an iPhone 6 and suffer from battery life issues. I average 4-6 hours, even at 30% brightness, Spotlight is completely off except for searching apps, mail is set to manual, background refresh is off, location services are all set to never or "while using", I mostly look at social media, browse the web, or text (iMessage and SMS occasionally). Nothing too crazy. At home I am on wifi the whole time but on field test, my cell service is -108 to -118, so it's borderline on being really bad, but it works perfectly fine, nonetheless. My area does NOT have large dead zones where it says "No Service" or "1x" or anything, I at the very least have like 1 to 2 "dots" of 3G or LTE (Verizon), and it works fine. I very rarely see "low signal" under the apps listed in the battery usage list, so I have no clue what the deal is. I've tried to cope with it but it still bothers me because I have no clue why I get 4-6 hours while everyone else gets 8-10.

 

[Armen]

Possible workaround for iOS 8 battery life issues

Actually grayscale won't do anything because LCD displays illuminate all the pixels even if they are black, etc (I think, I'm not an expert on this stuff). The reason a grayscale mode helps the Galaxy S5, is because it uses an Amoled display which dynamically illuminates the pixels, so black/gray pixels won't be illuminated as much, saving power.

I think that's how it goes anyway, but to put it short, I know that grayscale on LCD is pointless, grayscale on Amoled actually does save power.

ANYWAY. I have an iPhone 6 and suffer from battery life issues. I average 4-6 hours, even at 30% brightness, Spotlight is completely off except for searching apps, mail is set to manual, background refresh is off, location services are all set to never or "while using", I mostly look at social media, browse the web, or text (iMessage and SMS occasionally). Nothing too crazy. At home I am on wifi the whole time but on field test, my cell service is -108 to -118, so it's borderline on being really bad, but it works perfectly fine, nonetheless. My area does NOT have large dead zones where it says "No Service" or "1x" or anything, I at the very least have like 1 to 2 "dots" of 3G or LTE (Verizon), and it works fine. I very rarely see "low signal" under the apps listed in the battery usage list, so I have no clue what the deal is. I've tried to cope with it but it still bothers me because I have no clue why I get 4-6 hours while everyone else gets 8-10.

Have you tried to restore your phone as NEW and not loaded a backup?

Taken it to the Apple Store to check the battery?

Reset network settings and all settings?

 

[jr866gooner]

Have you tried to restore your phone as NEW and not loaded a backup?

Taken it to the Apple Store to check the battery?

Reset network settings and all settings?

exactly this. I would suggest this if battery life is really that bad!

 

[XTheLancerX]

Have you tried to restore your phone as NEW and not loaded a backup?

Taken it to the Apple Store to check the battery?

Reset network settings and all settings?

I tried a restore awhile back when it was still iOS 8.0.2. It didn't help much but it did a bit. After awhile though the problem did come back, just not as bad because the software updates alleviated the issue a bit, just not entirely.

I do want to clarify that my problem isn't my battery draining when I'm not using the phone, it just plummets unusually quick as I use the phone. So, this may be normal. Not 100% sure though.

I will try a reset all network settings for a day. Then I will try a reset all settings for a day. Then I will try a clean install for a couple days to see how it goes, I guess.

 

[Armen]

Possible workaround for iOS 8 battery life issues

I tried a restore awhile back when it was still iOS 8.0.2. It didn't help much but it did a bit. After awhile though the problem did come back, just not as bad because the software updates alleviated the issue a bit, just not entirely.



I do want to clarify that my problem isn't my battery draining when I'm not using the phone, it just plummets unusually quick as I use the phone. So, this may be normal. Not 100% sure though.



I will try a reset all network settings for a day. Then I will try a reset all settings for a day. Then I will try a clean install for a couple days to see how it goes, I guess.

Sounds like a plan. PM me and let me know what happens.

 

[saudor]

I'll gladly turn off features i don't use. And that includes cellular data when I'm on wifi. I also don't use iCloud drive, etc so why keep it on?

Pointless to keep it on since leaving it off gives me a nice boost in battery.

Why does it matter? It saves battery cycles. I don't upgrade every year so if it means i charge once every 2 days instead of every day, that means my phone battery will theoretically last twice as long.