Hopefully whatever it is that is affecting things for some gets figured out and addressed in iOS 11.4.1 by the time it's actually out.
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iPhone 6(S)/Plus All of a sudden, battery life is terrible - iOS 11.4?
- Thread starter Darmok N Jalad
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Thanks a lot. Do you recommend updating? Did you do an OTA update or connected to iTunes and did a clean restore?
I did an OTA update. I do recommend the update but please do a backup before updating though because there is a chance some of your apps will crash instantly after launch on ios 12. It hasn’t happened to me but for some it has because the apps haven’t been made compatible with 12.
I do say though that once we reach ios 12.3 we will have forgotten the nighmate that was 11.
Its going to take Apple 1 full year to fix ios 11.
One annoyance is they also removed the battery readings of standby and usage in 12 and replaced it with screen-on time so its impossible to compare with ios 11 except of you do it manually.
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Oh right. Thanks a lot.
Regarding the screen on time, what if you combine the screen on and screen off time? Wouldn't that be the same?
You said your X lasts about two hours more than when it was on iOS 11. So, is iOS 12's screen on time higher than iOS 11's "usage" time? Doesn't that make iOS 12 a lot better?
I don't think so because I barely used my phone yesterday and the screen off time was just 1 hour. On iOS 11 it would have been 8 hours as the standby time increases with time.
Screen on time and usage time isn't the same. If an app is using your phone when the screen is off, your usage time will increase while screen on time won't. For example, if you listen to music, usage time will increase while screen on time won't budge. Screen on time means just that, the amount of time the screen was on. It doesn't take into consideration the apps using phone resources.
It does make the comparison with Android phones easier as Android also uses screen on time and up till now comparisons between them was impossible.
Yes, that's what I'm saying. Let's assume you're getting 8 hours of usage time on iOS 11 and 8 hours of screen on time on iOS 12 during the same time period (let's say 14 hours). Wouldn't that mean iOS 12 has better battery life? Since actual screen on time on iOS 11 is always less than the usage time (because it combines both screen on and off times), it should mean that iOS 12 is better. This is why I said if you add up the screen on and screen off times shown in iOS 12, it should be similar to the "usage" time in iOS 11.
I had this problem on a 6s and an X. I put the iOS 12 beta on my X and it completely fixed any battery/battery reporting issues. Back to amazing battery life. I'm cautious about putting it on the much older 6s.
YES on 7+Very strange problem with my 6S. Battery health comes up very good on coconut battery, with about 100 cycles on it, still at full charge capacity. Battery life was great until Sunday, when I picked it up around mid-day to see it was at 20%. Normally on Sunday my phone sits on a ledge and goes unused, so it would normally be at over 80% at this time (I charge to 100% each evening). Figuring it’s a rogue process, I reboot the phone. Doesn’t seem to help, as phone was still dropping 10% in less than an hour, even while doing nothing. Do the soft reset, still not much help. It’s very random, where the battery drops quickly for a while, then stabilizes, then drops.
I’ve done nothing new with the phone, no new apps, no background policy changes, just the usual auto-updates. The battery tab in settings doesn’t show anything really out of line. It only supports the notion of terrible battery life by saying I’ve used it for less than 2 hours and the battery is over half dead.
My best guess is that I also recently updated it to 11.4, but I can’t remember when exactly. It doesn’t appear to be throttling. I’d really rather not start from scratch with a hard reset.
Anyone else notice a problem or have any ideas?
EDIT--Updated title of thread.
I got over a day and a half on my last charge (light use over the weekend) and the phone still had 50%+ battery. All I can suggest to everyone else with problems is to run the phone down until it shuts off and then charge it back to 100%. I used my Mac and Coconut Battery to ensure the battery was fully charged. It sometimes says 100% charged in iOS, but the battery is still trickle-charging on Coconut Battery.
I've tried that and it didn't work for me. I let it die then charged overnight without using it.
I'm not sure what is causing this.
The beta seems to have resolved this issue for me on my se. 11.4.1 beta 2. I know it’s not the answer anyone’s looking for but it explains a lot.
On my iPhone 6 I can go 2-3 days with normal useage and then Bam! the battery drops like a countdown timer, I can literally sit and watch it at the Homescreen drop by 1% every 12 seconds with no apps running. Nothing is different on this day, same itinerary, same apps used, same WiFi access points, same cell towers! I hope apple fix this soon. On a good day it is still at 50% by late evening, on a bad it is at 25% by 2pm. Apples Battery Health says the battery is 95% and healthy.
Update: Quoting myself because I installed the iOS 12 beta on my 6s last night. Went to bed at 79% woke up at 76%! On iOS 11.4 it would have died overnight.
So, I'm not alone in the mysterious battery capacity drops. I went from 95% to 94% to 92% to 90% over the course of a month. My 6s Plus is not lasting anywhere near as long as it always has either.
I'm debating a new battery personally. I feel like it might be a waste of money if I get a new phone in September. Of course, I don't think I'll trade this in either and just keep it for backup.
I'm debating a new battery personally. I feel like it might be a waste of money if I get a new phone in September. Of course, I don't think I'll trade this in either and just keep it for backup.
I created an account just so I could post here and join the commiseration (my iPhone 6s is having the problem since iOS 11.4). An interesting thing happened earlier - my phone hit 26% battery then I saw an alert on the bottom of the screen in iMessages: "Uploading to iCloud Paused, Plug in your device and connect to Wi-Fi". I was in fact connected to Wi-Fi, so it must have been referring to the power level. Since then (1.5 hours ago) the battery hasn't budged from 26%, and my phone is no longer getting warm. I thought I'd previously tried turning off iMessages in iCloud to see if that was causing the drain for me, but I can't be sure now (I've tried so many things)... So that may be worth trying for some folks.
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After a few nights on 12 beta, my battery problems are gone. Back to normal!
I've got a iPhone6s 11.4 iOS update story for you guys
So, first off, I had my battery replaced in early february through Apple's program and everything has been great until... I updated to iOS late last week, around Thursday/Friday. Battery was draining faster, but I expect that for several days after iOS updates.
Sunday night I had decent charge, around 60% and my phone just turns off. It turns back on at 10%. Odd.
It keeps turning off more frequently throughout the week. I tired a couple soft resets and it didn't help. Last night I backed up and did a hard reset with restore. It seemed to work until this morning it turns off out of the blue, again.
I took it to my local Apple Premium Service Provider and diagnostics said my battery had a critical failure, despite only 170 cycles and 92% of battery life.
I called Apple and spent an hour on the phone. The customer service rep was very sympathetic and said he's trying to get me an exception and have them replace my battery again. However, he was told the only way he'd get an exception is if he reports it to engineering and they confirm its defective. So, I'm waiting up to 3 business days to find out.
This crashing only started happening after the iOS 11.4 update.
Frustrating.
So, first off, I had my battery replaced in early february through Apple's program and everything has been great until... I updated to iOS late last week, around Thursday/Friday. Battery was draining faster, but I expect that for several days after iOS updates.
Sunday night I had decent charge, around 60% and my phone just turns off. It turns back on at 10%. Odd.
It keeps turning off more frequently throughout the week. I tired a couple soft resets and it didn't help. Last night I backed up and did a hard reset with restore. It seemed to work until this morning it turns off out of the blue, again.
I took it to my local Apple Premium Service Provider and diagnostics said my battery had a critical failure, despite only 170 cycles and 92% of battery life.
I called Apple and spent an hour on the phone. The customer service rep was very sympathetic and said he's trying to get me an exception and have them replace my battery again. However, he was told the only way he'd get an exception is if he reports it to engineering and they confirm its defective. So, I'm waiting up to 3 business days to find out.
This crashing only started happening after the iOS 11.4 update.
Frustrating.
Crappy battery life on my wife's 6S and my 6+. Go to bed and goes from 100% to 70%. I closed all apps and rebooted and it only went down to 80%. It happened overnight running well then upgraded to new version 11.4.
I think it might be related to Apps running in the background on 11.4.
I think it might be related to Apps running in the background on 11.4.
Well, I went almost 2 weeks without a problem, but that streak ended today--it's back to draining away doing absolutely nothing again. Went to bed at 100%, woke to 70%, and now I'm at 20%. I've probably used the phone all of 1 hour today, otherwise it has sat completely idle.
I also have a suspicion that it might be caused by apps in the background, particularly older apps. I have a budget app that hasn't been updated by the developer in a while, and it can even crash and hang the entire phone for a while when trying to launch. It syncs the budget through the cloud, and so now I wonder if it might not be suspending correctly. Definitely puzzling.
I also have a suspicion that it might be caused by apps in the background, particularly older apps. I have a budget app that hasn't been updated by the developer in a while, and it can even crash and hang the entire phone for a while when trying to launch. It syncs the budget through the cloud, and so now I wonder if it might not be suspending correctly. Definitely puzzling.
Did the rundown trick again. Back to normal. I really am suspecting that it’s an older app that isn’t playing nicely with iOS anymore.
I spoke too soon. Now on iOS 12 it's draining horribly again. Last night went to bed at 80% and woke up at 8%.
Back to the drawing board.
I spoke too soon. Now on iOS 12 it's draining horribly again. Last night went to bed at 80% and woke up at 8%.
Back to the drawing board.
If I had to guess at this point, I think it’s somehow an app compatibility issue. Do you have any older apps that have issues occasionally? I have a budgeting app that hasn’t been updated in a year, and it will cause my phone to hang sometimes. It does some background syncing, and I think it is causing constant background drain somehow. I’m running an experiment now where I will not use that app at all and see if that helps.
