iPad Pro Apple won't replace my 2018 ipad pro battery

[Born Again]

I went through the request, ran the diagnostic tool, and they determined the battery is fine and they want to charge me $780 to replace the ipad.

My battery dies running youtube with less 3 hours. The ipad won't even make it through the day on standby.

I don't understand they won't give me the option to pay for a battery replacement.

Anyone run into this issue?

BTW i just had my apple watch serviced by apple for the battery . That watch wouldn't turn on so we couldn't do any diagnostics.

 

[jz0309]

I went through the request, ran the diagnostic tool, and they determined the battery is fine and they want to charge me $780 to replace the ipad.

My battery dies running youtube with less 3 hours. The ipad won't even make it through the day on standby.

I don't understand they won't give me the option to pay for a battery replacement.

Anyone run into this issue?

BTW i just had my apple watch serviced by apple for the battery . That watch wouldn't turn on so we couldn't do any diagnostics.

As with all batteries, health has to be below 80% - what's yours?

 

[Born Again]

As with all batteries, health has to be below 80% - what's yours?

I can't see it -

 

[AJB1971]

I've experienced poor battery life on previous iPads after updating to the latest operating system. Have you tried erasing all content and settings and setting it up as a new device?

In my case, I noticed the battery life had halved to about 6 hours. It was as if the data had become corrupted as restoring from an iCloud backup didn't solve the issue. I've encountered it on at least two iPads, but it was a while ago.

 

[Digitalguy]

One important thing to note is that 80% battery health does not mean 80% battery life.
In my experience once you go below 80% battery life is barely half of what it was when new.
Battery life degradation is not linear. For instance at 90% you might not even see any difference with a new device, but at 80% the difference is pretty massive and from there it will degrade quicker and quicker...
Apple's attitude is normal, they prefer people to buy a new device rather than giving them one with a new battery (battery is never swapped). You probably are somewhere above 80%, so now it's either you cannot live with your battery life and upgrade (great for Apple) or you resist and go on another year or 2 until it's gets below 80%.

 

[Born Again]

okay they told me it's at 86% -

how many iPad doesn't even last 3 hours when it used to last much longer when I 1st purchased it is beyond me.

 

[Born Again]

One important thing to note is that 80% battery health does not mean 80% battery life.
In my experience once you go below 80% battery life is barely half of what it was when new.
Battery life degradation is not linear. For instance at 90% you might not even see any difference with a new device, but at 80% the difference is pretty massive and from there it will degrade quicker and quicker...
Apple's attitude is normal, they prefer people to buy a new device rather than giving them one with a new battery (battery is never swapped). You probably are somewhere above 80%, so now it's either you cannot live with your battery life and upgrade (great for Apple) or you resist and go on another year or 2 until it's gets below 80%.

Thank you for that explanation. It makes more sense now. I'm at 86% and that is not a 14% degradation of battery.

 

[BanjoDudeAhoy]

My 2018 12.9” is at 87% and I usually get somewhere around 6 to 7 hours out of it.
No gaming or super intense stuff, just note-taking and browsing, some photo editing.

Oh, it’s on latest iPadOS. I have actually been using it to test drive betas for 17.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

I don't understand they won't give me the option to pay for a battery replacement.

Apple doesn't do a "Battery replacement" on iPads. It's a full unit swap, which they will do at the battery price only if the battery is below 80% of capacity.

As others said, 86% battery isn't necessarily linear at a 14% reduction in performance. But, 3 hours watching YouTube is far worse performance than I'd expect.

• Is the iPad up to date? (IPadOS 17.0.3)
• Is the YouTube app up to date?
• Do you see similar results playing YouTube videos in Safari?
• Do you see similar results within the TV app?

There's likely a software issue causing your battery to run down THAT quickly.

 

[sack_peak]

Thank you for that explanation. It makes more sense now. I'm at 86% and that is not a 14% degradation of battery.

I used this method to check your battery within our 2018 iPad Pro and got 84% battery health. Apple's in-store diagnostic tool will report it as higher than the method I mentioned.

As Apple will refuse battery replacement i decided to buy a powerbank for it.

By 2027 EU law mandates that all newly released devices with batteries to have user-replaceable ones.

I intend to replace our by then 9yo iPad to that model.

 

[Digitalguy]

Apple doesn't do a "Battery replacement" on iPads. It's a full unit swap, which they will do at the battery price only if the battery is below 80% of capacity.

As others said, 86% battery isn't necessarily linear at a 14% reduction in performance. But, 3 hours watching YouTube is far worse performance than I'd expect.

• Is the iPad up to date? (IPadOS 17.0.3)
• Is the YouTube app up to date?
• Do you see similar results playing YouTube videos in Safari?
• Do you see similar results within the TV app?

There's likely a software issue causing your battery to run down THAT quickly.

I'd also check brightness, and in general I agree that 3 hours of video streaming, while more intensive than simple browsing, is short for a 86% battery health. Streaming via Safari should use even more battery.
However it has to be noted that this is Apple's number. I would check the number with iMazing (or Coconut), which will probably give a lower number, likely below 80%.

 

[FeliApple]

3 hours on YouTube tells me it’s probably updated and with full brightness. That‘s the worst combo ever as far as battery life goes.

Battery health won’t be too degraded for it to be decent. Not on an iPad, especially on the 3rd-gen iPad Pro. They‘re a little better than similarly updated 1st and 2nd-gen Pros.

 

[rkuo]

take a video of it cutting out quickly or something along those lines or present other evidence to that effect. that typically does it.

 

[pdoherty]

I used this method to check your battery within our 2018 iPad Pro and got 84% battery health. Apple's in-store diagnostic tool will report it as higher than the method I mentioned.

As Apple will refuse battery replacement i decided to buy a powerbank for it.

By 2027 EU law mandates that all newly released devices with batteries to have user-replaceable ones.

I intend to replace our by then 9yo iPad to that model.

Thanks for the germ of an idea on the power bank - my iPad Pro 10.5 is getting terrible battery life Apple somehow slipped iPadOS 17 to me despite me not wanting it, and I grabbed an Anker bank and two cables so I can have it trickle charging while in use. Infuriating to have an iPad that used to last all day need to be plugged in far too soon. For example I've been on the iPad fresh off the charger at 100% for about an hour, doing nothing but Safari browsing, and am already at 67%.

 

[AlmightyKang]

This is why I dump any Apple doodads with batteries in them after 2 years and make sure it's someone else's problem.

 

[andiwm2003]

Thanks for the germ of an idea on the power bank - my iPad Pro 10.5 is getting terrible battery life Apple somehow slipped iPadOS 17 to me despite me not wanting it, and I grabbed an Anker bank and two cables so I can have it trickle charging while in use. Infuriating to have an iPad that used to last all day need to be plugged in far too soon. For example I've been on the iPad fresh off the charger at 100% for about an hour, doing nothing but Safari browsing, and am already at 67%.

I have a 2018 ipad pro too and it’s frustrating that battery life got so much worse within a few month. As S.A. I’d above the main issue is it doesn’t hold a charge for long. Battery log says 95% but that is certainly not true. I use powerbanks but that is clunky. Luckily it lasts for general tasks 2-4 hours but in the past it would last more than ten. At casual use it made it through a weekend easily. I wonder if there is also a software issue. In any case, if I ever buy another iPad I will look into if battery is replaceable and general repairability because a M2 iPad Pro should last 7 years. We should see in March/April I hope. Or I buy cheaper iPads or sell them every two years (which is a pain and also expensive over time) or just abandon the platform. In general I hope the M2 (or in the future M3) iPads will run a full Mac OS or at least something similar to it.

 

[Reverend Benny]

I have a 2018 ipad pro too and it’s frustrating that battery life got so much worse within a few month. As S.A. I’d above the main issue is it doesn’t hold a charge for long. Battery log says 95% but that is certainly not true. I use powerbanks but that is clunky. Luckily it lasts for general tasks 2-4 hours but in the past it would last more than ten. At casual use it made it through a weekend easily. I wonder if there is also a software issue. In any case, if I ever buy another iPad I will look into if battery is replaceable and general repairability because a M2 iPad Pro should last 7 years. We should see in March/April I hope. Or I buy cheaper iPads or sell them every two years (which is a pain and also expensive over time) or just abandon the platform. In general I hope the M2 (or in the future M3) iPads will run a full Mac OS or at least something similar to it.

The battery statistics tell far from everything about battery drain but it can point towards whats eating battery. Whats your top draining apps?
Also, make sure you have updated your apps, turned off background settings and have a look in the location settings and tweak that.
Sometimes a reset of networksettings might help and also see if you have lots of BT devices that can be suspected to drain the iPad.

Another one before erasing the iPad is to run "reset all settings". That saves the data you have but settings are cleared. Also, get rid of widgets and other apps that are constantly updating.

Hopefully some of this improved the battery time.

 

[FeliApple]

I can’t help but think every iPad mentioned here has just been updated too much, with every single one running iPadOS 17. Updating has its advantages, but this is the drawback: unsolvable, poor battery life, every single time.

 

[Born Again]

I can’t help but think every iPad mentioned here has just been updated too much, with every single one running iPadOS 17. Updating has its advantages, but this is the drawback: unsolvable, poor battery life, every single time.

You think by design?

I’m awaiting my battery to drop under 80% for replacement.

 

[FeliApple]

You think by design?

I’m awaiting my battery to drop under 80% for replacement.

Like I’ve repeatedly stated elsewhere, I don’t think that matters. Whether it is constantly intentional or merely a byproduct of increased power requirements by newer versions, I don’t know, but the reality is that updates eventually obliterate every device in their path.

My 9.7-inch iPad Pro on iOS 12 is seven years old and still has decent battery life, even if isn’t as good as it was on iOS 9 (it was forced into iOS 12 by Apple, otherwise it would still be on iOS 9). I’m using an iPad Air 5 and it is flawless on iPadOS 15.

You trade battery life for features and compatibility when you update. Never expect otherwise. Never expect more than a trade, or you will be sorely disappointed.

 

[digitalcuriosity]

A good time to replace your iPad an 8 year old iPad is far behind todays iPads.

 

[Teletypewriter]

I use a product called iMazing (https://www.imazing.com) to backup and/or copy files to my iphone/ipad. It works on both mac and pc. It also provides detailed device information. Here is the battery info for my 2021 iPad Pro:

Model:: iPad Pro (12.9-inch) (5th generation)
Battery Current Charge:: 9128 mAh (95.7%)
Battery Design Max. Charge:: 10770 mAh
Battery Effective Max. Charge:: 9537 mAh (88.6%)
Battery Charge Cycles:: 236
Battery Temperature:: 24.4 °C / 75.9 °F
Battery State:: Discharging (0.0 Watt)
Battery Instant Amperage:: 0 mA
Battery Instant Voltage:: 4215 mV
Battery At Warn Level:: No
Battery At Critical Level:: No
Battery Serial Number::
Battery Avg. Temperature:: 24.0 °C / 75.2 °F
Battery Min. Temperature:: 6.0 °C / 42.8 °F
Battery Max. Temperature:: 44.0 °C / 111.2 °F
Battery Max. Charge:: 0 mA
Battery Max. Discharge:: 0 mA
Charger:: pd charger
Charger Watts:: 15
Charger Voltage:: 5000 mV
Charger Amperage:: 0 mA

 

[doolar]

I too have the 2018 11" iPP, and it's at 86% according to Coconut with 480 cycles. While the battery is worse, it's not that bad, I get around 6-8 hours of use, my use case being Youtube, streaming services and web browsing for the majority of the time.

 

[Reverend Benny]

I too have the 2018 11" iPP, and it's at 86% according to Coconut with 480 cycles. While the battery is worse, it's not that bad, I get around 6-8 hours of use, my use case being Youtube, streaming services and web browsing for the majority of the time.


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Its still a powerful device and can manage most things thrown at it today. Same with the earlier gen, 10.5 pro, still manages most things thrown at it with the latest iPadOS.
Its sad that Apple don't offer a change of battery like on their iPhones when it does wear out, its a shame that a faulty or worn out battery should put an end to a device.

Still have to say, Apple does seem to ship their products with quality batteries, none of my laptops or any of the Android tablets i've dealt with in the past seem to come even close. MS Surface pro 4 is prod the only device that I have had that has had a battery that didn't degrade as fast as the others.

 

[FeliApple]

Its still a powerful device and can manage most things thrown at it today. Same with the earlier gen, 10.5 pro, still manages most things thrown at it with the latest iPadOS.
Its sad that Apple don't offer a change of battery like on their iPhones when it does wear out, its a shame that a faulty or worn out battery should put an end to a device.

Still have to say, Apple does seem to ship their products with quality batteries, none of my laptops or any of the Android tablets i've dealt with in the past seem to come even close. MS Surface pro 4 is prod the only device that I have had that has had a battery that didn't degrade as fast as the others.

Updates put an end to devices - not batteries.