Does signing into iCloud drain your iPhone battery rapidly?

[jdvoracek]

Can anyone confirm that just changing the iCloud password has fixed this problem?!? It seems ridiculous that this would be the case, and every 'genius' I've spoken to has given me the usual rubbish about 'screen brightness' or 'GPS' when they don't even know the settings themselves!

I thought about that too, a lot, and the security on the iCloud is probably pretty complex. It is possible that the process (method) of changing the password resets or synchronizes other processes and maybe that is how it fixed it. In essence that is all I did, although I changed it to a password they gave me (after verbally agreeing I concurred and understood on a recorded line), then changed it later to one of my choosing. I was tempted to go back to the one I was using when the problem began, but then thought better of that. Still working fine, btw. Why don't you try it and let us know? What will it hurt?

My AppleCare Case number was/is 718167731. If you talk to them on the phone, you might mention you have what seems to be the identical problem.

This sounds incredibly suspicious. Are you sure it was Apple you were dealing?

Yes, it was Apple.

 

[Sandyberg]

Why don't you try it and let us know? What will it hurt?
.

jdvoracek - Thanks, I will. Just waiting to get home from business so I don't leave my family not being able to login to AppleTV etc.

I have been keeping a pretty detailed log of my usage stats so I will post my findings when I do.

 

[jdvoracek]

Wow! I have searched everywhere for people with this problem and can't believe I couldn't find it on the support forums.

FYI, I TRIED to post this on the Apple support forums, several times - - both from my MacBook in Texas and my daughter's in Minnesota, but I kept getting "server error". I may try again, or I may not.

 

[Sandyberg]

Miraculous, unexplained, recovery......

Here's my update: After cleaning out my iCloud (deleted and disabled iCloud drive on ALL apple devices, cleaned all calendar events and contacts as well as deleting most mail items) my standby/usage times became closer to what I would expect. However my battery would still die after about 12 hours with only roughly 2 hours of usage - well below specs. This was still happening last week whilst I was away (mainly using LTE for data) and so I was going to change my iCloud password as suggested above as a last resort; although I did not see how his would in anyway help.

However....I decided not to change the password and I thought I would just see how my phone does for the weekend, and check out these stats in the screenshot attached (i know it says the phone has been plugged in but my 3 year old plugged it in for literally a minute).

So....I have not changed ANYTHING on the phone (including password) and the only difference in what i have done with the phone is that the phone has been on wifi rather than LTE for 'most' of the time.

I'm not sure if apple have fixed the glitch in iCloud over the past 3 days (thanks to jdvoracek's findings) but I would be interested to hear if anyone else has experienced any improvements?

Sat at 76% battery with 1 day 10 hours s'by and 2 hours 34 mins usage at the moment. Happy but perplexed........

 

[Sandyberg]

Update

So here is my update after a day at work. The battery is definitely draining quicker on LTE than on wifi (as I would expect) but no where near what it was doing previously and well within specs.

See the attached screen shot. I have not plugged in the phone again (still just the 1 minute my 3 year old gave it). Note the 'No Cell Coverage' drain which actually dropped the battery by about 12% in 3 hours due to it being locked in a security box well away from cell reception. Considering this the results after almost 3 full days of use are staggering. I just wish I could tell you the 1 thing I did to produce these.

Still interested to hear if anyone else has seen a dramatic decrease in battery drain recently who previously had the iCloud issue.

 

[chillenandy321]

Will be contacting Apple this weekend about this problem. Just got back from vacation.

 

[Sandyberg]

This is the final state of my battery before I had to plug it in. The best stats I've ever had out of it - but still without explanation....

Rather annoyingly my wife's 4s now seems to have developed the same iCloud issue. Hers has 12 hrs 44 mins s'by with 11hrs 55 mins useage and 33% battery whilst it's been sat on the side doing nothing. It's like my phone passed it on to hers....she is not happy.

 

[AndreyCo]

I'm having pretty much the same issue described here. Signing into iCloud on my iPhone 5 and disabling everything inside the iCloud options puts my usage at 50% of standby and drains about 10% battery every hour with no actual usage. So far my workaround is to not use iCloud, but I would really like to have an actual resolution to the problem.

 

[Eduardboon]

Having the same issue, made some logs tracking usage time, percentage drop, time of the day etc. It's quite the long file but if anyone is interested I can post it here; it clearly shows differences between iCloud turned on and off. Just logged in without anything enabled causes severe draining already.

 

[InAustralia]

I know that this is an old thread but I am experiencing the exact same issue.

Have been using iCloud for years without any problems, but just recently my Usage and Standby times started being the same. Did the usual things everyone else has tried.

• Rebooted iPhone
• Restored from backup
• Reset network settings
• Set up as new iPhone

I tried all sorts of troubleshooting, and the only time the battery did not drain was if the iPhone was in Airplane mode.

I then logged out of iCloud, and my battery drain issues went away. The moment I logged back in, the drain issues returned.

I have tried the password reset suggestion, but the drain is still there.

Not sure what to do really.

 

[C DM]

I know that this is an old thread but I am experiencing the exact same issue.

Have been using iCloud for years without any problems, but just recently my Usage and Standby times started being the same. Did the usual things everyone else has tried.

• Rebooted iPhone
• Restored from backup
• Reset network settings
• Set up as new iPhone

I tried all sorts of troubleshooting, and the only time the battery did not drain was if the iPhone was in Airplane mode.

I then logged out of iCloud, and my battery drain issues went away. The moment I logged back in, the drain issues returned.

I have tried the password reset suggestion, but the drain is still there.

Not sure what to do really.

Have you tried disabling different parts of iCloud one by one to see which one might be behind it all?

 

[InAustralia]

Have you tried disabling different parts of iCloud one by one to see which one might be behind it all?

That's next on my to do list. I am restoring my iPhone at the moment, so don't have the opportunity to test it as yet. I will post back the results as soon as I can.

UPDATE: I have tried turning off different parts of iCloud to see if that has an impact but it doesn’t. It appears to be an all or nothing situation. I will do more testing though.

 

[The_Smarti]

Hi everybody,

I have the same issue with my iPhone and iPad.
If I sign in my iCloud account.... battery drains quicker.

I have tried everything (disabling features and settings one by one).... it continues ?!

Who can explain this ?

 

[jbrady3324]

Hi everybody,

I have the same issue with my iPhone and iPad.
If I sign in my iCloud account.... battery drains quicker.

I have tried everything (disabling features and settings one by one).... it continues ?!

Who can explain this ?

I am having this issue too

 

[Francesco Gioeli]

any updates...

 

[Donga120]

Same issue iPad Pro Gen 3, on standby it loses 1% every hours at minium, barely lasting over 3 days of standby. Reset it and left is as it comes out the factory, managed to not lose 1% over 12 hours so I signed into iCloud and voila my issue is back,

Photos/ iCloud Library and iCloud drive is turned off. Terrible

 

[The_Smarti]

Do you have HomeKit devices ?

 

[The_Smarti]

I have an iPhone 14 Pro and when I am connected to iCloud, I am at 70% after 2h SOT.
When I am disconnected from iCloud, I am at 80% after 2h SOT.

A colleague of mine has the same devices and same usage and does not suffer from battery drain.

Why ? Except Homekit, I don't understand what can cause this and the battery usage details does not mention any system processes....