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Huge battery drain on Air 5 & 17
- Thread starter Natya Sadella
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I had my first surprise just now. The iPad Pro 12.9" M1 with 256GB was dead. Normally it could go a week without having to charge it, on iPadOS 15. It had a steady drop the past 12 hours from 50% to zero. 
I updated to iPadOS 17 this Friday or Saturday. Because I wanted to use the new Health app.
I always make sure no apps are running in the background, when I am not using it.
Looking at the battery usage. Home and Lockscreen 100%.
I am not sure what is going on
I updated to iPadOS 17 this Friday or Saturday. Because I wanted to use the new Health app.
I always make sure no apps are running in the background, when I am not using it.
Looking at the battery usage. Home and Lockscreen 100%.
I am not sure what is going on
Same here, shocked on how fast all our iPads are draining battery on standby on iPadOS 17. Feels like we need to charge them at every use.I had my first surprise just now. The iPad Pro 12.9" M1 with 256GB was dead. Normally it could go a week without having to charge it, on iPadOS 15. It had a steady drop the past 12 hours from 50% to zero.
I updated to iPadOS 17 this Friday or Saturday. Because I wanted to use the new Health app.
I always make sure no apps are running in the background, when I am not using it.
Looking at the battery usage. Home and Lockscreen 100%.
I am not sure what is going on
I have a better experience today. After changing some settings. But there is still a weird battery use pattern.
I disabled all Background App Refresh options manually, then turned off Back App Refresh completely.
The battery has not dropped in the last 20 hours. Still at 98%
I disabled all Background App Refresh options manually, then turned off Back App Refresh completely.
The battery has not dropped in the last 20 hours. Still at 98%
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The problem for me was that is isn't obvious. Because I always make sure to close apps whenever I have used them.
It's a mystery to me why they still would be active in the background. Thought that would only apply to apps you swipe off screen.
The feature is ON by default. So one has to be aware of it, and go through settings to turn them off
edit: I do not leave the iPad connected to the internet. Connected only if I need internet while using it
It's a mystery to me why they still would be active in the background. Thought that would only apply to apps you swipe off screen.
The feature is ON by default. So one has to be aware of it, and go through settings to turn them off
edit: I do not leave the iPad connected to the internet. Connected only if I need internet while using it
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The focus is more on why did it change with iOS 17? Never had issues with background tasks before. Some apps need it to finish tasks, like downloads and other image processing, etc.
My iPad Pro 11 2022 is also draining its battery. I’ve charged it to 80% yesterday evening and this morning it was at 15% while I haven’t used it because I was sleeping. I thought my iPad was too! I am on iPadOS 17 since it came out and on 17.0.3 also since it came out. And I didn’t download new apps or something and I haven’t changed any settings. So I’m really confused about why this suddenly happens! While I’m typing this the battery is also draining. Im never using background refresh. So it’s always disabled on all my devices. I just never saw such a battery drain on my iPad. In the battery stats there’s nothing that used my battery. Only in the 10 day chart there you see that 0 apps drained my battery last night.
Pretty sure it's the new OS 17. I wiped both my both my iPads (11" Pro and m1 12.9") with not many apps running at all and have the same issue. Near full charge goes to 2% in a day with minimal use.
I haven’t seen much discussed about this, but frankly I’m surprised. Hopefully it’s not a universal experience, otherwise the experience degradation through updates is coming way too soon.
iPadOS 17, so, third major update on an M1 chip and the degradation is already massive?
I have the Air 5 but it is - and will remain - on iPadOS 15, so I wouldn’t know.
OP, any chance you can share a screenshot of the battery life? Preferably when you have actually used it, by this I mean that one that isn’t all standby drain.
iPadOS 17, so, third major update on an M1 chip and the degradation is already massive?
I have the Air 5 but it is - and will remain - on iPadOS 15, so I wouldn’t know.
OP, any chance you can share a screenshot of the battery life? Preferably when you have actually used it, by this I mean that one that isn’t all standby drain.
How’s the Air 5 on iPadOS 16 when compared to iPadOS 15? Any battery life difference? (I doubt performance is affected yet).
Frankly, I don’t remember how it was on iPadOS 15, but the battery is very good, I dont notice it draining or anything of that sort. I have no issues with it.
i haven’t updated any of my devices to iOS/iPadOS 17, and I guess I won’t be for the foreseeable future.
Been using 17.0.3 for a while on my iPad pro 11 M1 2TB (4g) for a while now and it has been working fine. Haven't noticed any difference in battery consumption than before.
I generally use mine for media streaming (watching a series while having lunch) webbrowsing and sometimes I hook it up to my 34" monitor and watch movies.
Installed 7.1 this morning and will see if its any different, hopefully not.
There was a load of security fixes released with 7.1 (and also with 16.7.2) so I would recommend anyone installing it.
If all works fine I will prod push 7.1 out to a testgroup of a 100 people at work this weekend, mostly phones but also some ipads.
We all use our devices differently and always make sure you update your apps when updating your OS, apps and bugs in apps can can also be a reason of a high battery consumption
On my pad i am running "background refresh" on all my apps since a while back and it doesn't seem to affect battery performance.
I don't use mainstream apps such as Facebook, Twitter, instagram, Tiktok on this particular device.
I generally use mine for media streaming (watching a series while having lunch) webbrowsing and sometimes I hook it up to my 34" monitor and watch movies.
Installed 7.1 this morning and will see if its any different, hopefully not.
There was a load of security fixes released with 7.1 (and also with 16.7.2) so I would recommend anyone installing it.
If all works fine I will prod push 7.1 out to a testgroup of a 100 people at work this weekend, mostly phones but also some ipads.
We all use our devices differently and always make sure you update your apps when updating your OS, apps and bugs in apps can can also be a reason of a high battery consumption
On my pad i am running "background refresh" on all my apps since a while back and it doesn't seem to affect battery performance.
I don't use mainstream apps such as Facebook, Twitter, instagram, Tiktok on this particular device.
I just got mine up to 16.7.2
It should be good for now. I was not so much of a sceptic, but seeing how Apple has been crippling iPhones and iPads in the past few years when it comes to battery and overall performance, I am more sceptic about updating straightaway. My iPad Air 2 got butchered by Apple in the mid iOS15 update cycle, it was fine until the last 3 updates it received. Same goes for the iPhone 8 that’s been butchered by Apple’s last 4 updates of iOS16. I am aware they are older devices, but the deterioration rate was far too noticeable. So I don’t want to take the risk with my newer devices. Will see how that goes later.
Good choice getting it updated with the latest security patches. There was a good bunch of fixes released in 16.7.2 I do like that apple offer support and security patches for 2 major OS releases these days.
I can be a number of things that is affecting batteries, mine got solved when reinstalling the default fitness app again (I don't use it). Not an Ipad issues of course but on my iPhone.
Sadly, it’s very likely that the Air 2 was severely affected far earlier, especially when comparing it with iOS 8 (which is the only comparison that matters, imo). iPadOS 15 is merely the culmination of a constant degradation cycle.
I am writing this from a 9.7-inch iPad Pro on iOS 12. It was forced by Apple from iOS 9 into iOS 12, and battery life saw a 25% decrease, immediately. It never recovered. Performance seems fine, but barely. Barely because reports of iPadOS 13 for this device are very poor, way worse than iOS 12. So, glass half-full, I’m a little lucky that this iPad was forced into iOS 12 and not iPadOS 13.
Glad to hear that the Air 5 is working well on iPadOS 16! At least we know that the first major version on an M1 isn’t too poor. I ask because I’m curious, I’m never updating anything again, I have mine on iPadOS 15 and it will stay there. These reports of an M1 device suffering only two major updates in are worrying, a possible signal of the M1 changing absolutely nothing, good-old iOS updates-induced irreversible degradation. Hopefully some point version of iPadOS 17 makes it better, because while standby hasn’t been good on iPad since iPadOS 13, the numbers that users reported here are pathetic, especially for a new device.
While I get the point of it being an accumulation, I’m speaking from my personal user experience and I noticed huge drop in performance at a specific point midway through iPadOS15 cycle year. Same goes for the iPhone 8 and mid-iOS16 cycle. Just a personal experience.
Knowing this, I’m in a similar boat with you and won’t be pushing my devices beyond 16 for now. Apple continues to push out security updates for older devices and for me the features available at the moment on 16 are more than enough, if the trade off is so noticeable for 17 updates. It’s worrying that it seems there isn’t much change for M-chips considering the reports from other users who upgraded. My worry is how soon Apple will make M-chips totally unusable with macOS updates, considering that my last intel macs had been my main machines for almost 8 years until I had to upgrade. Will the M-chips last/be supported this long?
Yeah, your iPhone 8 and Air 2 cases are probably even worse because if there was a massive performance issue, then it’s a lot worse than it should be.
About M chips, I don’t know what to think. Macs have been affected but I think they’re a little better, and they can always go back. Apple had ads about the iPhone Xʀ and the A12 Bionic being so efficient that battery life would be more than enough, even saying “you’ll run out of battery before the iPhone does”. I thought “well, maybe this is the end. iOS 12 is so efficient on the Xʀ and the A12 Bionic, that maybe iOS updates won’t impact devices anymore starting now”. It was a failed dream, sadly, and subsequent updates significantly worsened battery life. So, I am somewhat hopeful about the Air 5 and the M1... but I’m not expecting perfection. They may fix this on some version of iPadOS 17, but long-term? We may be looking at the Xʀ part 2. Like I said, the fact that there are reports already isn’t a good sign.
Turned off background app refresh as others have tried. Went from 88% to 52% over 4.5 hours of standby non-usage.
My iPad Pro 10.5 used to hold a charge much, much better than that prior to iPadOS 17.
My iPad Pro 10.5 used to hold a charge much, much better than that prior to iPadOS 17.
I can definitely notice the difference on my IPad Air 5 - just turned off background refresh after reading this post. Hope it works!