iOS 12 is eating my battery!!!

[aakshey]

I’m still trying to sort out why my iPhone 8’s idle battery life has gone to pot. It seemed to have start around the time I installed iOS 12, the day after it was released.

The screenshot shows that I don’t use my phone all that much, but the drain seems to be fairly consistent if I have something on the screen or not. Last night the battery went from around 65% to less than 20% with no screen on time. It was in an area with excellent WiFi coverage and fine cellular coverage.

Does anyone have any ideas at what else I should be looking at in order to diagnose this idle drain? It seems like the list of apps below only lists battery drain for when the phone is screen on or active with the screen off, which takes up a very small portion of my day.

All devices have this issue with iOS 12.

The only exceptions are those Apple products released on or after October 2018. If at all.

Planned obsolescence at work.

iOS 12 is faster than iOS 11 on older devices. But Apple has ensured you’ll upgrade despite that.

 

[Gryfter]

All devices have this issue with iOS 12.

The only exceptions are those Apple products released on or after October 2018. If at all.

Planned obsolescence at work.

iOS 12 is faster than iOS 11 on older devices. But Apple has ensured you’ll upgrade despite that.

Wouldnt say all.

Im on an October 2014 iPhone 6 Plus. I got my battery replaced on September 24th and battery life has been great, before and after the battery change.

 

[aakshey]

Charge your battery to around 90%. Not more than that. Let us drain overnight, for minimum 8 hrs. I assure you it will drain around 10-15% easily. Maybe more. Your device is affected. You just don’t know it. This is assuming you’re on iOS 12.

 

[Rhino1]

All devices have this issue with iOS 12.

The only exceptions are those Apple products released on or after October 2018. If at all.

Planned obsolescence at work.

iOS 12 is faster than iOS 11 on older devices. But Apple has ensured you’ll upgrade despite that.

I really don't know how you have come to that conclusion. My SE running iOS 12 drains at the rate of 1.33% for every 1% on 9.x.x. It's not significant on the grand scale of things since buses now have charger ports here! But the core question is - Is it because iOS is actually working harder to push things out quicker (prefetching, preloading, Siri suggestions etc. in the background) or is it just iOS 12 has a less efficient code base.

You see this is were it gets grey. In a few words all Apple is doing is saying;

"If you want more features there is a price to pay on battery life, if however you don't need these features then you have no reason to upgrade your iOS" - which technically is perfectly acceptable.

From a user perspective we just need to read what new features we get and if we actually want them before upgrading.
How newer devices hold onto battery life is simply because they tend to have newer batteries in them (obviously) and because they can simply do it more efficiently (newer processors, better sleep states) and you really cant blame Apple for that.
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Thanks for that and it is helpful for people who always jump on clean install, any chance you do similar test with screen time off on iOS 12 and see if that improves the battery.

Forgot to respond to this in the previous post mate sorry - Screen time was disabled during the test. iOS 12 was set to run in identical mode to 9.3.5 and if a feature existed in 12 that didn't in 9 I would disable it all together. I have firm belief iOS 12 is simply running more things in the back in order to keep our experience in the front quicker and more pleasing. Despite being really hard on Apple during previous posts I guess it's fair play.

This doesn't mean the 'battery drain issues' are acceptable. All my tests are when both devices are operating normally. The users who are having massive drain issues are something completely different and need to be investigated!

 

[decafjava]

All I can say is that my battery usage and drain have not significantly changed from iOS 11 as far as I can tell. Obviously spring and summer last year (2017) with a newer phone and battery meant longer daily usage.

However, in practical terms, with plugs at work and a lot of public transport and a battery pack, it certainly doesn't pose a problem.

 

[Knight3]

Charge your battery to around 90%. Not more than that. Let us drain overnight, for minimum 8 hrs. I assure you it will drain around 10-15% easily. Maybe more. Your device is affected. You just don’t know it. This is assuming you’re on iOS 12.

How could you claim to know more about his iPhone better than him? I'm very confused.

Also, I hope you're aware of the fact that devices tend to stay at 100% longer than they would at anything below that. While we're at it, the battery drain isn't exactly linear and would drain at different speeds at different levels.

 

[Hal~9000]

Well you're wrong there. iOS 9 was announced and advertised as improving battery life, Apple's words in their release notes:

• Up to one hour of additional time before the battery needs to be charged.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_version_history#iOS_9

I was wrong then when I thought there was never a major IOS update that improved battery life. Thank you very much for the info CheesePuff

 

[Knight3]

All devices have this issue with iOS 12.

The only exceptions are those Apple products released on or after October 2018. If at all.

Planned obsolescence at work.

iOS 12 is faster than iOS 11 on older devices. But Apple has ensured you’ll upgrade despite that.

I got the battery replaced on my iPhone 6s and it flies. I'm fairly certain I don't need to upgrade until the 2020 version comes out. Unless of course I want to hurt someone real bad with it. Apple made sure of that with iOS 12.

There's some people experiencing battery drains, myself included, from some inexplicable reason with the recent update. It's a relatively small percentage if you consider the number of iPhones running iOS 12. For me the battery diagnostics showed the health at 97% but only a battery replacement fixed it. Something messed up but I'm positive it wasn't intentional, especially after the throttling fiasco with all the lawsuits hanging over them.

The latest devices are equipped with more capable processors that are efficient which is the definition of an upgrade that most people choose to willfully ignore. And the latest iOS versions come packed with new features -- that require more processing power -- that older hardware are less capable of handling as efficiently regardless of how much you optimize the software. You can't defy the laws of Physics my friend.

Try to keep an open mind.
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I’m still trying to sort out why my iPhone 8’s idle battery life has gone to pot. It seemed to have start around the time I installed iOS 12, the day after it was released.

The screenshot shows that I don’t use my phone all that much, but the drain seems to be fairly consistent if I have something on the screen or not. Last night the battery went from around 65% to less than 20% with no screen on time. It was in an area with excellent WiFi coverage and fine cellular coverage.

Does anyone have any ideas at what else I should be looking at in order to diagnose this idle drain? It seems like the list of apps below only lists battery drain for when the phone is screen on or active with the screen off, which takes up a very small portion of my day.

Have you noticed any erratic battery percentage drops or unusually fast drain while doing nothing with just the screen ON? Also, what's you battery health at?

Assuming you've tried setting your device up as new.

 

[poktangju]

if i buy a new sealed iPhone se which version of iOS will be installed on the phone...if its iOS 10 or lower i will definitely buy a new one. my battery is far worse than 1.33%

 

[Rhino1]

if i buy a new sealed iPhone se which version of iOS will be installed on the phone...if its iOS 10 or lower i will definitely buy a new one. my battery is far worse than 1.33%

100 / 1.33% is approx 75% (meaning your battery is only charging to 75% when showing 100% in iOS 12) Think of it as loosing 25% of your overall battery capacity.

Why not attempt to purchase one from the Apple store and see what it is running. If its not the version you like you can always take it back. You never know, you might even get a 10.0 one!

 

[Rhino1]

I’ll try it too

thanks - please keep us updated on how you get along!

 

[Gryfter]

Charge your battery to around 90%. Not more than that. Let us drain overnight, for minimum 8 hrs. I assure you it will drain around 10-15% easily. Maybe more. Your device is affected. You just don’t know it. This is assuming you’re on iOS 12.

Just telling you how my phone/battery is operating. You cant "assure" me of anything, LOL.

Yes, Im on iOS 12.0.1.

I charge my phone to 100% once a week. Other days, I try to keep my battery between 30%-80%.

All I see on my battery meter is flat during the time Im knocked out for the 6-7 hrs.

I work nights so from 4pm - 10/11pm is when I sleep. Those 2 blips you see are when I wake up a bit and check the time.

 

[max2]

Never in the history of iOS has there been a single update that actually improved the battery life of older devices. If anything the overwhelming majority of updates have made battery life worse.

Why anyone would suddenly expect something different when updating to iOS 12 is beyond me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Bingo.

 

[aakshey]

Message deleted.

 

[bluecoast]

My 7's (128) battery life has not been great since the days of iOS 11.

It's hard to say if it's iOS 11-12 or that Apple's battery life indicator is a bit conservative.

I know that I've charged my phone through hundreds of cycles and I'm surprised that it's still meant to be at 84% capacity.

Most likely it's that after a year or so of use (or a new phone), most people are going to see a degraded battery performance.

And it's mostly likely that from iOS 11-12, the OS is simply doing more and is optimised for phones with way bigger batteries and/or A11-12 processors with its low power cores and neural engine.

As for me, I'm planning to get a battery replacement and then we'll see how it goes.

 

[Rhino1]

I'm really tempted to upgrade my SE running 12.0.1 battery but I just see no reason to do it now. It's either that or upgrade my other one running 9.3.5 which to me seems like better value but it won't answer the real question of will iOS 12 improve dramatically with a new battery or not.

 

[bbrks]

I just don't get it. People use their phones differently, that's a fact. But to try to convince others that IOS 12 ruins battery life, because they have their own problem with it, is simply crap.
My wife has a 6, IOS 12.0.1., battery health on 94%, her phone is on charger every second day. And she uses her phone a lot, for business also. So nothing wrong with IOS 12.

 

[Rhino1]

I just don't get it. People use their phones differently, that's a fact. But to try to convince others that IOS 12 ruins battery life, because they have their own problem with it, is simply crap.
My wife has a 6, IOS 12.0.1., battery health on 94%, her phone is on charger every second day. And she uses her phone a lot, for business also. So nothing wrong with IOS 12.

What about when people have two cloned phones with same battery wear and are running the same applications yet one provides less battery life because its running a newer version of iOS? More often then not people on this thread are having less battery life rather then improvements but in my case it's not major. around 25% less

 

[bbrks]

In that case, I am sure, hardware problem.

 

[ZipZap]

I have to believe that all the battery issues stem from reloading backups from older version of IOS. Loading backups is precarious and the older your previous IOS version was the worse things will be.

 

[Rhino1]

In that case, I am sure, hardware problem.

So the hardware problem occurred immediately after installing iOS12..?

 

[minimo3]

Hmm now all the phones at home (iPhone SE, 6S, 7) with iOS 12 display the “This iPhone has experienced an unexpected shutdown because the battery was unable to deliver the necessary peak power. Performance management has been applied to help prevent this from happening again” throttling message. The two devices on older iOS are running along fine with longer battery life to boot (SE with 11.3 and 5s with 10.3.3).

I did take the 6s to the apple store. They DFU reset it and sent me on my way. I’m not hopeful. Guess it’ll go in a drawer and try my luck with iOS 13 next year. Meanwhile the others will just have to carry power banks to top up during the day.

 

[bbrks]

So the hardware problem occurred immediately after installing iOS12..?

Yes, it can happen. It's not the fist time when there is an update to new IOS.

 

[Flopstar]

My SE just drained 30% (from 100%) overnight. It had a few apps open in the background, but even with that I would only expect 10% drain at the most. Even though iOS 12 is already horrible for most older device's batteries, this seems pretty unusual. I'm thinking of taking it into the Genius Bar and hopefully getting the battery replaced.

 

[dreadlord]

I don't know if it is my charger cable or WhatsApp. I changed my charger cable on Oct 22 (my cable pins were oxidized and it was stopping charging sometimes) and WhatsApp just got an update on the same date. Now, my battery life has been significantly improved. I am now getting nearly 4 hours of screen on usage per day after Oct 22, before that I was getting only 2-2.5 hours of screen on usage. My battery is on %90 health.