iOS 14.3 battery life (potential fix)

[FilipeTeixeira]

Like many others I've been going insane with this iOS battery life issues. I have an iPhone SE 1st gen and since iOS 14.2 that my battery has been being depleted at warp speeds. It almost looks like a countdown. I tried everything including reseting my phone, battery saving mode, etc, and nothing worked. I'm currently on 14.3.

However, today I noticed the following:
- After using my mobile data (4G), the battery entered countdown mode. I could literally see the numbers going down almost every second.
- Turned off mobile data and nothing changed.
- Tried to activate battery saving mode and nothing changed.
- Killed all the background apps, and again nothing changed.
- Turned on airplane mode and puff the countdown stopped.
- Turned airplane mode off and the battery remained stable while connected to the wifi.

I've been on my wifi already for a while and the battery seems to remain stable. So for those with this issue I recommend to:

1) Turn off 4G/LTE/Mobile data
2) Turn on Airplane Mode
3) Turn off Airplane Mode

I don't know if we have anyone here with better insights into why this might be happening, and if this is really a fix or just a coincidence. But if we have any developers reading this, it would be great if you could test it properly.

Thank you

 

[Ommadawn]

Like many others I've been going insane with this iOS battery life issues. I have an iPhone SE 1st gen and since iOS 14.2 that my battery has been being depleted at warp speeds. It almost looks like a countdown. I tried everything including reseting my phone, battery saving mode, etc, and nothing worked. I'm currently on 14.3.

However, today I noticed the following:
- After using my mobile data (4G), the battery entered countdown mode. I could literally see the numbers going down almost every second.
- Turned off mobile data and nothing changed.
- Tried to activate battery saving mode and nothing changed.
- Killed all the background apps, and again nothing changed.
- Turned on airplane mode and puff the countdown stopped.
- Turned airplane mode off and the battery remained stable while connected to the wifi.

I've been on my wifi already for a while and the battery seems to remain stable. So for those with this issue I recommend to:

1) Turn off 4G/LTE/Mobile data
2) Turn on Airplane Mode
3) Turn off Airplane Mode

I don't know if we have anyone here with better insights into why this might be happening, and if this is really a fix or just a coincidence. But if we have any developers reading this, it would be great if you could test it properly.

Thank you

This trick seems to have solved the problem whereby my iPhone SE was dying the second I unplugged it from charging, so thank you for posting it. Unfortunately the battery is still literally draining in front of my eyes with no apps running.

I updated to 14.3 a couple days ago and it had seemed ok initially, except for the battery drain, which has been a problem for me since 13.7 (I keep updating in the hope the latest one will fix that issue but if anything it's getting worse).

 

[chscag]

Have you considered that your original iPhone SE might be needing a new battery? The $49 that Apple or an Authorized Apple Repair Service charges for changing it out is certainly worth it.

 

[Ommadawn]

Have you considered that your original iPhone SE might be needing a new battery? The $49 that Apple or an Authorized Apple Repair Service charges for changing it out is certainly worth it.

I have considered it, but current battery health is 94 percent, which I assumed was pretty ok? ("?" because I'm not too knowledgeable about these things). I will say though that there are a lot of posts on Apple's discussion boards from people with brand new phones that are having horrific battery drainage issues with IOS 14.3 and also some from people who had their batteries replaced on the advice of Apple after IOS 14 caused them problems but found it didn't solve the issue.

 

[chscag]

I don't know when you purchased your original iPhone SE, but that model is now getting a bit old and at the stage where battery replacement is a consideration. I recently replaced the battery in an iPhone 7+ that I keep as a spare and it made all the difference.

It's true we've seen complaints about iOS 14.3 but I'm running it on an iPhone 8 and 11 and have not seen the degradation that others have reported. Of course my usage might be different but still....

 

[FilipeTeixeira]

Have you considered that your original iPhone SE might be needing a new battery? The $49 that Apple or an Authorized Apple Repair Service charges for changing it out is certainly worth it.

I bought this phone 2 years ago. I said it's 1st gen but it's the version that was still being sold last year. So 2nd gen I guess.
Also the battery still shows as peak performance, and I only started having these issues after installing 14.3. Before it would last a full day, whereas now it only lasts a few hours.

Finally, when I restart the iPhone, if the battery is at 20%, it suddenly shows at 50%. Which means that there's something wrong with the software and not with the hardware.

 

[jhdroque]

Like many others I've been going insane with this iOS battery life issues. I have an iPhone SE 1st gen and since iOS 14.2 that my battery has been being depleted at warp speeds. It almost looks like a countdown. I tried everything including reseting my phone, battery saving mode, etc, and nothing worked. I'm currently on 14.3.

However, today I noticed the following:
- After using my mobile data (4G), the battery entered countdown mode. I could literally see the numbers going down almost every second.
- Turned off mobile data and nothing changed.
- Tried to activate battery saving mode and nothing changed.
- Killed all the background apps, and again nothing changed.
- Turned on airplane mode and puff the countdown stopped.
- Turned airplane mode off and the battery remained stable while connected to the wifi.

I've been on my wifi already for a while and the battery seems to remain stable. So for those with this issue I recommend to:

1) Turn off 4G/LTE/Mobile data
2) Turn on Airplane Mode
3) Turn off Airplane Mode

I don't know if we have anyone here with better insights into why this might be happening, and if this is really a fix or just a coincidence. But if we have any developers reading this, it would be great if you could test it properly.

Thank you

The best fix for me is to roll back to 14.2. My iPhone 11 Pro Max was seeing 4hr SoT (85% battery health) and iPhone X was seeing 2.5hr SoT (100% b health, freshly replaced by Apple) on 14.3. I thought the new carrier update in my country was the culprit but since it was also updated on 14.2, it can’t be the issue.

I tried restoring to scratch on both devices because I was getting crazy on the drain, exactly what you were experiencing. Every 5 minutes it seems it goes down by a percent. Both are on different networks, so signal shouldn’t be an issue. Downgrading to 14.2 which is STILL being signed restored my phones to great battery life (8-9hr SoT on 11 Pro Max and 5-7hr SoT on X) and will NOT upgrade to any new iOS 14 version until the draining has been fixed.

EDIT: I suggest downgrading using a Windows PC and 3utools as it can downgrade you back to 14.2 without losing stored data.

 

[JoeShades]

Like many others I've been going insane with this iOS battery life issues. I have an iPhone SE 1st gen and since iOS 14.2 that my battery has been being depleted at warp speeds. It almost looks like a countdown. I tried everything including reseting my phone, battery saving mode, etc, and nothing worked. I'm currently on 14.3.

However, today I noticed the following:
- After using my mobile data (4G), the battery entered countdown mode. I could literally see the numbers going down almost every second.
- Turned off mobile data and nothing changed.
- Tried to activate battery saving mode and nothing changed.
- Killed all the background apps, and again nothing changed.
- Turned on airplane mode and puff the countdown stopped.
- Turned airplane mode off and the battery remained stable while connected to the wifi.

I've been on my wifi already for a while and the battery seems to remain stable. So for those with this issue I recommend to:

1) Turn off 4G/LTE/Mobile data
2) Turn on Airplane Mode
3) Turn off Airplane Mode

I don't know if we have anyone here with better insights into why this might be happening, and if this is really a fix or just a coincidence. But if we have any developers reading this, it would be great if you could test it properly.

Thank you

This worked for my 7+, thanks!

 

[FilipeTeixeira]

The best fix for me is to roll back to 14.2. My iPhone 11 Pro Max was seeing 4hr SoT (85% battery health) and iPhone X was seeing 2.5hr SoT (100% b health, freshly replaced by Apple) on 14.3. I thought the new carrier update in my country was the culprit but since it was also updated on 14.2, it can’t be the issue.

I tried restoring to scratch on both devices because I was getting crazy on the drain, exactly what you were experiencing. Every 5 minutes it seems it goes down by a percent. Both are on different networks, so signal shouldn’t be an issue. Downgrading to 14.2 which is STILL being signed restored my phones to great battery life (8-9hr SoT on 11 Pro Max and 5-7hr SoT on X) and will NOT upgrade to any new iOS 14 version until the draining has been fixed.

EDIT: I suggest downgrading using a Windows PC and 3utools as it can downgrade you back to 14.2 without losing stored data.

Does this tool exists for macOS? I don't have any Windows PCs lying around unfortunately.

 

[aka...]

I have a SE gen1 iOS 14.2. If you go to Battery, and then Battery Health, the "optimised battery charging" will probably be on. You can turn it off but it doesn't stay off - the next time the phone is started up or plugged in it'll turn itself on again. If it's on then the battery will only charge to 80% until it thinks you are shortly going to unplug it at which point it'll charge to 100%. But if, like me, you don't charge the phone regularly it won't know when it's going to get unplugged so will never actually charge to 100%. Really annoying that it can't be turned off for good. And a pointless feature if you don't have a "daily charging routine" as Apple expect you to. Might help.

 

[C DM]

I have a SE gen1 iOS 14.2. If you go to Battery, and then Battery Health, the "optimised battery charging" will probably be on. You can turn it off but it doesn't stay off - the next time the phone is started up or plugged in it'll turn itself on again. If it's on then the battery will only charge to 80% until it thinks you are shortly going to unplug it at which point it'll charge to 100%. But if, like me, you don't charge the phone regularly it won't know when it's going to get unplugged so will never actually charge to 100%. Really annoying that it can't be turned off for good. And a pointless feature if you don't have a "daily charging routine" as Apple expect you to. Might help.

Typically if you don't charge regularly even with the option enabled it won't actually kick in as it's meant to work around regular routines. That aside, it looks like the issue with the option getting re-enabled on its own has been fixed in iOS 14.3.

 

[aka...]

Typically if you don't charge regularly even with the option enabled it won't actually kick in as it's meant to work around regular routines. That aside, it looks like the issue with the option getting re-enabled on its own has been fixed in iOS 14.3.

Thanks for that, I'll upgrade to 14.3 and experiment. It certainly has kicked in with me. I have no mobile signal at home so the phone is only used when out and about - and that has become once a week with Covid. Perhaps that's so irregular iOS can't cope!

 

[harriska2]

We ended up replacing one of our iphone ses with a 2020 se. I use the other original se to this day. I’m on 14.3 with original battery (3 yrs old) and it sure likes to die and reboot a lot. It’s a battery thing but also an “ios unoptimized for old devices” thing - I suspect.

 

[minimo3]

I have a 4 year old SE 1st gen on iOS 12.4.1 and battery life is stellar (on its original battery). About 4.5-5 hour SOT. No way I’m updating it

 

[twbaskins]

Aside from all of the posts hereon, Apple is fully aware of this situation and they should be “owning it.” Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear as though they care. They’ve had ample time to come up with a fix. Instead, once again, they’ve chosen to leave their customers in the lurch, anguished, and confused.

 

[honglong1976]

Like many others I've been going insane with this iOS battery life issues. I have an iPhone SE 1st gen and since iOS 14.2 that my battery has been being depleted at warp speeds. It almost looks like a countdown. I tried everything including reseting my phone, battery saving mode, etc, and nothing worked. I'm currently on 14.3.

However, today I noticed the following:
- After using my mobile data (4G), the battery entered countdown mode. I could literally see the numbers going down almost every second.
- Turned off mobile data and nothing changed.
- Tried to activate battery saving mode and nothing changed.
- Killed all the background apps, and again nothing changed.
- Turned on airplane mode and puff the countdown stopped.
- Turned airplane mode off and the battery remained stable while connected to the wifi.

I've been on my wifi already for a while and the battery seems to remain stable. So for those with this issue I recommend to:

1) Turn off 4G/LTE/Mobile data
2) Turn on Airplane Mode
3) Turn off Airplane Mode

I don't know if we have anyone here with better insights into why this might be happening, and if this is really a fix or just a coincidence. But if we have any developers reading this, it would be great if you could test it properly.

Thank you

Made no difference to my iPhone 6S.

 

[harriska2]

I have a 4 year old SE 1st gen on iOS 12.4.1 and battery life is stellar (on its original battery). About 4.5-5 hour SOT. No way I’m updating it

If I didn’t have an apple watch that required updating the phone, I wouldn’t have.

 

[HyperFlow]

In on an iPhone 11 on 14.3, noticing more-than-usual battery drain overnight even though no apps are running. In on the edge of wifi range in my house and wonder if it’s anything to do with it switching back and forward from 4G to wifi. I’m going to experiment.

 

[SteelBusNole]

So the past few days my 7 plus battery is in the 90% range then I set it down (not on charger) and I come back an hour or so later and the battery is at 3%. I reset my phone (power button and volume down button) and when it starts back up, it is back to the correct percentage. Any ideas?

 

[honglong1976]

So the past few days my 7 plus battery is in the 90% range then I set it down (not on charger) and I come back an hour or so later and the battery is at 3%. I reset my phone (power button and volume down button) and when it starts back up, it is back to the correct percentage. Any ideas?

It could be the OS or a faulty battery.

My replaced battery was showing 100% battery health and Mac mAh with cocoonut battery but draining super fast. After replacing the battery is was fine. Well, until iOS14. So it could still be the OS or battery. Without another battery and the fact that so many people are having this issue, I suspect the OS.

Maybe Apple has a strategy to kill off the older phones. Those with newer phone have no problems, older iPhones? Lots!

 

[harriska2]

My original SE was horrible the past year (it is 3.5) on 14.3. Replaced the battery. Weird shutdown? Gone. Dropping signal? Gone. Goes from 60% to 10% in a couple hours w/o use? Gone. Can’t use the DJI Fly app because it disconnects? Gone.

Now we are gravely upset that my husband’s 5 year old ipp 12.9 on ios 12 is doing the weird stuff like taking it off the charger at 100% and it won’t even turn on. We fully expected 10 years from the battery. WTH. </sarcasm>

 

[Rutto]

My old iPad has been working flawlessly so far, since 14.3 update it started to shutdown randomly at 15/20%, once even at 50% battery level. Don’t tell me it could be time to replace battery, everything was perfect since the exact moment of the update, so it’s 100% Apple fault

 

[honglong1976]

My old iPad has been working flawlessly so far, since 14.3 update it started to shutdown randomly at 15/20%, once even at 50% battery level. Don’t tell me it could be time to replace battery, everything was perfect since the exact moment of the update, so it’s 100% Apple fault

That does sound like the battery.

Test it with coconut battery.

 

[honglong1976]

Since the update, the iPhone 7 Plus seems ok. The only thing I have noticed is exposure notifications is always nearly on 100% all the time, and most likely a battery drainer. I turned it off till tomorrow and the battery seems ok.

 

[Rutto]

That does sound like the battery.

Test it with coconut battery.

I’m not pretending the durability of the first day, but I can’t blame battery status when I start having issues right after update reboot. By the way the battery test result says “normal Health”