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JohnE121

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 10, 2021
74
66
Columbus Ohio
My phone has been draining battery battery like crazy since the 14.6 update. When I look at the battery usage, I am unable to pinpoint it to a particular app. I did a factory reset and restore which helped for a while. What I have noticed is that when I turn airplane mode on while connected to wifi, the battery drain is what I would expect to be normal. When I turn airplane off the phone gets a little warm and consumes battery like crazy again. In the past, I have always had 2 bars of cellular signal strength. I have noticed that when I turn airplane mode off, the cellular strength is initially at 2 bars but goes up to 4 bars after about a minute. I beginning to think that the cellular receiver is running at full power while the phone is at idle. Are there any settings that I should be looking at? Thanks in advance for your suggestions.
 
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I don't think there are any controls when it comes to transmission rates and I know that this may not be the best plan but from what I have seen, iOS 14.7 beta 4-5 seem to be really good when it comes to battery life. Definitely better than 14.6. It should release to the public soon but if you are willing to try the beta now, you can do so with a beta profile. Just be sure to remove the beta profile so that you don't get jumped to a newer beta afterwards.
 
Hmm...having the same issues here too. Just upgraded to a 12 Pro Max up from a SE 2020. Still having the same issue. Hoping 14.7 will solve it!
 
Similar here... It seems the iPhone SE 2020 has been more affected. Two seniors who use their devices an hour a day on walks and dead within 12 hours. All apps quit, background tasks off
 
Maybe check your data usage? Maybe something is swallowing up data? And that swallowing of data is also burning battery?

And the reason it’s not swallowing up data when in Airplane mode is because it can’t. Airplane mode turns off data connections...
 
My phone has been draining battery battery like crazy since the 14.6 update. When I look at the battery usage, I am unable to pinpoint it to a particular app. I did a factory reset and restore which helped for a while. What I have noticed is that when I turn airplane mode on while connected to wifi, the battery drain is what I would expect to be normal. When I turn airplane off the phone gets a little warm and consumes battery like crazy again. In the past, I have always had 2 bars of cellular signal strength. I have noticed that when I turn airplane mode off, the cellular strength is initially at 2 bars but goes up to 4 bars after about a minute. I beginning to think that the cellular receiver is running at full power while the phone is at idle. Are there any settings that I should be looking at? Thanks in advance for your suggestions.
Try turning off 4g (lte), and let phone stay at 3g signal. I’m sure you will see improvement, well, I surely did.
 
I tried turning Airplane mode on and it made no difference

my post wasn’t for you. it was for the original poster in this thread.

For you, did you go into the Settings app and look at the Battery section? That section will till you which app has used what percentage of total battery usage.
 
my post wasn’t for you. it was for the original poster in this thread.

For you, did you go into the Settings app and look at the Battery section? That section will till you which app has used what percentage of total battery usage.
Yeah none of the apps are using the battery at a large rate, the battery completely went to zero and I recharged over night, now it seems to not be draining as quickly
 
Yeah none of the apps are using the battery at a large rate, the battery completely went to zero and I recharged over night, now it seems to not be draining as quickly

that page doesn’t tell you the rate at which an app is burning battery. It tells you as a percentage of total battery use, how much each app has used the battery.

I’ve never seen a phone where 1, 2, or 3 apps weren’t using significantly higher percentage of the battery than the other apps. And I’ve seen a lot of phones, So I can’t imagine what you’re looking at.
 
that page doesn’t tell you the rate at which an app is burning battery. It tells you as a percentage of total battery use, how much each app has used the battery.

I’ve never seen a phone where 1, 2, or 3 apps weren’t using significantly higher percentage of the battery than the other apps. And I’ve seen a lot of phones, So I can’t imagine what you’re looking at.
The home screen had the largest % but nothing large enough to kill the battery in a matter of a few hours. 20 minutes on screen last 24 hours
 
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Maybe check your data usage? Maybe something is swallowing up data? And that swallowing of data is also burning battery?

And the reason it’s not swallowing up data when in Airplane mode is because it can’t. Airplane mode turns off data connections...
That's a good point - to check data usage by app in addition to battery usage.

My phone has been draining battery battery like crazy since the 14.6 update. When I look at the battery usage, I am unable to pinpoint it to a particular app. I did a factory reset and restore which helped for a while. What I have noticed is that when I turn airplane mode on while connected to wifi, the battery drain is what I would expect to be normal. When I turn airplane off the phone gets a little warm and consumes battery like crazy again. In the past, I have always had 2 bars of cellular signal strength. I have noticed that when I turn airplane mode off, the cellular strength is initially at 2 bars but goes up to 4 bars after about a minute. I beginning to think that the cellular receiver is running at full power while the phone is at idle. Are there any settings that I should be looking at? Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

Yeah none of the apps are using the battery at a large rate, the battery completely went to zero and I recharged over night, now it seems to not be draining as quickly
Do you background app refresh on?
 
I'm already fed up with this excessive battery consumption of my iPhone 12 Pro Max. As I said here, I use my iPhone 12 Pro Max to make videos for YouTube. In the past, I just left with the device, recorded videos all day and at night I edited them, without recharging the device. Today I need to take a powerbank and recharge it with small charges twice during the day!
 
My 12 Pro getting hot and using battery correlates pretty exclusively with background Podcasts activity. Allegedly 14.7 and 15.0 betas fix this. Not saying it's the same for everyone but something is up there. You used to be able to set the sync interval for podcasts, and now that option is gone so I am guessing that Apple are trying to push changes from the catalogue as the podcast authors do.
 
My 11 Pro's battery sucks BAD on 14.6; it's not just the newer devices. Like several of you, I would easily make it through the day with a full charge with a ton to spare. Now I HAVE To top it off before leaving the house at night, or the phone will die while I'm out. Just terrible. I see 14.7 RC is out... wonder what they're waiting for??
 
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also on this: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...te.2298742/page-7?post=30070440#post-30070440

What I am noticing the last two days, the battery issue is not as excessive. right now the phone has been off the charger for at least 2 hours (at the time that post, now its been ~4 hours and is at 99% with no activity) before, it would already be at around 80% or lower. this is still on 14.6 with no changes or modifications. anyone seeing any changes to their battery drain? I'm wondering if there was a silent fix or something from Apple?

I havent monitored the iPad but the iPhone isnt heating up either.
 
Also noticing massive battery drain with very little use during the day. Previously was getting to around 11pm with around 60-70% battery remaining. It’s now 21.50 and I’m on 18%. Has got significantly worse since installing 14.6.
 
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Noticing some odd behaviour with GPS.

When you're not connected to any Wi-Fi network, the GPS keeps coming on and off every 10 seconds or so.

It seems every time Wi-Fi is scanned it triggers GPS to run for a few seconds.

When connected to Wi-Fi the same behaviour occurs when you open the Wi-Fi settings page and it does a scan for other networks.
 
Is it based on the location arrow indicator in the status bar? I just tested it and when you go to Wifi available networks page, it triggers the location indicator.
I have also noticed that every time I unlock the iPhone, this location indicator appears so possibly it's checking your location. It would prefer it not to if it affects the battery and doesn't serve any purpose.

When you go to Settings -> Privacy -> Location Services, it says that locations service use GPS, Wifi hotspots to determine the location, so possibly that's what iOS is doing. There doesn't seem to be any option to turn it off
Noticing some odd behaviour with GPS.

When you're not connected to any Wi-Fi network, the GPS keeps coming on and off every 10 seconds or so.

It seems every time Wi-Fi is scanned it triggers GPS to run for a few seconds.

When connected to Wi-Fi the same behaviour occurs when you open the Wi-Fi settings page and it does a scan for other networks.
 
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Is it based on the location arrow indicator in the status bar? I just tested it and when you go to Wifi available networks page, it triggers the location indicator.
I have also noticed that every time I unlock the iPhone, this location indicator appears so possibly it's checking your location. It would prefer it not to if it affects the battery and doesn't serve any purpose.

When you go to Settings -> Privacy -> Location Services, it says that locations service use GPS, Wifi hotspots to determine the location, so possibly that's what iOS is doing. There doesn't seem to be any option to turn it off
I think the option that you are looking for is "Frequent Locations." This can be disabled but anything that you may use that depends on this option will fail.
 
Frequent location is already disabled, still the location indicator appears every time I unlock the iPhone.
I think the option that you are looking for is "Frequent Locations." This can be disabled but anything that you may use that depends on this option will fail.
 
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