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IOS 15.6... battery life...and big problem with that...

aleeexz03

aleeexz03

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 22, 2021
49
18
Hello. A week ago, I updated to IOS 15.6. Which kind of ruined the battery on the iPhone 11. Phone I've had for a year, 96% battery health, always charged properly, with original charger, taken care of, etc.

On the old version of IOS, i.e. 15.5, the battery easily lasted a day and a half, two. Now it barely lasts me a day and a bit.

I reset the phone, no backup, with everything installed from scratch, it's a little better, but not like before. And when I get to 25%, randomly, the battery drops to 23% without doing anything, then it drains normally, but I have some kind of lag on it. And I really don't understand why, because I've never experienced anything like this before. I called Apple Romania, they did diagnostic tests and everything is perfect in terms of parameters, sensors, battery, software...

The guys there told me to create some sort of battery routine, do you think that would help? I also calibrated it in the sense that I discharged it to zero and then charged it with it closed. I'm thinking maybe it's apps that aren't optimized for IOS 15.6 yet, but I have everything updated on it. I don't have location turned on, a lot of apps have the background process closed...

What experience do you have with the battery on this version of IOS?
 
I can't help with your issues, but battery calibration is a myth. It's a relic of recommendations for older, nickel-based batteries.

I'm running iOS 15.6 on an iPhone 11 and battery life is spot on.
 
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aleeexz03 said:
Hello. A week ago, I updated to IOS 15.6. Which kind of ruined the battery on the iPhone 11. Phone I've had for a year, 96% battery health, always charged properly, with original charger, taken care of, etc.

On the old version of IOS, i.e. 15.5, the battery easily lasted a day and a half, two. Now it barely lasts me a day and a bit.

I reset the phone, no backup, with everything installed from scratch, it's a little better, but not like before. And when I get to 25%, randomly, the battery drops to 23% without doing anything, then it drains normally, but I have some kind of lag on it. And I really don't understand why, because I've never experienced anything like this before. I called Apple Romania, they did diagnostic tests and everything is perfect in terms of parameters, sensors, battery, software...

The guys there told me to create some sort of battery routine, do you think that would help? I also calibrated it in the sense that I discharged it to zero and then charged it with it closed. I'm thinking maybe it's apps that aren't optimized for IOS 15.6 yet, but I have everything updated on it. I don't have location turned on, a lot of apps have the background process closed...

What experience do you have with the battery on this version of IOS?
Click to expand...
If you tried the reset thing, have your tried the restore from scratch thing?
You know, the manual flashing of ipsw file using iTunes (Windows in my case).
 
I don't know, I'm actually going through all the scenarios in my head, I'm thinking that maybe not all the files have been reindexed, maybe there are still apps that aren't suitable for IOS 15.6 yet and I have to wait until next week for things to work out when new updates will appear.

Or maybe a new software update to fix the problem.....thinking...
 
Last edited:
The battery life on my 12 mini has actually improved after updating to 15.6.

Try checking your battery stats in Settings to see what drains it the most?
 
I'm just referring to it in general, that I find it downloads faster.

one more said:
The battery life on my 12 mini has actually improved after updating to 15.6.

Try checking your battery stats in Settings to see what drains it the most?
Click to expand...
But the worst thing that frustrates me is that when it gets to around 23% it starts to lag. More strange animations, I don't know how to describe the phenomenon.

When I'm around 23% and spotify has some weird bugs, kind of a mini freeze, but the song is playing, something like under 1 second. But only around that value or below it.
 

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It frustrates me that until this update I had no problem at all.

The only problem with the battery was on IOS 15.1, but it was fixed after that. Then my percentages would just drop like crazy or get stuck.
 
Jack Neill said:
My XS took a massive battery hit after 15.6. I hit a Forced Reset and since then has worked fine.
Click to expand...
I did that now too. I have never done such a force restart, I searched on google and now I am waiting to see if anything will change. Thank You!
 
aleeexz03 said:
I did that now too. I have never done such a force restart, I searched on google and now I am waiting to see if anything will change. Thank You!
Click to expand...
Its worth a shot, the day after I did 15.6 my battery was dead in 4 hours with 3 min of screen on time. Something was clearly wrong. I would also suggest a clean restore in Finder or iTunes if that doesn't help.
 
Coincidence does not equal causality… my iPhone 11 is now down to 85% health, so I am expecting to need to replace the battery soon if I don’t replace the phone, so we are probably close to the same usage/wear and tear. What you’re experiencing jives with my personal experience of the battery of an iPhone just finally hitting that point of no return, and when it goes south, it really goes south. Either replace the phone or replace the battery.
 
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AJACs3 said:
Coincidence does not equal causality… my iPhone 11 is now down to 85% health, so I am expecting to need to replace the battery soon if I don’t replace the phone, so we are probably close to the same usage/wear and tear. What you’re experiencing jives with my personal experience of the battery of an iPhone just finally hitting that point of no return, and when it goes south, it really goes south. Either replace the phone or replace the battery.
Click to expand...
After the update and my battery life was trash, I thought the same thing. I am thankful it stabilized and went back to normal I am hoping to hold out for a 14 by Nov when they become available. I have gotten my moneys worth out this XS I think tho.

Screen Shot 2022-07-30 at 12.27.39 PM.png
 
pinkkie said:
They are releasing new hardware in a few weeks, what did you expect, that they make your current phone better?
Click to expand...

Hmm. I don't buy the whole "Apple making old devices run poor to drive sales of new devices" thing.
 
Helmsley said:
Hmm. I don't buy the whole "Apple making old devices run poor to drive sales of new devices" thing.
Click to expand...

Agree. It's more "what compelling features do we need to add to this years iPhone so that everyone will upgrade?" Its a carrot not a stick.
 
Did anyone notice the OP’s top app is FaceTime? Video-conferencing tends to be the biggest battery-burner for me.

15.6 runs fine on my 3yo XR and still consumes ~6-7%/hour SoT which has been a long-term average for me. That said, I mostly use wifi and am a battery/efficiency hobbyist running an automated custom optimization.
 
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laszlo182 said:
had 99% battery health on 13 Pro for 9 months. few days after updating to 15.6 i’m at 95%
Click to expand...
Perfectly normal bud. iOS will recheck the battery health after an update. It does not usually check the physical health in-between updates. It just displays the data that was relevant the last time it was checked.
 
aleeexz03 said:
Hello. A week ago, I updated to IOS 15.6. Which kind of ruined the battery on the iPhone 11. Phone I've had for a year, 96% battery health, always charged properly, with original charger, taken care of, etc.

On the old version of IOS, i.e. 15.5, the battery easily lasted a day and a half, two. Now it barely lasts me a day and a bit.

I reset the phone, no backup, with everything installed from scratch, it's a little better, but not like before. And when I get to 25%, randomly, the battery drops to 23% without doing anything, then it drains normally, but I have some kind of lag on it. And I really don't understand why, because I've never experienced anything like this before. I called Apple Romania, they did diagnostic tests and everything is perfect in terms of parameters, sensors, battery, software...

The guys there told me to create some sort of battery routine, do you think that would help? I also calibrated it in the sense that I discharged it to zero and then charged it with it closed. I'm thinking maybe it's apps that aren't optimized for IOS 15.6 yet, but I have everything updated on it. I don't have location turned on, a lot of apps have the background process closed...

What experience do you have with the battery on this version of IOS?
Click to expand...
Horrible. Battery health is good and used to last me a whole day and more. Now, it is 50% drained in 30 minutes. And 15 minutes later down to 1%. And when I check, it says the battery was used by apps that were not even opened (Instagram, Photos, Camera...etc). Background refresh is off. No apps were in use. Wifi and bluetooth were both off. So angry with these half baked updates.
 
knivi said:
Horrible. Battery health is good and used to last me a whole day and more. Now, it is 50% drained in 30 minutes. And 15 minutes later down to 1%. And when I check, it says the battery was used by apps that were not even opened (Instagram, Photos, Camera...etc). Background refresh is off. No apps were in use. Wifi and bluetooth were both off. So angry with these half baked updates.
Click to expand...
Have you tried a forced restart? Sounds like something rogue was running and draining the battery.

On a side note, I have seen plenty of apps still using background activity, despite having the option for that disabled. Hard to say if apps are able to break around that feature, or a bug but definitely having a drain that bad is normal. I would suspect a rogue 3rd party app to be honest. They are not as common as the good ol days but still do happen.
 
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