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Anyone facing battery drain after upgrading to iOS16 has nothing to lose
by giving DFU Reset a shot. I, too, was sceptical but desperate.

Im on iPhone X, 15 month old battery, was on iOS12 prior. Forced to update
to 16.2, to accommodate the Fitbit app... and that's when the battery drain started.
Would fall from 100% to 94% in first 5 minutes of using it in the morning
after unplugging from charger. Then down to 84% or so 10 minutes later.
Biggest battery hog seemed to be safari.

I am very reluctant to upgrade my iOS and OS in general. My laptop is still
on Mojave and I have no problems. Used a colleagues laptop with Ventura
and the entire DFU reset took no more than about 30 minutes in all.

Post DFU reset I was on 88%. After 5hrs plus of use with safari and watching some short
film clips, the battery is on 41%. Whatever DFU accomplished, it seems significant.
The phone feels more responsive (maybe its just bias).

This feels like a marked improvement to me.

Anyway, there is NO WAY I am upgrading this phone any further. 16.4 is the end of the road.
Wow, that’s a pretty interesting - and uncommon - jump. Do you have a screenshot from 100%?
 
After a bit more time with 16.4 on my iPhone 14 Pro I came to the (personal) conclusion, that battery life is not generally bad, it’s just INCONSISTENT.

One day I use 75% of my battery and get about 5 hrs SOT, the other the I use the same amount of battery and get 7 1/2 hrs SOT (see screenshots attached).

Mail seems to be one of the reasons. For the last days, it’s running in the background A LOT. However, background app refresh is disabled and I closed the mail application…

If the battery life would be generally bad I could at least rely on my iPhone not performing that well, but this mess is just unacceptable and leaves me clueless.
Same here.
But I found out that mail is only active when charging the phone in background.

Battery life here on my iPhone 14 pro Max is very inconsistent.

Some Days it’s amazing and some it’s burning battery like hell and I didn’t change that much.

Using Wifi Call and most time at home mobile settings disabled.

iOS 16.4 sucks (for me)
 
A little better. I tried to use the phone as much as I did between Sunday morning and Monday morning over the 24 hour period between Wednesday morning and Thursday morning.

I got 59% this morning vs 40% on Monday morning, and with a little more on screen time.

I wonder how much of the improvement had to do with the settings changes and how much was from switching to dark mode.
I’m hoping 16.4.1 fixes the battery issue.. but I’m not turning off location services or system services because I like to use the phone as what it offers and see how the battery holds up. I didn’t have to turn off much of anything on iOS 15. It was still good until when iOS 16 first came out. It got worse staring 16.2 I think.
 
I updated my 13 Pro from 15.7.1 to 16.4 and now to 16.4.1.
The day I pressed Update it went from 90% B Health to 89%. I guess it had to recalibrate.
I factory reset it a few times, ones because of the lock screen, I didn't understand why is so glitchy (later realised that is the way iOS works now), another factory reset was to set it up as new, that didn't fix it so I factory reset it again and restored from iCloud backup. Checked the Battery graph and noticed the Mail app was working in the background and I decided to make another factory reset because I didn't know any other way to fix it. After this reset it seems to be fine. I just don't understand why I have so much screen off time. But i'm not gonna reset it again any time soon. Time consuming and i'm tired of it.
Anyway. Pretty happy with SOT with 89% health 😎
 

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Aug ‘19 XR w/92% batt health, updated from 15.6.1 to 16.4 last Monday(?). Feels like I took 5-10% efficiency hit on iOS16.

FWIW, I’m a battery hobbyist that runs an automated (smartplug/shortcut) custom charge optimization, and have an abnormally efficient usage pattern (apps, wifi, settings).

52805846696_241f610b78_o.png
 
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Well, I couldn't take it anymore. I'm trying a DFU reset to see if it helps at all. Getting only about 6 hours of SOT on a 14 Pro Max is just ridiculous when the 13 Pro Max and 14 Pro Max used to be some of the longest lasting phones you could get. I would expect 10-12 hours of screen-on time, not half that.

I've never been one to complain much, but I really loathe iOS 16.
 
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Mail app is still draining my battery 2hr 57m of background activity in last 24hrs.

I don’t even use the mail app!

Might try disabling this fetch/push switch in the mail app settings, someone mentioned that as a possible fix.
 
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Mail app is still draining my battery 2hr 57m of background activity in last 24hrs.

I don’t even use the mail app!

Might try disabling this fetch/push switch in the mail app settings, someone mentioned that as a possible fix.
I'd recommend giving it a hard reset, that seems to curve the weird mail background activity I get after every update.
 
I'd recommend giving it a hard reset, that seems to curve the weird mail background activity I get after every update.
I’m going to give it a few days see if it stops first. I’m sure it did when I updated to 16.4, and only started again when I updated to 16.4.1, so hoping it stops by itself.
 
For me Battery got better from 16.4 Beta 4 onwards. I only charge to 80%. Currently getting 9-10hr of screen time.
Great to hear that not everyone’s battery life is getting killed by 16.4.x. Maybe I’ll risk updating from 16.3.1 because your battery life looks really good. One thing that I don’t understand about your situation though. If you only charge to 80% how come you posted a screen shot showing your phone at 91%? Was that after a one-off full charge to 100% that you did to see how much life you could get off a completely full battery?
 
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Great to hear that not everyone’s battery life is getting killed by 16.4.x. Maybe I’ll risk updating from 16.3.1 because your battery life looks really good. One thing that I don’t understand about your situation though. If you only charge to 80% how come you posted a screen shot showing your phone at 91%? Was that after a one-off full charge to 100% that you did to see how much life you could get off a completely full battery?
I took it off at 91%. I usually use shortcut automation to switch off charging via smart plug but was using a different plug yesterday.
 
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I took it off at 91%. I usually use shortcut automation to switch off charging via smart plug but was using a different plug yesterday.
If I don't have a smart plug, my iPhone can't cut off the charge itself to 90% via a shortcut ?
 
Aug ‘19 XR w/92% batt health, updated from 15.6.1 to 16.4 last Monday(?). Feels like I took 5-10% efficiency hit on iOS16.

FWIW, I’m a battery hobbyist that runs an automated (smartplug/shortcut) custom charge optimization, and have an abnormally efficient usage pattern (apps, wifi, settings).

52805846696_241f610b78_o.png
Consider me surprised, once again. That looks to be around a ~15% drop from iOS 12.

Let me compare that to the data I have on previous devices:

-iPhone 6s, iOS 15: 40-50% drop (from iOS 9-10).
-iPhone 6s, iOS 13: 33% drop (again, from iOS 9-10).
-9.7-inch iPad Pro, iOS 12: 20-23% drop (from iOS 9).

-For data’s sake, iPhone 6s, 63% health, iOS 10: 5% drop after 7 years (solely due to battery health).

As you can see, the improvement is significant. If Apple manages to maintain that 15% drop for the Xʀ’s entire update lifespan, it will perhaps manage to be the first iPhone with great battery life through its entire existence. I think everything depends on that. There’s no benefit if iOS 17 makes it 30%. So far though? It looks good enough so as to consider the Xʀ a full day phone throughout its entire update lifespan (so far).

I am not willing to see whether I can match your numbers on iOS 16 though😂

For whatever’s worth, my Xʀ on iOS 12’s last charge, with 93% health, extrapolated to the same-old 16 hours, so it looks as good as ever.

Health-wise our phones seem to be similar, so it’ll be interesting to see how both evolve, comparatively speaking.

So far, I’d describe my result as completely logical (battery health too good to see any runtime loss on the original version of iOS), and your result as positively surprising: while I knew that the Xʀ was better than the 6s in terms of runtime longevity, it still seems good. While I wouldn’t call it negligible, a 15% loss in runtime considering the Xʀ’s numbers isn’t anything abhorrent. It would mean that on heavier LTE, I’d lose a little over 1.5 hours. Neither on light use nor on moderate to heavy use is that number enough to significantly degrade the Xʀ’s battery life capabilities (at least to me). Looks decent so far. Like I said, the important test is ahead, but the fact that it looks good at this point is a whole achievement for Apple.

Your numbers match what I have expected: as of iOS 16, the iPhone Xʀ onwards have seen a degradation, but a degradation which is far better than that shown by earlier devices, and a degradation which matters less than it used to, due to the Xʀ’s sheer battery life numbers. Progress. I like that.
 
Consider me surprised, once again. That looks to be around a ~15% drop from iOS 12.

Let me compare that to the data I have on previous devices:

-iPhone 6s, iOS 15: 40-50% drop (from iOS 9-10).
-iPhone 6s, iOS 13: 33% drop (again, from iOS 9-10).
-9.7-inch iPad Pro, iOS 12: 20-23% drop (from iOS 9).

-For data’s sake, iPhone 6s, 63% health, iOS 10: 5% drop after 7 years (solely due to battery health).

As you can see, the improvement is significant. If Apple manages to maintain that 15% drop for the Xʀ’s entire update lifespan, it will perhaps manage to be the first iPhone with great battery life through its entire existence. I think everything depends on that. There’s no benefit if iOS 17 makes it 30%. So far though? It looks good enough so as to consider the Xʀ a full day phone throughout its entire update lifespan (so far).

I am not willing to see whether I can match your numbers on iOS 16 though😂

For whatever’s worth, my Xʀ on iOS 12’s last charge, with 93% health, extrapolated to the same-old 16 hours, so it looks as good as ever.

Health-wise our phones seem to be similar, so it’ll be interesting to see how both evolve, comparatively speaking.

So far, I’d describe my result as completely logical (battery health too good to see any runtime loss on the original version of iOS), and your result as positively surprising: while I knew that the Xʀ was better than the 6s in terms of runtime longevity, it still seems good. While I wouldn’t call it negligible, a 15% loss in runtime considering the Xʀ’s numbers isn’t anything abhorrent. It would mean that on heavier LTE, I’d lose a little over 1.5 hours. Neither on light use nor on moderate to heavy use is that number enough to significantly degrade the Xʀ’s battery life capabilities (at least to me). Looks decent so far. Like I said, the important test is ahead, but the fact that it looks good at this point is a whole achievement for Apple.

Your numbers match what I have expected: as of iOS 16, the iPhone Xʀ onwards have seen a degradation, but a degradation which is far better than that shown by earlier devices, and a degradation which matters less than it used to, due to the Xʀ’s sheer battery life numbers. Progress. I like that.

I do feel like I took a hit from the 16 upgrade (didn’t notice a hit from iOS13-15), I had to bump my previous ~50% cycling automation (from 65-15 to 70-15) to get through the day comfortably. However, I don’t think you can say it’s all due iOS version - surely some loss is due to aging/cycling after 3.5yrs. I also understand my daily avg SOT is significantly heavier than yours (so perhaps my phone is just wearing faster), and I’d still like to a see a full rundown band test from your phone to verify your batt gauge is still linear and consistent through the entire 100-0 range, so as to be accurate for type of extrapolations we do. As you know, my batt gauge lost accuracy after 3yrs and needed recalibration.

But yeah, I still cringe every time I update the iOS, and the complaints/user batt graphs around iOS16 have been the worst of any roll-out I’ve seen. I remember when achieving over 50% Apple ‘upto’ spec was pretty normal, but now it’s rather exceptional. Overloaded and bloated OS… I guess that’s ‘progress’.
 
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I do feel like I took a hit from the 16 upgrade (didn’t notice a hit from iOS13-15), I had to bump my previous ~50% cycling automation (from 65-15 to 70-15) to get through the day comfortably. However, I don’t think you can say it’s all due iOS version - surely some loss is due to aging/cycling after 3.5yrs. I also understand my daily avg SOT is significantly heavier than yours (so perhaps my phone is just wearing faster), and I’d still like to a see a full rundown band test from your phone to verify your batt gauge is still linear and consistent through the entire 100-0 range, so as to be accurate for type of extrapolations we do. As you know, my batt gauge lost accuracy after 3yrs and needed recalibration.
In my experience, battery health is irrelevant if the device isn’t updated. Which is why I’d be interested in seeing your results as battery health decreases, should you stay on the same iOS version at some point. If there’s one person that can maximise the worst combo for battery life (updated and not-great battery health), I think it’s you.

I’d have to test that, it’s a little difficult for me. I don’t use it that much, and in order for the test to be useful, I have to keep standby time to a minimum. Not easy for me.
But yeah, I still cringe every time I update the iOS, and the complaints/user batt graphs around iOS16 have been the worst of any roll-out I’ve seen. I remember when achieving over 50% Apple ‘upto’ spec was pretty normal, but now it’s rather exceptional. Overloaded and bloated OS… I guess that’s ‘progress’.
Agreed, yet compared to the 6s I’ve tried (also four major versions in), it’s far better, that’s why I called it progress. It isn’t perfect yet, and like I said, it’s not the end of the road thus far, but this? I’m happy with this.

In spite of my confidence in my ability - like you - to extract as much battery life as possible, I’m way too scared to try iOS 16. I don’t have another updated Xʀ to try (or even another A12 Bionic iPhone), but it would surely be interesting.

I tried it twice (on a 6s on iOS 13, and on my 9.7-inch iPad Pro on iOS 12), and I failed miserably. Yes, A12 Bionic > A9 and A9X, but it’s too much of a risk for me.

Also, the “general public’s” results are way worse than yours. They scrape 7 hours, if that. They were at around 10 if I recall correctly on iOS 12, so my theory (which I think I have mentioned to you), is that you manage (I reckon through sheer settings efficiency) to extract as much efficiency as possible from a less-efficient version.
These numbers aren’t perfect, and they’re a little bit in the air, obviously, but you’re maybe twice as good at efficiency when compared to the general public. Pretty cool.

I am more efficient than the general public too, but I’m on the original version of iOS, which, when assessing my results alongside yours, feels a bit like cheating 😂
 
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Well, I couldn't take it anymore. I'm trying a DFU reset to see if it helps at all. Getting only about 6 hours of SOT on a 14 Pro Max is just ridiculous when the 13 Pro Max and 14 Pro Max used to be some of the longest lasting phones you could get. I would expect 10-12 hours of screen-on time, not half that.

I've never been one to complain much, but I really loathe iOS 16.
Did it helped?
 
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