iOS 17 | Battery Life & Health

[FeliApple]

I actually think the youtubers getting 12h screen time do so in a row. Carrying your iPhone around all day, switching cell towers, the screen powering on in daylight going to max brightness, all that stuff uses way more battery than we think.

If you one of those "youtuber tests" in your home, the iPhone sitting on a desk, on wifi, you will also get 12 hours. That's just not a realistic use case.

Considering that standby time has worsened on iPhones since iOS 12, this is very likely. Updates have nothing to do with this aspect, either: my iPhone Xʀ on iOS 12 is significantly worse on standby than my iPhone 6s on iOS 10. Sadly, there’s a significant screen-on time difference now if you go 100-50% in one day or if you need two days to get to 50%. Perhaps today it sounds a little odd, but back when iOS 9 was the latest, the iPhone 6s wouldn’t differ too much.

You don’t even need cellular and notifications! The phone sitting on Wi-Fi with good signal is already far worse. This started on iOS 12 and was never fixed.

 

[krvld]

Considering that standby time has worsened on iPhones since iOS 12, this is very likely. Updates have nothing to do with this aspect, either: my iPhone Xʀ on iOS 12 is significantly worse on standby than my iPhone 6s on iOS 10. Sadly, there’s a significant screen-on time difference now if you go 100-50% in one day or if you need two days to get to 50%. Perhaps today it sounds a little odd, but back when iOS 9 was the latest, the iPhone 6s wouldn’t differ too much.

You don’t even need cellular and notifications! The phone sitting on Wi-Fi with good signal is already far worse. This started on iOS 12 and was never fixed.

Yeap, older iPhones used to be perfectly good for the day both on Cellular and WiFi. People forgot how things were because these days an older iPhone means it needs to be charged 3 times per day.

I love reading older reviews from AnandTech. Just one example.

 

[FeliApple]

Yeap, older iPhones used to be perfectly good for the day both on Cellular and WiFi. People forgot how things were because these days an older iPhone means it needs to be charged 3 times per day.

I love reading older reviews from AnandTech. Just one example.

Yeah, that is a little annoying, people describe the iPhone 6s as having garbage battery life today, both screen-on and standby, and that’s not true. While it isn’t the best, with light to moderate usage the iPhone 6s can give 6-7 hours of screen-on time without many issues, and standby time is excellent. If you’re on iOS 9 or 10, that is. It’s not the phone’s fault that Apple obliterated it starting on iOS 13. I have a 6s on iOS 10, like I said, and I’ve used it extensively. It’s a full day phone with moderate usage without any problems, even today, over 7 years after purchase with the original battery.

 

[snsking]

So I "erased all content and settings" after upgrading to 17.1. I am seeing a massive improvement in battery compared to 17.0.3. I restored from my iCloud backup. I suggest anyone who is having battery issues to erase and restore from iCloud. Once indexing finishes in a few days, I presume it'll be much better too.

 

[Blue Hawk]

So I "erased all content and settings" after upgrading to 17.1. I am seeing a massive improvement in battery compared to 17.0.3. I restored from my iCloud backup. I suggest anyone who is having battery issues to erase and restore from iCloud. Once indexing finishes in a few days, I presume it'll be much better too.

Do I still have to set up banking apps again? Or should I try it from an encrypted Mac backup?

 

[fred5]

To make sure I understand right:


1) you updated your latest iCloud backup
2) selected erase all content and settings
3) set the phone up again with your latest iCloud backup via WiFi
4) done

And this fixed your battery?

Yes. Got much better battery life after that.

 

[thadoggfather]

Is it worth updating my 14 pro max from 16.1 to 17.1 or would you all still wait?

 

[snsking]

Do I still have to set up banking apps again? Or should I try it from an encrypted Mac backup?

At most, you have to set up FaceID again. The only time consuming part is activating all the cards in your Apple Wallet again. Other than that, you just set it aside while it downloads your apps+data from iCloud. Then you just go into the apps and log back in to enable FaceID login again. Shouldn't take you more than 30m or so after everything has downloaded.

Current battery stats:
Last charged to 100% 52m ago, 51m screen on time, 100%.

 

[DaveXX]

I have much better battery life since the update to 17.1 without resetting.

 

[ade555]

Well in my case battery life is a joke, again out and about 89min on screen and down to 52% 🙄, is beyond a joke with this ios 17, I'm a big fun of apple but need a phone that will last bit longer, and is not the phones is the software

 

[Steve121178]

I finally upgraded to iOS 17 this week when 17.1 dropped and the battery life on my 13 Pro is horrible. Severe drain and no real explanation for it.

Might give it a hard reset and reinstall everything from scratch as a last resort as this is completely unacceptable.

 

[BigDO]

I finally upgraded to iOS 17 this week when 17.1 dropped and the battery life on my 13 Pro is horrible. Severe drain and no real explanation for it.

Might give it a hard reset and reinstall everything from scratch as a last resort as this is completely unacceptable.

Definitely DFU restore and reinstall (doesn’t need to be from scratch, I used an iCloud backup). It made a huge difference and brought it to being almost on par with 16.x.

 

[FeliApple]

Well in my case battery life is a joke, again out and about 89min on screen and down to 52% 🙄, is beyond a joke with this ios 17, I'm a big fun of apple but need a phone that will last bit longer, and is not the phones is the software

Wow, that’s ridiculous, which iPhone is it?

 

[ade555]

Wow, that’s ridiculous, which iPhone is it?

Iphone 12, you can see in previous post on here I already experianced battery drop moving to ios 17 but had high hopes when 17.1 come out, I hope is just phone doing index or something as is only been 24h since update. Will give couple more days but can't see improving that much.

 

[Tomas1988]

Well in my case battery life is a joke, again out and about 89min on screen and down to 52% 🙄, is beyond a joke with this ios 17, I'm a big fun of apple but need a phone that will last bit longer, and is not the phones is the software

Try resset your phone but in my opinion its software bug

 

[FeliApple]

Iphone 12, you can see in previous post on here I already experianced battery drop moving to ios 17 but had high hopes when 17.1 come out, I hope is just phone doing index or something as is only been 24h since update. Will give couple more days but can't see improving that much.

The indexing aspect is disputed, but even if it improves, it won’t go back to 8-9 hours. Wow. That’s extremely poor. I’d try restoring.

 

[ade555]

Try resset your phone but in my opinion its software bug

Been honest I have the same view, it was bad under 17.0.3 but now is even worse. I hope one day they will sort this out as phone just becomes unusable. I was thinking it can't get any worse but I was wrong.

 

[ade555]

The indexing aspect is disputed, but even if it improves, it won’t go back to 8-9 hours. Wow. That’s extremely poor. I’d try restoring.

Don't get me wrong I'm not under illusion this is down to phone indexing ect., 17.1 is worse then 17.0.3 was.
I might have to reset it but in all honesty I don't think this will solve the problem.

 

[FeliApple]

Don't get me wrong I'm not under illusion this is down to phone indexing ect., 17.1 is worse then 17.0.3 was.
I might have to reset it but in all honesty I don't think this will solve the problem.

Yeah, it’s way too poor to be that. It also seems way too poor to be iOS 17, updates obliterate battery life but... like that? That’s unusable.

 

[prefuse07]

Yeah, 17.1 has worse battery life than 17.0.3 did -- pretty disappointed at this...

Hopefully they fix it with 17.2... hopefully. If they can at least bring it back to 17.0.3 levels, i'll be happy.

 

[ManuCH]

It's funny because on my 15PM iOS 17.1 definitely has better battery life than 17.0.3. Only gut feeling so far, no exact measurements, but I do feel a difference.

 

[Ron3945]

IPhone 15PM 17.1 final: 20% down since updating from 17.03 since last night (24 hours) with normal use. I am quite happy with that.

 

[deep1]

1st day with 17.1 final and seeing much better life than RC on 15 PM. 🤞Stays like this.

 

[Chrisjmv]

here on 17.1 Final with 15PM, battery life is not that great. Most time (90%) WiFi only around 7-8 hours screen one time…
I think it’s time to reset it via DFU and restore without an iCloud backup? (I did fresh install when I got my 15PM without iCloud backup)

So far I’m disappointed with the 15PM battery compared to my 14PM.
I also noticed battery indicator sometimes drops in 2% steps. Like from 44 to 42% or from 16% to 14%…



And this was a full day with max 25-50% display brightness…

 

[tzxsean]

17.1 RC1 & RC2 work great for me in terms of battery life

Final 17.1 absolutely suck!

I wonder what Apple tweaked before they release the final version