iOS 18 Battery Life Thread

[TexasAggie013]

Those with bad battery do you have background app refresh turned on?

On my phone I have only left a handful of apps with background refresh enabled.


I did try disabling background app refresh for everything for a day whole 24 hour period. There wasn’t enough of a difference between the two setups to make me feel like I had found the root cause.

It’s times like these I wish I could see what processes were running on my phone.

 

[huanbrother]

Sharing my experience.
The 16 Pro has horrible standby battery life when sleeping (it is not connected to my Apple Watch), and as you can see from the graph, it runs background activities like crazy. But, guess what, I turned off AOD(but this shouldn’t be the case when in sleep mode it was off anyways) and turned on frame limit in accessibility (not low power mode) to turn off ProMotion, boom, the background craze disappeared! However, the battery drain wasn’t fixed, 4hours and 20minutes it drained 11%, from 70% to 59%.

Definitely something’s off with the Pro.

 

[DeadKlau5]

iPhone 16 Pro Max
iOS 18.0.1

Web= X (Twitter)

 

[kirbysmartsdawg]

Sharing my experience.
The 16 Pro has horrible standby battery life when sleeping (it is not connected to my Apple Watch), and as you can see from the graph, it runs background activities like crazy. But, guess what, I turned off AOD(but this shouldn’t be the case when in sleep mode it was off anyways) and turned on frame limit in accessibility (not low power mode) to turn off ProMotion, boom, the background craze disappeared! However, the battery drain wasn’t fixed, 4hours and 20minutes it drained 11%, from 70% to 59%.

Definitely something’s off with the Pro.

Yes I agree. My 16pro can be in my pocket for 5 minutes (no AOD running, and turned off background refresh) and I lose 2% battery. This happens constantly throughout the day. Something is definitely up with the new pros.

 

[MarcusCarpenter]

18.0.1 has really good battery (15PM 99% 210 cycles) and is better than iOS 17
18.0 wasn’t so good initially, improved after indexing and while apps were updated to support iOS 18

 

[vince085]

Yes I agree. My 16pro can be in my pocket for 5 minutes (no AOD running, and turned off background refresh) and I lose 2% battery. This happens constantly throughout the day. Something is definitely up with the new pros.

Same thing here, draining like crazy while in standby (16 PM). If I use it it drains less battery. Something is up... Also same problem with the 15 PM.

 

[kristof461]

Yes I agree. My 16pro can be in my pocket for 5 minutes (no AOD running, and turned off background refresh) and I lose 2% battery. This happens constantly throughout the day. Something is definitely up with the new pros.

Same story with 15 Pro. I thing it is new iOS system (also iOS 17) and some background activities from apple services or third party apps (I am driving Tesla and when I get to the car iPhone loses 3-4% just like that. Same with 15Pro. What's concerning that Tesla App is so low on the battery consumption list which is IMO inaccurate)

Same thing here, draining like crazy while in standby (16 PM). If I use it it drains less battery. Something is up... Also same problem with the 15 PM.

Exactly. I've been saying it all the time last year. Idle vs using drains the same amount of battery or close %. What does it mean? It means what Ive wrote above. Something is draining our phones and we dont know what it is. Beside we have to remember that every time we unlock our phones it uses location services. Arrow icon disappears after a while but if you lock and unlock the phone it is again on top of the screen. I am not sure if it works the same with notifications on locked screen. Anyway checking or I should say unlocking our phones without a reason drains them.

 

[Populus]

Well, soon enough I’ll do the test myself, and I’ll be able to compare and report (with my workflow) how iOS/iPadOS 18.0.1 behaves compared to 17.6.1 on both, my iPhone SE 3 and my M2 11” iPad Pro.

Hopefully Apple won’t close the door to 17.7 this week, but I’m willing to take the risk.

 

[kristof461]

Check this. Sure I lose 7-8% during night. So from 6:30 to 11:30 we have 5h idle plus 20 minutes SOT. Is 10% lost is normal? Yes and no. To me it is more concerning than last year because battery in 16 Pro is a big bigger than 15 Pro and new phones has better cooling system. I don't know. I know it is just a phone which can be charger soooo quickly that I can't even notice that. Anyway I think that any kind of phone should be able to give us full day from 6 am to 11 pm without charging. Especially if you dont use it too much.
P.S. I am not sure why there is no battery chart before noon. No idea. I didnt reset it. I updated iPhone on Saturday.
Edit. I get by home. Really good WiFi connection full cellular service. I had 63%. I made two quick phone calls and browsing safari for 15 minutes. 3% lost. I mean…how why.
I am not heavy user and still i am using 75-80% every single day. I remember when I could use maps navigation and still had enough battery in the past. Impossible nowadays

 

[yeahtyeaht]

16 PM with iOS 18.0.1

Had 5 hours screen time and 51% left when I went to bed yesterday. Battery life is phenomenal.

 

[kirbysmartsdawg]

Same thing here, draining like crazy while in standby (16 PM). If I use it it drains less battery. Something is up... Also same problem with the 15 PM.

Yes, using the phone drains less battery. That is wild to me. I have never seen this before. I am worried this will never be fixed.

 

[Adeling]

Yes, using the phone drains less battery. That is wild to me. I have never seen this before. I am worried this will never be fixed.

When you say "using", what happens when you set the screen not to lock? I have mine set to not time-out, and so I don't know if I am a good test-case, but my phone's battery doesn't seem particularly different from before and after...

 

[kirbysmartsdawg]

When you say "using", what happens when you set the screen not to lock? I have mine set to not time-out, and so I don't know if I am a good test-case, but my phone's battery doesn't seem particularly different from before and after...

So I lock my phone right after I am done using it. So it goes to idle right away.

 

[ManuCH]

Sharing my experience.
The 16 Pro has horrible standby battery life when sleeping (it is not connected to my Apple Watch), and as you can see from the graph, it runs background activities like crazy. But, guess what, I turned off AOD(but this shouldn’t be the case when in sleep mode it was off anyways) and turned on frame limit in accessibility (not low power mode) to turn off ProMotion, boom, the background craze disappeared! However, the battery drain wasn’t fixed, 4hours and 20minutes it drained 11%, from 70% to 59%.

Definitely something’s off with the Pro.

What's the app using so much background activity, if you scroll down? I'd look into that first, that graph is not normal.

 

[Robeckhard]

What's the app using so much background activity, if you scroll down? I'd look into that first, that graph is not normal.

I had 5G Standalone turned on by default which was odd. Just turned it off and saw better battery performance. Something to check.

 

[Stiille]

Mobile connection consumes much more battery than staying in WiFi mode.
Especially 5G is battery demanding !

 

[huanbrother]

It seems the new 18.1 beta 6 have significantly improved overnight standby for the 16 Pro.

 

[jazzzyJeff]

It seems the new 18.1 beta 6 have significantly improved overnight standby for the 16 Pro.

You charged it to 100% before unplugging it. Observe idle drain after it drops a few percentage for a better read.

 

[huanbrother]

You charged it to 100% before unplugging it. Observe idle drain after it drops a few percentage for a better read.

I have been using it for 2 weeks and I am confident to tell you on beta 5 it will drain over 10% in 5 hours after unplugging.

 

[jazzzyJeff]

I have been using it for 2 weeks and I am confident to tell you on beta 5 it will drain over 10% in 5 hours after unplugging.

B5 has been bad for idle drain but leave it while at 95% or lower to see by how much it actually did.
iPhones stay at 100% much longer than at any other level.

 

[JoeShades]

Is it true that is is a good idea to drain the battery down to zero once in awhile?

 

[kristof461]

Is it true that is is a good idea to drain the battery down to zero once in awhile?

No but maybe. First thing first. You don't need to calibrate your battery like in old Nokia phones. But from my experience sometimes it is good to go down with % because of software. With 80% limit charging your phone needs to charge time to time to 100%. Just because of software. Why shouldn't be the same with other way.

 

[James6s]

15PM first full day on 18.1 public beta 3. Not too bad.

 

[JulianL]

I’m getting horrible battery life with my new 16 Pro Max. I upgraded from a 15 Pro Max - upgraded to iOS 18 and with battery health of 99% when I sold it. With Apple quoting better battery life spec for the 16 I was excited to see how much more run time I would get. The answer? I now get 50 to 60% of time between charges vs what I got with my 1 year old 15 Pro Max. Really disappointing. All Settings the same including background refresh globally disabled, screen max refresh set to 60Hz and data locked to 4G (because for my use I see absolutely no difference in how my phone functions when I set all those settings so I might as well set them for optimal battery life). I got my 16PM on launch day so it’s 19 days old now; any early days indexing and other background setup stuff should be well and truly over by now.

 

[huanbrother]

I’m getting horrible battery life with my new 16 Pro Max. I upgraded from a 15 Pro Max - upgraded to iOS 18 and with battery health of 99% when I sold it. With Apple quoting better battery life spec for the 16 I was excited to see how much more run time I would get. The answer? I now get 50 to 60% of time between charges vs what I got with my 1 year old 15 Pro Max. Really disappointing. All Settings the same including background refresh globally disabled, screen max refresh set to 60Hz and data locked to 4G (because for my use I see absolutely no difference in how my phone functions when I set all those settings so I might as well set them for optimal battery life). I got my 16PM on launch day so it’s 19 days old now; any early days indexing and other background setup stuff should be well and truly over by now.

Try the 18.1 beta 6 (developer, 3 for public) which significantly improves standby battery life for the 16 series.

Update,

Observation: It appears that turning ProMotion on or off remains a significant factor in maintaining optimal battery usage during intermittent use and overnight standby.