iOS 18 Battery Life Thread

[lleial]

To provide a comparison point, I recently sold my iPhone 16 pro as I was frustrated with battery. Found myself ending a normal day with around 35% battery left, with moderate usage (e.g. 3.5 hours usage). A lot of days I’d burn through 50% battery with just 2 hours of usage. This was surprising at it was worse than prior iOS versions and iPhones. I still remember by iPhone 11 Pro getting like 8 hours of usage across a full day and have 25% in the tank to spare at bedtime.

So now I’m currently using a Pixel 9. With my same usage patterns, things are way better. I will charge to 100% overnight. I take the phone off the charger at 6am and go through a full day and end with 60% battery left. This is with arguably more usage than my iPhone, since it’s a newer device. I don’t even bother to charge overnight half the time. Then I’m around 40% battery life mid-way through the next day.

I really really hope Apple figures out a fix, but my worry is that iOS 18 has a ton of local AI stuff running that constantly hits battery life. I don’t believe in turning off core functionality (e.g. AI, widgets, location settings) to save battery. It’s 2025 - no excuses at this point. Apple either needs to find improvements or increase battery size in phones.

You make a very valid point with the AI fiasco running in the background. However, what about those of us that live in the EU? We don't have access to those features, and in my case, with the IP14pro, it's not even available.

My battery was way better on iOS 17 and I agree that it's a complete mess on iOS 18.

It def. feels like they rushed this whole Apple Intelligence thing and it lacks polishing.

There are so many glitches in the OS which, frankly, isn't Apple at all.

 

[lindros2]

To provide a comparison point, I recently sold my iPhone 16 pro as I was frustrated with battery. Found myself ending a normal day with around 35% battery left, with moderate usage (e.g. 3.5 hours usage). A lot of days I’d burn through 50% battery with just 2 hours of usage. This was surprising at it was worse than prior iOS versions and iPhones. I still remember by iPhone 11 Pro getting like 8 hours of usage across a full day and have 25% in the tank to spare at bedtime.

Agree.
I've turned AInonsense off, but my iPhone 15 Pro Max battery is okay; it's just worse than my 11 Pro Max...
... which itself was worse than my 8 Plus...

 

[lindros2]

18.3 causing heating up of my 16 Pro when charging. This with the original 5W charger. I never experienced this with earlier versions of iOS 18. I'm also noticing battery drain while on Mobile Data

18.2 / 18.2.1 rock solid battery life.

They're just gifting you the issues older models had with earlier iOS 18.x.

Now 18.2/18.3 isn't heating up, but 18.2 battery life (18.2.1) might as well have been a iPhone Mini.

 

[Reverend Benny]

Having used my 13 pro for a while now I do feel its similar or may be consuming a little bit more battery than 18.2.1
Its hard to do proper a comparison since usage pattern varies from day to day (connectivity, attached peripherals, travel patterns). Might be that I am using cellular a bit more and have more BT devices connected.

The 14 and other test devices (13 and 14) that are more stationary and has the same usage pattern has the same battery performance as always.

 

[lindros2]

18.3 (across all betas) appears better than 18.1 and *especially 18.2 for me.
15 Pro Max, 92% of life remaining.

 

[Ctrlos]

Perhaps somebody can enlighten me to this one. I have a 12 Pro Max on 100% battery health (!). I bought it in mint condition some weeks back and assume it has never been used. There isn't a dink or knock anywhere on the chassis.

I know the 12 line never had the best batteries to start with but I expected an effectively-new device to have better battery. At first Finbd My was killing it in the background so I shut that down and erased the app. Games and things just seem to hoover it up though with 5-10 minutes of a 3D game like Flower killing 5% of the battery.

 

[UpsideDownEclair]

I’m in love with a slab of glass… Echoing some of the past few posts, thermal performance + battery life/efficiency on 18.3 have been almost stellar for me, even more so than on 18.2!

Not to say the phone doesn’t get warm, which it still does on occasion; it just consistently gets less warm than any other recent phone I’ve used.

Also have yet to even notice any throttling, even while shooting in HEIF Max out in the sun (and in turn having the screen do up to the quoted 2,000 nits). Nice.

 

[ATmahe]

I have about the same curve on my 15Pro, but only 1.5 SOT 🤣 (16h unplugged, on WiFi)

 

[Mistletoe66]

I have about the same curve on my 15Pro, but only 1.5 SOT 🤣 (16h unplugged, on WiFi)
View attachment 2478804

I can confirm, this battery life is ****. What the heck are you using the phone for ?

 

[ATmahe]

I can confirm, this battery life is ****. What the heck are you using the phone for ?

with 1.5h screen on time during 18h ... I'm basically not using it ... it's face down on the desk most of the time.
Just listening to downloaded music/podcasts, most of the time on WiFi, maybe 1h teams call, checking finances ...

 

[2761216]

I have about the same curve on my 15Pro, but only 1.5 SOT 🤣 (16h unplugged, on WiFi)
View attachment 2478804

Some process is definitely stuck in the background. Force restart and see if it helps.

 

[lleial]

I’m in love with a slab of glass… Echoing some of the past few posts, thermal performance + battery life/efficiency on 18.3 have been almost stellar for me, even more so than on 18.2!

Not to say the phone doesn’t get warm, which it still does on occasion; it just consistently gets less warm than any other recent phone I’ve used.

Also have yet to even notice any throttling, even while shooting in HEIF Max out in the sun (and in turn having the screen do up to the quoted 2,000 nits). Nice.

I'm on the fence with just trading in the iP14Pro and getting the 16 Pro Max.

Is it really this good? I'm blown away by your stats. I couldn't even dream of such performance.

Could you also show duration and not just %.

Thanks,

 

[airtonvfilho]

Hi

After further investigation, I have noticed that battery performance is much better when charge limit is not active.

Here are some results on my iPhone 15 Pro:

MONDAY: 4.5h screen time / 70% battery consumed ➡️ Charge limit INACTIVE
TUESDAY: 2.2h screen time / 70% battery consumed ➡️ Charge limit ACTIVE

This is just an example, but I have been observing the same results on previous weeks, although it was more difficult to compare since I was in roaming.

Can anyone check if this makes sense to you?

Best Regards

I have that same impression

Have you done any other tests that demonstrate this?

 

[ATmahe]

Some process is definitely stuck in the background. Force restart and see if it helps.

up, down, hold power button
done several times, sadly it doesn't make a difference.

If it's a stuck process, then it must be from an app I'm using daily.
I'll attach screenshots from Monday.

 

[2761216]

up, down, hold power button
done several times, sadly it doesn't make a difference.

If it's a stuck process, then it must be from an app I'm using daily.
I'll attach screenshots from Monday.

You could try reinstalling the iOS using an IPSW. If that doesn’t work after a couple days then the next option would be resetting all settings. You’d have to reconnect to all WiFi networks but it’s worth a try.

 

[metsi]

It took a while for it to index after the update, but now it's pretty good!
For the last few days I used 50% of battery and got more than 4 hours of use each day. Yesterday was especially good with 5,5 hours and only like 53% used. I'm still confused by Home & Lock Screen use, it's consistently high, but I don't see it actually draining the battery.

It's a 14 pro. Settings say it has 90% battery health, but analytics shortcuts say 85%. I got it 2 years ago.

 

[tor_2]

I have that same impression

Have you done any other tests that demonstrate this?

Not really. The tests I presented on the previous post was the conclusion.

I have tried a lot of things such as disabling Find My, location,… and the only action with an impact in the SOT was disable charge limit. I re-enabled it as I do not require more than 3-h SOT in my daily basis, but…

The other step I took was replacing the Apple mail app by Outlook.

 

[ATmahe]

You could try reinstalling the iOS using an IPSW. If that doesn’t work after a couple days then the next option would be resetting all settings. You’d have to reconnect to all WiFi networks but it’s worth a try.

Making all new is the very very last way I will go.
It takes more than a week for me to setup the phone (some apps I need for work, to be more specific) again, but also to configure all WiFi networks.
Right now, I would rather live with this bad battery life (and keep complaining 😁) than going through that hassle.

 

[2761216]

Making all new is the very very last way I will go.
It takes more than a week for me to setup the phone (some apps I need for work, to be more specific) again, but also to configure all WiFi networks.
Right now, I would rather live with this bad battery life (and keep complaining 😁) than going through that hassle.

It’s reinstalling iOS not restoring.

Plug in your iPhone to your Mac and then enter recovery mode using volume up + volume down + power buttons. Keep holding the power button with the iPhone still plugged in till you enter the recovery mode.
Hit update. Your Mac would download and reinstall the latest iOS and you won’t be losing any data.


Do an encrypted backup on your Mac first.

 

[ATmahe]

It’s reinstalling iOS not restoring.

Plug in your iPhone to your Mac and then enter recovery mode using volume up + volume down + power buttons. Keep holding the power button with the iPhone still plugged in till you enter the recovery mode.
Hit update. Your Mac would download and reinstall the latest iOS and you won’t be losing any data.


Do an encrypted backup on your Mac first.

I know, I know.

I really don't care about the data (like photos, contacts, documents, ...), it's stored in several places and easy to recover. It just takes time until it's downloaded again.

The problem is not everything is like before after this process. Even with an encrypted backup I wouldn't be able to restore everything and have several stuff to setup again.

All those MFAs in the Microsoft Authenticator app (not OTP, the ones where you get a notification to confirm), also some security apps of banks need to be tied to my account again (believe it or not, some send you a letter with a code to do this even if you have another trusted device ...).

It's a big pita for me, so I'm trying to avoid this as long as I can.
I still have some stuff I can try and see if it makes any difference, it just takes a while to test

 

[2761216]

I know, I know.

I really don't care about the data (like photos, contacts, documents, ...), it's stored in several places and easy to recover. It just takes time until it's downloaded again.

The problem is not everything is like before after this process. Even with an encrypted backup I wouldn't be able to restore everything and have several stuff to setup again.

All those MFAs in the Microsoft Authenticator app (not OTP, the ones where you get a notification to confirm), also some security apps of banks need to be tied to my account again (believe it or not, some send you a letter with a code to do this even if you have another trusted device ...).

It's a big pita for me, so I'm trying to avoid this as long as I can.
I still have some stuff I can try and see if it makes any difference, it just takes a while to test

I’m not sure where the miscommunication is happening but putting your phone in recovery mode and hitting “update” won’t cause you to lose any data. All your data is completely intact. Doing a backup is just a precaution.

Lookup how to put your phone in recovery mode and hit “update” not restore and your Mac downloads the file and reinstalls the iOS.
Again, doing update you won’t be losing any data at all.

 

[lleial]

It took a while for it to index after the update, but now it's pretty good!
For the last few days I used 50% of battery and got more than 4 hours of use each day. Yesterday was especially good with 5,5 hours and only like 53% used. I'm still confused by Home & Lock Screen use, it's consistently high, but I don't see it actually draining the battery.

It's a 14 pro. Settings say it has 90% battery health, but analytics shortcuts say 85%. I got it 2 years ago.

Do you have AoD enabled? Background refresh? 4G, 5G?
I have the same phone, same battery life, but I'm getting half the battery performance as you.
I'm interested in knowing more.

 

[lleial]

I’m not sure where the miscommunication is happening but putting your phone in recovery mode and hitting “update” won’t cause you to lose any data. All your data is completely intact. Doing a backup is just a precaution.

Lookup how to put your phone in recovery mode and hit “update” not restore and your Mac downloads the file and reinstalls the iOS.
Again, doing update you won’t be losing any data at all.

I'm going to do this myself.

Will post back with results.

Thanks.

 

[2761216]

I'm going to do this myself.

Will post back with results.

Thanks.

Give it 2-3 days for things to settle down after the install.

 

[lleial]

Give it 2-3 days for things to settle down after the install.

Just went through the whole process, took 10 minutes.

Everything is as you said, intact.

Now I'll let it settle and by next week I'll start observing.

Thanks for the tip, I wasn't aware of this option, always restored.