Understanding iOS 12 Battery Statistics

[FeliApple]

They don't want you to know the basic information cause battery life is worse than it was on iOS 11 and previous iOS. This way, you can't compare.

All these stats are silly and useless if they remove the most important info!

My device is not on iOS 12, but a friend has an iPhone 7, and the manual calculation gave me 3 hours of usage with only 30% battery life left.
Yes, it is anecdotal; yes, it is a definitely non-conclusive, single data point. But barring an extreme use case (the heaviest game I can find in terms of battery usage with full brightness and LTE) the battery life shouldn't be that low, even more so considering my friend's usage at that point was what might be considered standard. I mean, I can try to drain my 6s on iOS 9's battery like that, and - like I said - unless I throw a very fringe case scenario in there, I think I would probably fail. Using my phone in that way myself, I reckon I'd be double that usage.
I have no clue what were Apple's motives to change a useful feature to this nonsensical information (that is, IMHO, and that is if and only if the previous stats aren't added back in - knowing Apple, won't happen, although it definitely should) but hiding worse battery life on older devices with confusing data is something I'd reckon Apple would do, unfortunately.
[doublepost=1538497665][/doublepost]

Actually the battery stats on iOS 11 are worse.

On iOS 11 yes you get the screen on/off time since the last full charge (you’ll get a - if it was a part charge). However you still only get the app usage for a 24hr period.

So, to explain how it works on iOS 11

You take your phone off charge at 0600 in the morning every day. Have a look at the list of apps draining the battery. You will get the last 24hrs. So from 0600 the previous day.

However, without having charged your phone you, you look at the app list at 12 o’clock. You then have the list of apps draining your battery since 1200 the previous day to now.

This may seem great as you can see an app that is a bit rogue since your last charge. But only if it’s using a higher average percentage over that 24hrs.

If you used something like navigation or social media the day before. You’ll probably see they are still at or near the top of the list. So iOS 11 was about as much use as a chocolate fire guard for the end user working out a rogue app draining the battery. At least in iOS 12 you can look at it hour by hour.

What should happen is they should bin the 24hr section and that should be a ‘since last charge’ section. As soon as you plug in a charger the statistics for all apps in that section should reset to 0. This then would give you a clear indication of any battery hogging apps.

Still keep the day tally up to 10. But the 24hr section needs altering.

They are not worse, imo. In my opinion, usage since last full charge > everything. Yes, the per-app percentage was quite useless, but - since iOS 7, I think - Apple is form over function. Yes, newer stats are more densely populated and look better, but usability... Nevermind. Just let that go, users!
Just reform the 24-hour stat. Make it since last charge, too. Problem solved.

 

[TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️]

I’ve seen a few users on here and other forums, social media and in person who don’t understand iOS 12 Battery statistics.

So hopefully this post will help.

This first screenshot gives you the detail for the last 24hrs (no matter how many times you charge it).

The red box shows when it was last charged and to what percentage. As you can see i had mine on charge today which i will explain later.

The highlighted Activity and Screen On/Off times show the total of the last 24hrs, again regardless of times on charge in that period.

The next screenshot shows the apps that used the most battery in that 24hr period, again regardless of charging.

This third screenshot shows how to see, hour by hour, how to understand the statistics.

Click on one of the bars highlighted by the arrow and you will see the following:

What the charge level was (No.1)

The total amount of activity as a bar chart. This is both screen on and background activity with the screen off. Dark blue is screen on light blue is screen off. (No.2)

The total time the screen was on (No.3)

The total time the screen was off but the phone was doing something. (No.4)

Also a list of apps in order of what was using the battery the most being at the top.

In this next screenshot you can see indicated by the top arrow that the phone was on charge. If you look closely you can see there are two sets of bars. One for the battery charge (which is going up) and another showing how long it was on charge for. In this case circa 30mins of the 1hr time block.

The second arrow shows the screen on/off time as normal and the amount is also circled.

Th final two arrows at the bottom will also tell you that although in use they were connected to a charger whilst being used.

Finally in the last two screenshots the stats are slightly different.

The battery usage tells you how much you used for a single day. But also your average screen on off time over the period and which apps used the most on average.

Clicking on a day will then break down for you the apps that consumed the most battery and the level of screen on/off time for that single day.

Hopefully this helps people understand how to read the statistics to work out what is/isn’t draining their phone battery. I wouldn’t pay much attention to a single day unless something is highlighted as drastically draining the battery. I’d look at at least a 72hr period but ideally a week to see the biggest drain.

So how do we know the daily usage?

 

[CTHarrryH]

Personally, I think a bunch of the redesign apps and features are significantly worse and harder to use than before the redesign. For a release that was supposed to be fixes and performance improvements there is a lot of changes that are steps backward to me.

 

[max2]

Battery stats shouldn’t be this poorly laid out. I really like iOS12 but the new battery status page is junk since it no longer has a time since last full charge section.

Agreed.

 

[0014]

So how do we know the daily usage?

Unfortunately with this model you have to add the stats up yourself for the time period.

 

[max2]

Unfortunately with this model you have to add the stats up yourself for the time period.

That is ridiculous.

I don't have a problem doing it but I think it should be easier.

 

[imagineadam]

Unfortunately with this model you have to add the stats up yourself for the time period.

Its still not as accurate as before because half the time it doesn't count my screen off usage correctly. So when I listen to podcasts for a couple hours a day I'm lucky if it shows half the correct amount of screen off time. Before the usage was counted with screen on and screen off time combined. If they could at least make the screen off time accurate it would be a step in the right direction. Still annoying.. How hard would it be to add those two stats back at the bottom of all the new stuff? Shouldn't be too hard.. I hope they do..

 

[MrGuder]

That says the time when that charge level occurred, it doesn't show usage times since that charge, only 24 hours ago or some days ago.

Right this is my problem. How could Apple leave that pertinent info out of this section? Maybe Apple doesn’t want us to know this info anymore, if you have to manually calculate it more than not people won’t do it.

 

[Blue Hawk]

I don’t care about the usage the last 24 hours. I want to see my usage from 100% to now.

 

[salzrat]

It should be possible to swipe on the battery graph and get combined stats for the selected area, including total screentime. That would make a lot of sense.

The 24h-battery usage percentage was the most useless feature since they introduced these numbers. At least now it's possible to add up what's been eating the battery since last charge, although it's tedious.

 

[GlenK]

No wonder I can't figure out what my battery usage is!!

 

[dazz87]

Hopefully in 12.1 they fix this. No idea what I’m looking at.

 

[C DM]

Hopefully in 12.1 they fix this. No idea what I’m looking at.

There's nothing really broken there. There is information that simply isn't there anymore (mainly the usage/time since last charge).

 

[Mac2019]

Good explanation, OP. All this does, though, is sum up what a farce this new system is. If apple really think this is a good idea, fine, keep it but at least add in a simple “usage since last full charge” line. How many programming minutes would that take?!
[doublepost=1542290859][/doublepost]

Yes. Check when you were last fully charged. Then go on the graph and select each hour individually and add up your screen on and screen off time for total usage time since last charge.
[doublepost=1538277611][/doublepost]Pro-tip:

Madness really that we’re in 2018 on iOS 12 and are having to waste time doing this. How faffy and unnecessary.

 

[white4s]

There's no reason they can't include a small usage/standby tab somewhere in the screen.

 

[TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️]

This is confusing! can you elaborate more as a 3rd grader please?

 

[Rhino1]

The "Battery stats" are absolutely rubbish and there is no justification for how meticulous they make it out to be.
It should simply state that after you took your phone off charge until the phone goes back on charge how much each app used or we used and maybe a little warning that an app may be not performing correctly etc.

Not this past 24 hours 10 days adding up screen on and off times left and right trigonometry maths pants.

 

[tak437]

Im obviously in the minirity but I actually much prefer the new battery stats.

Specifically I really like the daily charts. I click on the 10 day tab and then choose a day to view. I look at the 2 highlighted bars (green and blue). Green tells me how much battery I used that day. It might be 50% or even sometimes over 100%, which just means i charged my phone again and used more than 100%. The blue bar (and numbers below) tell me how much usage i had for that amount of battery I used that day. And down below i can see how much time or the percent of those stats each app took up.

I have no comment on the accuracy of these numbers or if using the phone while charging is relfected accurately though. I just assume it is ‍♂️

 

[Donga120]

I want the old one back.

Having the time since last fully charged and usage and standby time was the best and easiest way of figuring our battery life.

 

[C DM]

Im obviously in the minirity but I actually much prefer the new battery stats.

Specifically I really like the daily charts. I click on the 10 day tab and then choose a day to view. I look at the 2 highlighted bars (green and blue). Green tells me how much battery I used that day. It might be 50% or even sometimes over 100%, which just means i charged my phone again and used more than 100%. The blue bar (and numbers below) tell me how much usage i had for that amount of battery I used that day. And down below i can see how much time or the percent of those stats each app took up.

I have no comment on the accuracy of these numbers or if using the phone while charging is relfected accurately though. I just assume it is ‍♂️

The new stats can be useful, it's just that the old stats were useful as well and it would have been good if they were left there.

 

[Aydy]

Yeah count me in with the confused crowd. I no longer even look at the battery stats. I think the BEST solution should have been was to add a detailed button to access these stats if you wanted a better breakdown. If you weren't interested you got the basic summary usage page which is what we've had for so many releases. More complexity for a simple problem.

“I no longer even look at the battery stats”

I think this was the intention from Apple. It’s a confusing mess and why they couldn’t just stick a “since last charge” option on that excuse of a battery stats is beyond me. Sure, it shows a wealth of information but very sneakily leaves out the one predominant piece of information people want to know. Sceeen on time should be measured Since Last Charge. It is very straightforward to know if a battery is performing in line with expected results when we can simply charge the phone to full and then check back periodically to gauge screen on time since we last charged.

I think Apple using this confusing melting pot of diatribe and leaving out the single and easiest solution to monitor usage times from a single charge is intentional and like your post says, you no longer look at the battery stats..I’m sure most of us can relate with that and is what Apple is banking on..Not easily letting users understand the battery from a single charge means less complaints/enquires with regard to under performing batteries. I have to admit that I find androids battery interface, although simplistic & basic, much more convenient and user friendly in this regard.

 

[Mac2019]

I would echo the concerns about the battery stats. I mean just look at mine for today v yesterday:

How can my usage be half of what it was yesterday (with pretty much the same apps) but battery drain is only marginally less?
[doublepost=1559827328][/doublepost]I would echo the concerns about the battery stats. I mean just look at mine for today v yesterday:

How can my usage be half of what it was yesterday (with pretty much the same apps) but battery drain is only marginally less?

 

[cynics]

In typical Apple fashion they simplified something until it wasn't simple anymore.

The point of the battery stats is to be able to identify what was causing the problem. I don't have a good example but using what I have to work with.

So looking at my usage I see one hour ago it was at 100% charge (spelled out) but I can see a sudden drop in battery level last night. (click to enlarge).



Now I can select that area and see it was me AirPlaying the Music app, makes sense.



Now if I click on that I can see the total time it was on and also how much time it was running on screen and in the background.



If I didn't already know I would now know that using AirPlay for music causes the battery to be consumed faster and to not do that if I need to conserve battery life.

I skimmed the thread but some people want to know stats that aren't that useful for accomplishing anything. I'm sure it could be better but it could also be much worse.

I'm not knocking Android's way of doing it that is posted above but is there a way to see what is was happening in this specific area?



If so great, I could use that. If not then I guess you'll just never know what the battery culprit was during that specific time?

Now I'm speaking specifically for myself and I completely understand different people have different requirements but me knowing the last full 100% charge level can't aid me with anything. Often times I plug in my phone and it doesn't get to 100% so knowing it is pointless however knowing what the charge level goto (like Apple does) is slightly helpful.

Again, different strokes for different folks.

 

[Aydy]

The

In typical Apple fashion they simplified something until it wasn't simple anymore.

The point of the battery stats is to be able to identify what was causing the problem. I don't have a good example but using what I have to work with.

So looking at my usage I see one hour ago it was at 100% charge (spelled out) but I can see a sudden drop in battery level last night. (click to enlarge).

View attachment 841838

Now I can select that area and see it was me AirPlaying the Music app, makes sense.

View attachment 841837

Now if I click on that I can see the total time it was on and also how much time it was running on screen and in the background.

View attachment 841839

If I didn't already know I would now know that using AirPlay for music causes the battery to be consumed faster and to not do that if I need to conserve battery life.

I skimmed the thread but some people want to know stats that aren't that useful for accomplishing anything. I'm sure it could be better but it could also be much worse.

I'm not knocking Android's way of doing it that is posted above but is there a way to see what is was happening in this specific area?

View attachment 841842

If so great, I could use that. If not then I guess you'll just never know what the battery culprit was during that specific time?

Now I'm speaking specifically for myself and I completely understand different people have different requirements but me knowing the last full 100% charge level can't aid me with anything. Often times I plug in my phone and it doesn't get to 100% so knowing it is pointless however knowing what the charge level goto (like Apple does) is slightly helpful.

Again, different strokes for different folks.

EDIT: Oh, I just saw what you did (the box) You know, I’m not sure if that area is interactive. It’s been a while since I used android. Also, this screenshot is taken from an Oreo build and if I’m not mistaken the battery app has had a major overhaul with android Pie so I’m not aware of current battery stats.

Yeah. Neither are great but I’ll take simplified all day long over iOS current wtf

The above image shows what’s consuming battery (below circled area) The major hogs are always displayed on top and in succession to the next predominant hog. Obviously “Screen” should be expected to be the highest (or standby if not used for long periods) if further investigation required we can tap on any of the above icons and will show, for example’ Active use Vs Background use. If background is consuming when it shouldn’t then it can be halted directly from that same window. It can be helpful to pinpoint if an app is running rogue and draining whilst running in BG when it shouldn’t. From the same tap users can force close, clear cache or disable any rogue service/app. I quite like it tbh and it is much less convoluted and gets the job done. I tend to measure my battery performance based on SOT per charge and this is by far the best implementation to get that particular information as quickly as a glance at the top icon.

 

[cynics]

The


EDIT: Oh, I just saw what you did (the box) You know, I’m not sure if that area is interactive. It’s been a while since I used android. Also, this screenshot is taken from an Oreo build and if I’m not mistaken the battery app has had a major overhaul with android Pie so I’m not aware of current battery stats.

Yeah. Neither are great but I’ll take simplified all day long over iOS current wtf

The above image shows what’s consuming battery (below circled area) The major hogs are always displayed on top and in succession to the next predominant hog. Obviously “Screen” should be expected to be the highest (or standby if not used for long periods) if further investigation required we can tap on any of the above icons and will show, for example’ Active use Vs Background use. If background is consuming when it shouldn’t then it can be halted directly from that same window. It can be helpful to pinpoint if an app is running rogue and draining whilst running in BG when it shouldn’t. From the same tap users can force close, clear cache or disable any rogue service/app. I quite like it tbh and it is much less convoluted and gets the job done. I tend to measure my battery performance based on SOT per charge and this is by far the best implementation to get that particular information as quickly as a glance at the top icon.

Like I said, different stroke for different folks. I respect that and I agree that iOS feels convoluted however I find that because I was expecting more of what Android had back when I used it. However I think that is because it was my only point of reference.

So to the best of your knowledge you can't see what app was using the most energy during a specific time period with Android? Is it normal for most of the things in the battery stats to be things outside of your control (ie Android OS, Device idle, Android System, and while you can technically control it Screen) or was that just because of your usage that particular day?