Zoom is incredibly resource intensive. I've never had great results with that on any device that I own. But 2 hours and 80% seems a bit excessive.
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iPad What happened to the legendary standby time of iPad?
- Thread starter iKoopa
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I will say, since iPadOS 16, my 2021 12.9” iPad Pro has had the worst battery life of any iPad I’ve ever had. I last used it about 30 hours ago, and I don’t remember battery being any lower than 40% last time I used it. I just went to use it and found the battery dead.
- "In iOS 11, Siri is using on-device learning to understand more about your preferences, allowing the personal assistant to learn more about your interests to better anticipate what you might need next. Siri is also syncing that information across all of iOS and Mac devices so the Siri experience is the same regardless of what product you're using."
- "Messages in iCloud"
- "Facial recognition in Photos, which was previously exclusive to each iOS or Mac device, will now sync with all of your devices. That means you only have to tell Photos who each person is once, and it'll sync that info across Macs, iPhones, and iPads."
- "In iOS 11, data collected in the Health app can be uploaded to iCloud, making it accessible across multiple devices and ensuring your data is safely backed up. Uploading Health data to iCloud is optional, and it's turned off by default. It can be toggled on in the iCloud section of the Settings app."
- "Apple built a comprehensive set of time management and focus tools into iOS 12, starting with a new Screen Time feature. Screen Time provides weekly activity reports detailing how you used your iOS device, including how much time you spend in each app, how often you pick up your phone, how long you spend on the iPhone or iPad, and which apps are sending the most notifications."
- "There's also a "Shared Suggestions" feature that's designed to take a selection of photos you've taken that involve friends or family and offer up quick sharing options. It recognizes who is in a photo and suggests sharing the images with that person, and then, for that person, it also suggests sending their own photos back to you with a "Share Back" feature, making it easy to exchange photos linked to an event.
Like all of Apple's Photos features, improved search and Shared Suggestions use on-device machine learning for privacy reasons, with Apple also using end-to-end encryption to keep all of your content safe, even from Apple itself."
so you're expecting all of these features running in the background and more should not affect standby time at all?
this is where you're not getting it. we're done.
Jesus. That's horrible, especially for a latest model Air...
Oh but I get it, see my first post on this thread:
Yeah there's something wrong there. I used the Air 5 for about a month and got Slightly Worse battery life than my iPad Pro 11. Which meant for me, it lasted a very long time.
I too have noticed latest iPads, with default settings, draining a lot more when not being used. I've found going in and turning off background app refresh for some apps has helped (I don't have to do this on my iPhone). Also helps to keep my iPad faced down with the cover closed when not used so my constant iMessages throughout the day don't wake the screen all the time.
I did a hard restart and I think that’s helped some…i think
I've found the same coming from a first gen 12.9, the battery life is noticeably weaker in use (I guess understandable for a more powerful model with a brighter display) and standby also seems inconsistent if not outright poor.
I used my wife’s 5th gen iPad mini today (the A12 model) to look up a few things. It was last charged on March 24th to 100 percent. Today it had 76% battery remaining after more than 3 weeks in standby. That’s about 1% in battery drain per day. It’s running iPadOS 16.4 but has very little else installed. She many uses it for note taking when studying but hasn’t needed it for a few weeks so it has been just sitting around in standby.
My iPad Pro dies almost every other day at this point, I use it so little I actually just quit charging it and its just dead on my desk 75% of the time..
Another data point: I left my 9.7-inch iPad Pro on iOS 12 on standby for 11 full days. It dropped from 100% to 63%. 37%, a little over 3% per day. Not too bad I think. Could’ve been worse. The 9.7-inch iPad Pro is definitely a lot worse on iPadOS 16.
Amidst all of the negative consequences that iOS 12 brought after Apple forced me out of iOS 9, I guess this is a part that’s not so bad. I cannot tell exactly whether iOS 9 was better or worse, but honestly it seems similar. I don’t think iOS 9 was a lot better in terms of standby. Half-full glass...
Amidst all of the negative consequences that iOS 12 brought after Apple forced me out of iOS 9, I guess this is a part that’s not so bad. I cannot tell exactly whether iOS 9 was better or worse, but honestly it seems similar. I don’t think iOS 9 was a lot better in terms of standby. Half-full glass...
Both iPad 3 and 4 on iOS 6 deliver the same standby battery time.
That's probably just due to the older hardware, and battery, on a newer OS. It's always been that way with iPhones and Macbooks as well, years later battery life starts to go down.
I have the same issue on the iPad Air 5 with the M1. I suspect it's actually the modern hardware causing the battery drain, because the significant amount of RAM the M1 and M2 chips have means iPadOS almost never closes apps and from what I observed literally keeps them running indefinitely. I can pause a youtube video in Safari and come back days later and unpause it without the iPad ever having closed the browser or even just reloaded the tab. And that is a single tab out of dozens that all remained open.
I am sure there was some optimization going on that suspended Safari, but keeping a dozen apps and more open or suspended all the time in the background must take a hit to the battery. But I can't verify it because I don't want to keep closing apps all the time, one of the reasons to get that iPad was so that I can keep them all open without running out of resources.
I think it's an acceptable trade-off, to have the significantly faster hardware in the iPad Air and Pros now, there just isn't space in the iPad chassis' to pair these fast chips with a appropriately sized batteries. Since I need the performance, I can accept charging this thing all the time. But it sure is annoying and it doesn't bode well for battery healthy that I put my iPad on the 30W quickcharger literally four times per day. I'll likely exceed the 1000 charge cycles rating within the first year.
Agreed, completely.
My above comment notwithstanding, I am extremely surprised by my latest result: I left both of my iPads (My 9.7-inch iPad Pro on iOS 12 and my iPad Air 5 on iPadOS 15) on standby for 5 days, and they dropped from 100% to 97% and 93% respectively. I cannot explain why my prior result was 37% in 12 days, but it would match a more decent standby life. I will take more data points as I have them.
I know screen-on times with certainty after hundreds of data points. I don’t have enough yet. iPadOS 15 on the Air 5 is definitely worse than iOS 12 on the 9.7-inch iPad Pro, though.
Apple has thinned out the iPads, a lot. That has been a massive factor in terms of standby times. Couple to that the new software’s requirements in standby, like many have mentioned, and we get the current result.
The screen-on time is good, and whilst I wouldn’t have an issue with thicker iPads, I guess it isn’t too bad of a trade-off. I would prefer them to have better standby time, but they are decent enough for my own use case. In any case, I can charge them whenever I want, so it isn’t too important.
As far as your cycles go, I’ve mentioned several times that battery health is irrelevant on iPads, as 10-year-old devices retain good battery life. If current processors age gracefully (far more gracefully than, say, the 9.7-inch iPad Pro has on iPadOS 16), I assume we will get a repeat of older iPads and my 9.7-inch iPad Pro on iOS 12, and iPhones on their original iOS versions: iPads will have batteries that are good
regardless of battery health. If I were you, I wouldn’t worry too much about that. History has shown it isn’t too relevant.
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I recommend updating in order to use Stage Manager. It is a game changer on that iPad. The instant switching between apps and the instant resizing of active app all the way to fullscreen and back has improved usability for me tenfold.
Thicker might be good for the Air 5 specifically, it does feel somewhat flimsy. I haven't tried but I am pretty sure I can bend this thing significantly with little effort, reviews mentioned that as well. If it had a bigger battery that extra thickness could help with strenghtening the housing. That being said, it's very lightweight and that isn't bad either. I have to handle it carefully though, I think in a heavy backpack I could easily bend and damage the iPad accidentally.
I do wonder what will make me replace the Air 5 first. Battery degradation? M1 running out of power? iPadOS running out of RAM? iPadOS update support (for major versions) ending? Accidentally damaging it? Random device death? I really wonder because this model's hardware is more capable than its OS, so if anything it will get better over time as features like Stage Manager mature.
My suspicion: Some years down the road there will be a defect that makes no sense to get repaired due to Apple's absurd flat rate repair prices (i.e. they have 3 flatrates they charge from $250 for smaller defects all the way up to beyond the device's initial cost) and then I'll throw out a perfectly fine iPad that has a single defective smd component on the logic board. I usually have bad luck with device quality and that's how it goes. And I imagine this iPad can't even be opened for repair without nearly destroying the screen and making it a total loss. And there aren't any shops that I'd trust to successfully repair Apple devices without destroying them entirely. Even Rossmann Repair Group don't offer iPad repairs on their website, I am sure there's a good reason they don't do it.
I've come from a 2015 original iPad Pro to the 2021 M1 model, and it turns out the battery is actually larger (even though the device is a lot more compact) at 40.9Wh vs 38.5Wh for the older model. I am still finding the battery life wanting on the new model compared to the older one. I understand with a much more powerful chip and a brighter display something has to give, but I don't think it should be a noticeable difference, particularly as I'd had the old one in continuous use since 2016 so the battery must have been somewhat diminished. It feels like poor optimisation as the percentage sometimes starts ticking down rather quickly in use with no obvious explanation (so I'm guessing the chip is being pressed hard by something in the background) or sometimes when it's been in standby it will have drained an unexplainable amount while not in use.
I think that this may be oversimplifying things. The battery's age will not just affect its capacity but also its ability to handle high loads. My 10.5" A10X Pro will last for weeks on standby even on iPadOS 16. Under load though it drains much quicker than it used to. I've noticed this on my iPhones over the years too, where it might die at 40% capacity when the load gets too high. In my experience replacing the batteries restore the battery performance of iPhones and iPads to what they originally shipped with largely irrespective of which OS version they are running.
I’ve seen and experienced what iOS updates do to devices. I’d love to have Stage Manager. I’d love to have More Space, but I can’t do it. I am willing to forgo any and all features to maintain flawless performance and battery life. I wish I didn’t have to do this, but I have to.
Agreed, completely. Make it thick enough for... what? A 10,000 mAh battery like the 12.9-inch iPad Pros have, and that would improve immensely. You mentioned that very heavy use on your Air 5 isn’t good (I agree), but while a 10,000 mAh battery wouldn’t be miraculous in that sense, it would definitely be a significant improvement from the numbers you are getting today.
If I can get 25 hours with light use, I’d get like 40 hours with that battery. It would be astonishing.
It’s very comfortable, I agree, in spite of my standby criticism, that is solely due to the OS. I reckon a larger battery wouldn’t fix that all too much. I do think it would benefit heavy users far more than it would benefit me, but I certainly wouldn’t - and do not - oppose that change.
As far as the iPad’s longevity goes, I think it will be astonishingly good. There is a widespread consensus today that you can use iPads from the Air 2 onwards perfectly fine for content consumption. The only drawback is battery life due to iOS updates, but should you tolerate that, or should you be content with the current numbers, there’s nothing that prevents you from using an Air 2, or the 1st-gen Pros, for content consumption with the same success that you’d use an Air 5 or a 6th-gen iPad Pro or Mini for that.
I think that you said it with complete perfection: this device is too capable for it to be obsolete quickly. I do think that the only unknown variable (should you choose to stay updated) is the impact of iOS updates. If it is better than it is today, I have no reason to think that it can’t last many, many years, at least as far as content consumption goes: like I said, a 1st-gen iPad Pro is totally usable today. Of course, barring hardware issues like you said. I doubt iOS updates will bog it down too heavily though. I reckon it will be even better than the 1st-gen iPad Pros: you can expect battery life to suffer, but performance will be better. That said, I reckon whether Apple can surprise me and render everything I’ve been saying about iOS updates for ages obsolete (I hope they do that!) by improving battery life and performance so much in spite of iOS updates that whatever difference there may be when compared to original iOS versions can be considered negligible. Time will tell.
For example, improving standby time to the iOS 1 through 12 standards on iPads would be a good place to start.
As far as I know, that should only happen if your usage is heavy: there have been tests conducted - and all of the user data I’ve seen seems to confirm that - which show that heavy usage is worse on newer iPad Pros due to the M1’s increased capabilities (which presumably more than offset its efficiency gains). You mentioning brightness leads me to hypothesize that you use it with high brightness. If this is correct, then I assume there’s your answer.
As far as standby goes, this thread is clear enough, and the consensus is there: newer versions are worse, even if they’re running on original hardware. This may be due to poor optimisation, like you said. Perhaps the whole cause of this may be that the iOS updates are doing more on the background (like many have mentioned), and Apple knows about it, but they consider it good enough.
Apple has done all of the “good enough” thing for iPad batteries from the beginning: they say “we need 10 hours”, and they put the smallest possible battery in the thinnest possible chassis to get there. Not a single mm more. A choice with which I disagree, but they’ve been doing that for too long for this to change. Apple is content with current results, and they don’t care to make it better. I’m not saying they’re intrinsically wrong. I’m saying that it’s a decision which has benefits and drawbacks, and they very clearly think that the advantages outweigh the drawbacks.
While I agree I was oversimplifying it, and while you are totally and absolutely correct on a degraded battery’s ability to handle high loads, what I’ve seen indicates that the only thing that brings those high loads to a level in which the battery cannot cope is iOS updates.
My iPhone 6s at 63% capacity on iOS 10 doesn’t turn off prematurely and has retained almost like-new battery life with its totally degraded, 7-year-old battery. My iPhone 6s on iOS 13 with a far better battery at 90% is totally and absolutely abhorrent both in usage and standby.
As far as replacing the battery, I think you are correct on one thing and mistaken on the other: while replacing the battery improves battery life significantly if the device is updated far enough when compared to itself on the same updated iOS version, it will never manage to match the original iOS version. Replace a million batteries on an iPhone 6s on iOS 15, it won’t match my 6s on iOS 10. Replacing a million batteries on a 9.7-inch iPad Pro on iPadOS 16, it will never match mine on iOS 12. User reports of replaced batteries have shown that the improvement is massive when compared to itself, like I said, but it sent match non-updated devices (I’ll give an example: on the 1st-gen iPhone SE, reports seem to hover from barely scraping one hour on iOS 15 with a massively degraded battery - like the one I have on my 6s on iOS 10 - and replaced batteries seem to go for 4-5 hours with moderate use. Is that decent? Yes. It’s a far cry from the 8-10 hours it got back on iOS 9. Another example: degraded batteries on the 10.5-inch iPad Pro on iPadOS 16 are not good. Replaced battery are far better, but they’re a far cry in terms of screen-on time when compared to iOS 10).
Your 10.5-inch iPad Pro can get... what? 6-7 hours of moderate use with a new battery? Those are the numbers I’ve seen. That’s about half of what it can get on iOS 10.
Yeah that's a defective battery, where a cell will suddenly drop in voltage on higher loads resulting in an immediate reduction of charge since that is measured via the voltage. So you'll be at 40% and drop to 3% or something or the device will just shut off entirely. I am sure iPad batteries last good long time, but after 3-4 years the likelyhood of failure just starts increasing.
I see both of these as well on my M1 iPad Air.
For the chip: Apple might not have actually wanted to put this extra powerful chip in, due to a chip shortage with their A15 chip they had iPhone 13 delivery delays and needed all of the production for the iPhones. The previous Airs used the A14 and A12, so it would have made more sense for Apple to use the A15 in the Air 5.
The fact that we get essentially the performance of the iPad Pro in the Air is not something Apple is known to do, because it cannibalizes their own iPad Pro sales. If the Air didn't have the M1, I'd have gotten the Pro. With the A15 it would likely only have had 6GiB of RAM which would have been more in line with the specs that the midrange Airs usually get.
In terms of the display: Yes, going beyond the 500 nits certainly takes its toll, especially once we move towards HDR territory. One of the reasons I didn't care for the iPad Pro was that I knew I wouldn't be able to enjoy that HDR screen if it meant cutting down battery life even further. On maximum brightness 500 nits on the Air I get around 2-2.5 hours. I imagine watching HDR video on the Pro will cut that down even more. Although they use different tech and the Pro can turn LEDs in black areas off, so it might just even out.
I might upgrade to an iPad Pro once they come out with microLED displays that are better than the current flawed miniLED panels, and perhaps more power efficient so it makes more sense to put that into an iPad Pro with limited battery life.
Yep I certainly agree it should only happen with heavy usage, I think probably an iPadOS issue rather than a hardware problem causing it to really suck back the power. It would be nice if they would try to offer >10h runtime for the biggest model, though I think people already complain about the weight so they probably wanted to trim that a bit.
Battery threads are typically not created for iPads, and if they are, they don’t get too much traction.
Give it a shot though! The worst thing that can happen is no replies (or not many replies).