iOS updates or restores can use a lot of power at first. That's because they're moving a lot of files around, updating libraries, reindexing content, and otherwise getting everything set up and ready. That can keep your processor churning and, if a lot of apps are updating too, your Wi-Fi or cellular connection blasting.
If you've just updated give things a day or so to finish up and calm down. If you're fine after that, great. If not, keep reading!
2. Test on standby
In addition to the system taking a while to really finish updating, the first thing we humans do when we get new features is try them out. A lot. That means your iPhone or iPad stays on, the screen stays lit up, and the radios stay broadcasting much more than usual. And that can give a false sense of battery drain.
In other words, if you're battery feels like it's only lasting half as long, the first step to fixing it is figuring out if you're using it twice as much.
So, before you do anything else, note down how much battery life you have left. Then put your device down for 10-20 minutes. When you pick it back up, note down how much battery life you have left again. If there isn't a big change while in standby, you're probably okay, and your battery life will return to normal when your usage returns to normal (after the novelty wears off).
If your device continued to drain and drain fast, even when you weren't using it, keep reading!
3. Reboot
Yes, it sounds like something right out of the stone ages of trouble shooting but sometimes a good reboot is all that's needed to kick loose the bad bits.
- Press and hold down both the Sleep/Wake button and theHome button at the same time.
- Keep them held down until you see an Apple logo.
- Let go.
Once your iPhone or iPad has rebooted, repeat the previous step and see if battery has returned to normal. If not, keep reading!
4. Check for glitches
If, in general, your battery life is consistently short, and you're basically just watching the indicator drain down before your eyes, here are some things to try, in order of how easy they are to do.
Check battery usage: iOS 9 contains even better battery usage — aka battery shaming — for the iPhone and iPad. Located in the Settings > Battery section, it tells you which apps and system services are using power, how much, and whether they're in the foreground or background. If an app shows up there, and its consumption is way out of proportion to its usage, try force quitting it (double click the Home button and flick it up and away), and even deleting and re-installing it.
Check your cell signal. If you're in an area of weak signal, or at the edge of LTE or 3G support, your iPhone's radio could be screaming away on full power just trying to stay on the network, or switching between connection types, and wasting a lot of power. Good LTE signal is more power efficient than good 3G signal (because the radio can fire up, do its job, and power down much, much quicker), but bad LTE signal is just as bad as bad 3G, which is terrible. If you're at the edge of LTE, switch to 3G. If you're almost off the grid, turn off the radio unless and until you need it.
Power cycle. About once a month, and certainly if you think you're having problems, you should completely drain your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad's battery. Drain it until it shuts down on its own. And then charge it back up to full. That re-calibrates the battery indicator, and you'll get a more realistic idea of what your levels are.
Go to the Apple Store. Sometimes you do get a lemon, or your iPhone or iPad develops a real problem that only Apple can fix — by servicing or replacing your device.
5. Restore as new
The single biggest cause of battery life problems with iOS devices occurs when they are restored from backup and not set up as newdevices. Whether it's cruft or corruption, bit rot or simply bad bits, a clean install as a new device — incredible pain in the butt though it may be — is usually the best fix for any battery life issues. This is the nuclear option. You will have to set up absolutely everything again, and you will lose all your saved data like game levels, but in most cases your battery life will be better than ever.
6. Turn off
Anything running on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad uses up the battery. So if you've tried everything else and it turns out you're just using your device more than the battery will allow for the length of time you need to use it, you'll need to make some hard choices. You'll need to stop using some of the features you don't really need in order to keep using the ones you do. The more you turn off, the longer your batter will last—but of course the less you'll be able to do. It's a balancing act but one that can help you squeeze out a little extra juice when you really need it.
- Turn off Location Services. GPS requires a huge amount of power, especially for things like turn-by-turn navigation and Find my Friends tracking. If you suspect location services are chewing up your battery when you're not using them, go to Settings, Privacy, Location Services, and turn off any app and system service you really don't need tracking or using your location.
- Turn off Background app and content refresh: Background Refresh does everything it can to coalesce and schedule downloads to minimize battery drain. However, any background download will use battery. If you need power more than you need fresh content, go to Settings, General, Background App Refresh shows you everything you can turn off. Also go to Settings, App Store and turn of automatic app and content downloads. Here's how to turn off Background Refresh
- Turn off Push Notifications. Likewise, go to Settings, Notifications, and turn off any app you don't care to be alerted about.
There are some old tricks you can try when you're in a jam as well, and the new
Control Center makes it really easy to do many of these really quickly now!
- Set Auto-Lock to 1 minute
- Turn off any extra sounds, like keyboard clicks
- Use headphones instead of the speaker if you have to listen to audio or music
- Turn down the screen brightness
- Turn off Bluetooth when not using it
- Turn off Wi-Fi when not using it
- Set all email, calendar, and contacts accounts to "Fetch" (turn off Push)
7. Lower Power Mode
If you don't need longer battery life every day, just today, you can always put your iPhone in Low Power Mode. It doesn't work for iPad or iPod touch, only iPhone. Go to Settings > Battery > and flip the switch. That'll turn off much of what's already listed above, plus a lot of graphics effects and other intensive operations. You'll know when you're in Low Power Mode because the battery indicator on your iPhone will turn yellow.
Apple will offer to put your iPhone into Low Power Mode whenever you hit 20% battery remaining, and will automatically take it out whenever your charge level returns to 80% or more. All told, it can add up to 3 hours total to your run time.
