I’ve had my iPhone 6s plus for a few months now and have been very happy with it. Before that I had an iPhone 5s and it worked fine too, but the battery life wasn’t great. With my 6s the battery has been great. I can use it off and on all day long and by the end of the day I still have at least 85% battery left.
A few days ago I noticed that after a full charge the battery was down to 12% after only a few hours of light use. I plugged it back in to charge it up, but it again went down to <15% in only a few hours of idle use. My wife suggested I reboot the phone and that miraculously that fixed the problem.
So what was happening with my phone that was chewing through my battery at such a rapid rate? I didn’t have ant more apps running than I usually do. Any ideas?
My assumption is that a glitch in the running software meant the phone was reading the charge incorrectly, and only charging the phone back up to something like 20%, but think it was at 100%. And so it stopped charging.
Rebooting fixes a glitch like this because it forces the software to restart any malfunctioning software, reloading them from the original copy. It’s the main reason you are told to reboot as a first step in any computer problem solving.
if you go into the Settings app, under “Battery” it shows a list of how much % of the battery has been used by apps. it’s rare on iOS but not impossible for an app to stay running and drain the battery.
Just in case you didn’t know, going to Settings > Privacy > Location Services shows you a list of all the apps you have that use location services. Tapping on the app name in the list brings up the possible locations services options for those individual apps, which are “Never,” “Always” and “While Using the App.” Choosing “While Using the App” should solve your problem. If the only options are “Always” or “Never,” the developer sucks.
It has been noted, globally, that when a new one comes out there is an iOS update for old phones and suddenly they run really slow and battery life runs out really quickly.
Google it… it is very accurate as far as conspiracy theories go…
The battery usage function is only available in iOS 8 and later. “Battery” is a top-level setting in Settings. Depending on what hardware you’re running, “Battery” should be like the 14th or so setting from the top, just above “Privacy.” If you still can’t find it there, scroll all the way up the list in the Settings app which will bring up the search bar. Type in “battery,” and tap the result. The battery usage list will then take a second or two to load.
I have iOS 8.3 on my iPhone 5S, and there’s no Battery choice in the top level of Settings. After “Privacy” is a space and then the iCloud menu choice. Also I have no search bar in the Settings app. Too bad, I’ve always wanted something to show me the batter usage of apps.
Ok, in iOS 8 I think the battery stuff is located in General > Usage > Battery Usage.
You could try asking Siri to “open my battery settings,” or something like that, that might take you to it directly, but its possible thats different in iOS 8 too.
Also, the search bar in the Settings app might be an iOS 9 only feature.