iPhone 6 Plus Battery Drain Causes Excessive Heat, iOS 8 Likely to Blame

Ever since we got our grubby paws on the iPhone 6 Plus on Friday, we’ve been experiencing an excessive battery drain issue which is also causing extra heat as well.

We’re not alone in our battery woes, as numerous others have stated their own problems within this Apple Support Communities thread.

The culprit is most likely iOS 8, as initial releases always come filled with some sort of battery draining bug. Even using the new Battery Usage screen (Settings > General > Usage > Battery Usage) to determine what apps might be the cause hasn’t helped.

We’ve turned off Bluetooth, force-closed all apps, all Location Services (including System Services), disabled 95% of Push Notifications, and with screen brightness hovering at 50%, here’s what our battery looks like right now after unplugging this morning at 9AM:

That’s right folks: the 2915mAh iPhone 6 Plus battery is draining so quickly (if I stare at my home screen I can see the percentage indicator drop) it won’t even keep up with my iPhone 5s.

We suspected our iCloud backup downloading images to our Photo Library was causing the drain, but the backup has been completed ages ago and we’re still seeing horrible battery life.

Next up, we’ll try a complete restore and setup the iPhone 6 Plus as new to see if that might fix the problem, but most likely a new version of iOS 8 will do the job.

Are you seeing any battery drain or excessive heat issues with your iPhone 6 Plus or iPhone 6?

PS – As I’m about to publish this post, my battery percentage has already dropped to 18%. FML.