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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.
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WOW :((( Discouraging.
I’ve already cried a couple times T_T
My 64gb 6 plus seems to be working good so far. It’s absolutely not draining fast enough for me to see it lol. I hope they can push a software fix ASAP
Yeah. Although I am interested in nuking my phone and starting new. It’s an easy way to purge unused apps, etc.
I would suggest that… My iPhone 6 Plus is going well 10 hours and still at 70%
Here is a screenshot.. hope it posted right..
Try that Gary I got my plus on Friday and set it up as new rather than restore from my old 5. No issues so far and battery seems good.
Update: I’ve nuked my iPhone 6 Plus. Battery at 23% right now after 8hr 40m usage and 17h standby. Will test some more but yes it made a big difference.
What do you mean nuked what do u mean nuked
Whoops, meant erased and setup as a new phone, not that stupid microwave prank. 😉
I’ve always kept push turned off, background refresh, 95% of location services, etc. off and killed apps as soon as I go back to the home screen.
Since iOS 8 my iPhone 5, which due to those measures and my light usage habits typically started the day at 100% and ended it at 80%, has been going down to 60% or even 50% by the end of the day. Exact same device, no changes except going from the latest iOS 7.x.x to iOS 8.0.
I have a pretty vanilla installation. 89% from 9 am this morning. 128GB 6+
So sorry to hear that…. Mine is great… went to bed last night at 95% and woke up at 93%. After a full day at work (and use it in the bus/ metro and to check mail, etc….) and it was still at 69% at the end of the day…. compare to my old iPhone 5S was usually at 20% at the end of the day…
Power off. Power on. Solved it for me on my iPhone 5S after the OTA upgrade.
I’ve done all the tricks :/
Have you tried to deactivate the background services ? I have the 6+ 128Gb and it works fine without these services activated. I also deactivated the location services for the apps that was set to “always” instead of “while in app” (or something like that) 🙂
Sucks! You know, you may have gotten a rotten apple! 😉
I’ve been amazed at my 6 Plus battery life. I’ve been using it heavily all day and it’s 8:05pm and I’m still at 63%
Mine is draining fast as well. 6+ 128 and fresh setup… I don’t even have a SIM installed yet. Not using it except to check on the battery once in a while, this is close to standby time I guess and Apple claims 15 days or so? Been about 1.5 days and it’s down below 50%.
my iPhone 6 (standard) battery is doing really great (edit : pretty good). I am at 7 hours and still 20% left.
iPhone 6+ 64GB
Last charged 1 Day + 20 Hours
Total usage 9 Hours + 31 Mins
Total battery remain 35%
I’d say my battery is good so far and heat issues either
Well on my iphone 5S since IOS 8 update, I can clearly say that I have a battery drain issue. I have to plug it when I come back from work (6pm) and I might have use it for a total of 2 hours during the day…..should I wipe it ?
Did you have good battery life before? Probably best to wipe. I’ve been having a continuing issue since early June. I wiped infront of the Genius and have not had the time to go back for a new diagnosis. I was hoping IOS8 would help, especially the battery tracking feature. This feature is not doing what I expect. I’m averaging 7 – 8% per hour on standby drain. Depending on when you unplugged today, does the above drain sound about right?
Yeah that’s about it, I’m waiting for my 6+…will see what happens with that new phone…:|
Turn off “Suggested Apps” at the bottom of; Settings-> iTunes and Apps Store
This uses GPS all the time on your home screen : lock screen. Which is why it’s at 24%. Should be closer to 9-12%
Ah, that’s one I have not tried. Will give it a shot. But I think a fresh restore as a new device is in order after all these years.
Clean install is always refreshing. Hope you’ll post your feedback.
Yep is hidden deep; mine was showing 26% till I found that lame feature which I promptly disabled. Now my hours used is much better. Currently sitting at 6 hours usage 14 hours standby and 47% remaining
I don’t see “Suggested Apps” on that page.
My 6 Plus battery usage is totally impressive thus far. I unplugged the charger at 8:30am this morning, used moderately throughout the day, texting, phone calls, a couple of YouTube videos, some app use, a Facetime call; it was still at 81% when I left the office at 5:00pm. I do find gaming on it is a heavy drain on the battery, but that is normal for any device.
This is the type of battery usage I was expecting. I’ve already had to plug in as the phone died around 4:30pm
Either a flawed unit, or something on the phone is causing this. If it was iOS 8, I’d have to think we’d all be experiencing similar issues. Hope you figure it out!
iPhone 6, current full charge stats: 10hrs 36 min Standby and 4hrs of usage. Still has 62%. My iPhone 5 would be around 35-40% by now. Doing pretty good for me =)
At one point yesterday I experienced the same thing. It got hot and drained quick. I just finished a full charge and am testing it again! Must be some software killing it in the background. They always tend to improve it with later updates.
Gary, maybe the power IC is burned in your phone? I had the issue with my iPhone 5s before after I used a non-MFi charger. The phone would drain the battery even if the phone was in airplane mode. I tried to reset the iPhone and it would still drain the battery. The phone went from 100% to 30% in 8 hours at night when I put the phone to airplane mode. Thankfully Apple Store was able to exchange another phone for me.
This sounds like what is going on with my phone. I did use a nonstandard lightning cable. Oh, wait, I have some older non-Apple chargers that I use. I hope I can get an exchange.
Ok been on since 6:00am used all day 47% left at 12:41am… I phone 6 Plus… I am very impressed ! 18.41 hours!!!!!!
18.7 hours….
18.6833* hours….
I’m seeing a lot of drain on my iPhone 5 since installing IOS 8 — as you say, first release!
Hey,
How do you guys that have the 6 plus like it? Does anybody find it too big?
I had the same problem with my 6. Restoring and setting up as new slightly improved the problem. Apple finally replaced it and the new one has good battery life.
Yep ! Got an iphone 6 since yesterday. Put it on Airplane mode all night and it went from 70% to 18% when i woke up. On Airplane F****** mode !!!! What the frack ?
I don’t get it… Apple is becoming more and more like MS… releasing 1000 of firmware updates and that too not optimized properly and rushing launch.
They launched 2 models and couldn’t even test iOS 8 on just 2 f***king models…. 6/6+… how hard is that?!
It would be understandable if iOS 8 was giving issues with older gen models… but a new gen suffering from this is unacceptable! Why the f**k does Apple even release 4-5 beta versions when in the end such major problems aren’t resolved! Battery drain is the worst bug… App crashes etc would be even acceptable to an extent!
Everyone that is experiencing this issue, did you restore from a backup? If you did, then your battery is already pooched. Your solution is to go to the Apple Store, replace your device, and set it up as a new phone. Don’t restore from any old backups!
Why would the battery be no good because of a previous backup?
I’m having a similar problem with my 5S – apps that were utilizing location services constantly like Google and Breeze quickly found themselves disabled. However, I still have the issue of my Usage and my Standby Time being the same on my phone, so I think I’ll restore as new and set it up from scratch.
I guess I’m lucky. My phone (iphone 6 Plus 64gb) has been on standby for over 9 hours and about 2.5 hrs of usage and my battery is currently at 88%.
I charged my 6+ Sunday night and unplugged it. It hasn’t been on the charger since then, it’s Tuesday near noon and I have 81%.
Im not realy seeing any battery drain issues as of yet…Have had mine for about 24h
Place the phone in the Microwave so it will charge faster. Lol!!!! You won’t complain about your phone charging anymore. Though you may have other problems.
K, let me give this a go…
…wait a minute, I see what you did there.
All you early adopters pay attention. This is why you wait for a little longer before buying every Apple product right after it hits the shelves: To allow time for prices to go down and the quality to go up.
And…this is why I don’t have an Iphone! Hope you all can get your phones working though in all respect to your purchase and choice.
I did this ..
“Turn off “Suggested Apps” at the bottom of; Settings-> iTunes and Apps Store”
And it seems to have stopped the battery drain and heat issue.
I did what you said and it did fix the heat issue. Thank you so much! I was getting ready to take it back.
Any updates on this ?
I’m in the reservation line-up for a 6+ from Fido and I’m reading as much as possible about any issue so I can check them all when I get mine.
i am having the same issue with my i phone 6 and tried every thing
yeah this is what happened to my iphone 6, it heats up really badly!!! 😐 like somehow my batteries get drained super fast!!!
If you download a system utility you will see cpu usage is high and amount of ram being used is also they have too much running in the background is the issue
My iPhone 6 has been great since launch, untill two days ago, when my battery would drain in a major way, even without any usage at all!
With that said, I have done all the recommended steps, even did a clean wipe without restoring
I’m experiencing the same problem as well after I restored from backup. Got iPhone 6plus 128gb and the battery life is dropping so quickly. I tried to restore it again as a new iPhone and still causing the same problem. Help.
I used to have that problem with the 5. The 6+ I have now was giving me great battery life, except for this morning, which is why I’m on this post. It happens suddenly, at no specific time, and I’m getting paranoid because it’s almost as if something is hijacking my phone. A clue; it stops when I turn off Location services. So I thought, what if something was using my phone to send spam? What if some sort of malware was figuring out what area I was in to send spam locally, like porn sites that want you to call ‘local’ services?
My battery usage report also says the home screen is responsible. That doesn’t make sense to me. It’s a passive thing. If it uses any processor power, it’s very small. The hijacking to spam does make sense because it would want to send spam in bulk, and very fast.