You’re not alone – many users are reporting iPhone 16 battery life issues on iOS 18

Apple's latest phones are draining surprisingly fast for some

News By James Rogerson published 18 October 2024

If you’ve noticed excessive battery drain from your iPhone lately then you’re not alone. There are numerous reports of this issue across the internet, with the vast majority of complaints relating to phones in the iPhone 16 family on iOS 18.

As spotted by MacRumors, there are lengthy threads on Reddit, the Apple Support Community, and elsewhere complaining about massive battery drain, in many cases even when the phone is in standby.

Most reports seem to relate to the iPhone 16 Pro and the iPhone 16 Pro Max, but the standard iPhone 16 and the iPhone 16 Plus are also mentioned.

Some users have additionally claimed that iOS 18.0.1 or the iOS 18.1 beta have improved matters, but not everyone has found these updates have solved their issues.

So, it’s possible that one of these updates will fix things for you, but if not, you might be waiting a while for a fix, especially as Apple hasn’t even acknowledged the issue yet. That said, it’s not clear how widespread this particular problem actually is, and if you’re not already experiencing unusual battery drain on an iPhone 16 model running iOS 18, then you’re probably safe.

Short-term salves

But what to do if your battery is draining fast? For now, you could try turning off the always-on display feature, disabling ProMotion, turning off background app refresh, or getting rid of widgets.

All of these features drain battery, so disabling them would naturally help improve matters, but that’s not ideal, since it’s also limiting what your phone can do.

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