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Will updating to iOS 16 kill my battery life? 

by George Lovell | | 0 comments


One common complaint that floods the forums as well as our phone lines succeeding an iOS update is reports of decreased battery life.


Most users will indeed experience decreased battery life for the first two days following a major software update.

Even after the update has installed, there's still a ton of background processes occurring, which will consume more power.

The device is completing a series of complex operations to organise all of your new and existing files, apps and other bits of software. This is called indexing.

Most of your apps will automatically download updates - new versions which are optimised for the new OS.

People are quick to assume that poor battery life is linked to a recent software update; leery of the company's intentions.

This was exacerbated by Batterygate, which occurred in 2016 following the release of iOS 10, and sparked outrage across the world. Users were experiencing major battery issues, which Apple initially glossed over, before later releasing a statement which explained how battery throttling can protect electronic components.

Apple is lying to you about your iPhone's battery | ZDNET

We'll cover Batterygate in depth in a future post.

On September 21st, nine days after its launch, 23% of iPhones were running iOS 16.

A significant proportion of these are iPhone 14's, which launched with iOS 16.

The majority of remaining iPhones are running iOS 15.

These users can be lumped into the following categories:

  • Those which strategically sit back and wait for all the bugs and issues associated with large software updates to be patched.
  • Normal people, who don't really care that much, and just haven't gotten around to installing the update.
  • Hoarders with insufficient storage space to upgrade.
  • Those running older devices (iPhone 7 and below), who cannot update to iOS 16.
  • Grandma, who doesn't know what an eye-OS is.

Every major software update comes with a few bugs, which get ironed out over time.

With iOS 16, the most common issues reported (amongst others) are:

  • Camera shakes in third party apps - see our recent post on this. (Fixed)
  • Unresponsive or laggy touch and blank displays - particularly on devices with aftermarket screens. (Fixed)
  • Slow Spotlight search. (Not yet fixed)
  • Severe battery drain - even after the 48-hour busy period. (Not yet fixed)

Bear in mind that each individual issue will affect a seemingly random but small subset of iPhone users.

If your battery is draining more quickly immediately after the update - that's normal. If it persists for more than 48 hours, you may be one of the unlucky few who's device does not like the OS - in which case, you'll have to sit and wait for the developers to fix it.


It could also be coincidence. Batteries degrade over time. If your phone is more than three years old, the battery itself may have been on its way out anyway. We are more likely to notice things when there's a big change, which can lead us to make inaccurate connections. Correlation does not equal causation.

Our advice for those that haven't updated yet...

We think it's always a good idea to wait until the ".2" version before updating. Remember, once you've made the jump, you cannot go back! There's some cool new features, which you will probably benefit from, but have survived without until now.

Thanks for reading!

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