Some iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro users have been experiencing excessive and unexplainable battery drain, according to complaints on Reddit, the Apple Support Communities, and the forums.While many of the reports are from iPhone 16 users, older iPhones running iOS 18 may also be experiencing battery life issues.There is a long-running iOS 18 battery life complaint thread on that was started while the update was still in beta, but there have been a fresh wave of complaints following iOS 18's launch and the debut of the iPhone 16 models.
Affected iPhone 16 owners have seen significant battery drain even when the iPhone is not in use.From reader T1aaj: From JulianL: In some cases, much of the battery drain happens in standby mode when the iPhone isn't in use, suggesting a background activity could be causing problems for some users.Using the phone seems to cut the battery drain in these instances.
From huanbrother: From kirbysmartdawg: There are similar complaints about the iPhone 16 models and older iPhones running iOS 18 on Reddit, and while we always see reports of battery life issues when a new version of iOS comes out, there seems to be a definite uptick in the number of people having problems.From Reddit user Ok-Interest-6561: On Reddit, one user did an experiment with an iPhone 16 Pro and an iPhone 14 Pro, and claimed to have used both in the same way.The iPhone 16 Pro dropped to 58 percent battery life within 36 hours, while the iPhone 14 Pro was at 85 percent.
Battery drainage issues are difficult to diagnose because iPhone usage habits vary so much from person to person and from day to day.Impacted users have tried turning off ProMotion, disabling the Always On display, turning off background app refresh, removing widgets, turning off cellular, and entirely resetting their iPhones.Some people have seen improvement with some of these methods, but not all have, and the battery life issues persist for many despite troubleshooting.
Some users reported improvement with iOS 18.0.1 and the iOS 18.1 beta, but software updates have not worked for everyone.It is not clear exactly what's going on to impact battery, but it's sounding like there is an underlying bug that Apple will need to fix in a future iOS 18 update.
