Have you ever wondered what causes an iPhone battery to drain so fast, even when you're not using it much? If your battery is depleting faster than you expected, there could be hidden factors involved. From unknown background processes to unexpected settings that consume energy, identifying the underlying issues can help you extend your battery life. Many users tend to ignore basic yet essential habits that impact their device's performance. Want to find out what might be quietly draining your iPhone's battery and how to prevent it? Continue reading to uncover the hidden reasons for quick battery drain and learn how to take charge of your device's power.
1. Apps and Background Services
If you're experiencing faster battery drain, check your apps and background activity. The battery drains more from some apps than others. Streaming services like YouTube and Netflix are the most obvious. Additionally, if you enjoy iPhone games with fancy graphics, you may want to avoid playing them in order to save energy because they are huge battery drainers. Many apps drain the battery even when they are not in use.
Common applications include Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger. These kinds of communication services aim to keep you constantly informed and in touch. This implies that the apps use data, access your location, issue notifications, and perform other tasks continuously in the background. Not to mention that we frequently use them for extended periods, whether it's messaging friends and family or constantly browsing through our feeds.
2. Overcharging
Overcharging occurs when you leave your iPhone plugged in for a long time, even when the battery is at 100%. It causes the temperature to rise and gradually damages the battery, which has a bad impact on battery life. Your iPhone gets hotter and uses up the battery more quickly as a result. Knowing the source of your iPhone's battery drainage should help you figure out how to fix it.
3. Aging Battery
Are you still wondering what causes an iPhone battery to drain? It could be an aging battery! When used normally, a typical battery can hold up to 80% of its capacity after 500 cycles. As a battery ages chemically, its capacity will decrease, perhaps leading to fewer hours of use between charges.
4. Display & Brightness
Setting your brightness to maximum may seem convenient, especially while you're outside, but it significantly drains your battery performance. Additionally, you can modify the screen brightness settings on your phone to adapt to variations in outside light. It will be able to darken in low-light conditions and brighten in high-light conditions as a result. As an alternative, you can turn on dark mode for both the display settings of your phone and the apps you use most often. It may surprise you to learn how much battery life this may achieve without sacrificing brightness.
5. Screen
Since the introduction of modern smartphones, the screen has been the most significant drain on maximum battery life. Panels are becoming larger, brighter, and more colorful, and their resolutions are increasing. Even dual-screen gadgets and big foldable phones are now available. Despite improving the overall experience, all of these enhancements increase the battery consumption of smartphones. In this case, screen lock is always the best solution.
6. Picture in Picture Mode
Picture-in-picture mode may be familiar to you if you use Twitch, YouTube Premium, or a similar service. In this mode, you can use other apps while watching any movie or stream in a little viewing box on your screen. Although this is practical, utilizing several apps at once might drain your phone's battery. In order to turn off picture-in-picture mode for specific apps, navigate to the Settings on your phone and select the Picture in Picture under the General section.
7. Spotty Service
Understanding what causes an iPhone battery to drain is good for the performance, and a spotty service is an example. Areas with poor smartphone service are silent battery killers, which is more aggravating than missing out on the latest kitten video. Your cellphone continually communicates with surrounding towers to stay connected at all times. Sometimes, it can't, so it works extra hard to reconnect with the cellular network and get you back online. If you live in a remote region, work in a large building, or frequently travel to areas with poor service, your phone's battery will likely drain.
8. Old Smartphone
With time and continuous heat, smartphone batteries begin to degrade. The main cause of a reduced battery life is age. This implies that anyone who is rocking an old phone is probably thinking back to the days when the phone had a considerably longer battery life. Each time you charge your phone, the maximum battery capacity is reduced by one or two seconds. There is no limit to the number of chemical reactions that batteries can use to store and process energy. However, the technique has been incredibly refined, which is the reason why batteries initially have such a long lifespan. Furthermore, even if you don't use your batteries, they still lose capacity.
9. Staying Connected 24/7
It may seem reasonable to always have your data or WiFi turned on. However, because you are continuously receiving notifications and background updates when you are not using your phone, this can seriously drain its battery. It is best to turn off your WiFi when you are sleeping. While you could put your phone in airplane mode, you can also disable data and WiFi in the drop-down menu to continue receiving cellular calls if you're concerned about missing an important call.
10. Extreme Temperature
Both hot and cold temperatures present serious problems for an iPhone's battery life, causing problems with quick battery drain. The iPhone's battery may undergo accelerated chemical reactions under high temperatures, leading to a quicker rate of depletion than it would otherwise. The chemicals in the battery may slow down in colder climates, reducing its capacity to retain a charge. This does not necessarily indicate long-term battery damage because if the battery is at a comfortable temperature again, its performance normally recovers to normal.
11. Location Services
Last on our list of what causes an iPhone battery to drain is location services. Apps that use location services can tell where you are and provide helpful, location-specific information, such as directions or ratings of nearby restaurants. Location services are incredibly convenient. But using your iPhone's GPS continuously might drain its battery very quickly.
The arrow indicator that shows up in your menu bar at the top of the screen lets you know when you're using location services. We think that only navigation and weather apps should have complete access to your location, even when you're not using them. This enables weather applications to alert you to the presence of a thunderstorm.
How to Prevent Your iPhone Battery from Draining
Now that we've discussed what causes an iPhone battery to drain quickly. Let's focus on prevention strategies.
1. Close Background Apps
When you find out that your iPhone battery is draining, you should start by lowering the device's work. You could accomplish this by shutting down every open background app. Background apps may cause your processor to overwork and your device’s battery to drain. How do you close these apps? If you have an iPhone X or a later model, swipe up from the screen's button to access the home screen. Navigate up on every app. To view the apps that are open in the background on an iPhone 8 or older model, double-tap the Home button. Next, slide across all apps.
2. Restart Your iPhone
Closing all background apps may not always be sufficient to undo the damage caused by errant apps or features that have caused your iPhone battery to drain. Rebooting your iPhone is an additional option to try in this situation. Depending on the model, there are differences in how to restart your iPhone. Holding down the side and volume button will bring up the power-off slider on iPhone X and later models. Drag it to turn your iPhone off entirely. To turn on your iPhone, hit the side button after a minute or less.
3. iPhone Battery Replacement
It's likely that the battery in your iPhone has aged and is no longer capable of carrying an all-day charge if it's older than a year or two. It's interesting to note that you can get your iPhone serviced by Apple, have the battery changed, and bring it back to its best.
4. Turn Off App Notifications
Notifications are useful when an app wants to alert you, but they also mean that your iPhone is always using up battery power to monitor what the app is doing. Lock-screen notifications are much worse because they brighten your screen for a minute, and as we mentioned before, this can significantly deplete your battery.
5. Turn Off Automatic Downloads
Although you have the option to have software updates, music, apps, and books downloaded automatically, these downloads waste your battery. In order to minimize battery usage and data loss, you can disable automated downloads or limit them to times when you are in WiFi coverage.
6. Use Less Screen Time
Screen Time is a helpful feature that not only gives you alarming data about how long you spend on your phone but also lets you set time limitations for using certain apps. If you discover that some battery-hungry apps, like Instagram or TikTok, are eating up too much of your time, you can save power and mental energy by restricting how long you use them each day.
Conclusion
So, what causes an iPhone battery to drain fast? An iPhone's battery can drain quickly due to factors such as excessive screen time, Bluetooth and WiFi usage, automatic updates, and an aging battery. To extend battery life, users should adjust notification settings, close unused apps, and maintain their device's software and hardware regularly.
