As nifty as the new iPhone 12 may be, there could be an issue that leads to rapid battery drain, even when the Wi-Fi and/or 5G features have been turned off. Users have described the case as feeling the battery is draining more quickly than it should.
In the case of some iPhone 12 models, especially with the Pro and mini units, which feature a lower battery capacity than the iPhone 11 models, users on the Apple Communities forums cited the fast iPhone 12 Pro battery drain on standby even when their expectations were that it wouldn’t be quite as good as the iPhone 11 Pro. They brought up battery loss of about 4 percent (per hour) on standby shortly after getting their iPhone 12 Pro in late October.
The general gist of the original post:
However I’m noticing that the iPhone 12 Pro is draining when idle with almost no background activity at a rate of 4% which is much faster than my previous iPhone 11 Pro, and to be honest a faster idle drain than I can actually remember from a new iPhone. First instinct was to disable Mobile data to see if it was a 5G thing, but I actually don’t see any real difference from doing that (which makes sense as I’ve been on Wifi 98% of the time since I got it).
No matter what I try, it seems to be going down oddly quick. Not to an useable level or anything world ending, but I guess its sort of suspicious. I check the battery report, and it’s not showing any real culprit, just a rapid decline for no clear reason.
If anyone can share their idle battery with either 12 or 12 Pro I’d really appreciate it.
One mobile engineer, who created the image above, brought up the fact that the battery use chart should not decline the same for standby and active use. Notably, the chart below shows the battery drain happening about the same even with Low Power Mode on.
Another commenter stated that Apple Support ran diagnostics and everything tested fine, and cited that an iOS bug could be responsible for the excessive battery drain:
I spoke to Apple support today & they ran diagnostics saying that everything checks out. I imagine what this means is that there is a software issue causing the battery to drain – hopefully they sort it soon. It 100% isn’t normal for all apps to be closed, background app refresh off, Bluetooth off & lose 40% charge overnight.
A number of other users have noticed the iPhone 12 battery drain issues on reddit and elsewhere. If you’ve seen this issue on your end, please let us know about your experience in the comments.
Via 9to5Mac, discussions.apple.com, and Reddit