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How to Fix Bad iOS 11 Battery Life

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Apple’s latest upgrade is causing battery drain issues for iPhone and iPad users and today we want to show you how to quickly fix bad iOS 11 battery life.

The iOS 11.4.1 update fixes several issues with Apple’s mobile operating system, but the company’s latest software upgrade is causing problems of its own. iPhone and iPad users are reporting a variety of issues including severe battery drain.

If you run into battery life problems while running iOS 11.4.1 (or another version of iOS 11) you might be thinking about downgrading to an older version of iOS 11.

While downgrading is certainly an option, you’ll want to try and iron out your battery life issues before you give up on Apple’s latest update.

Our guide to fixing bad iOS 11 battery life on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch will provide you with some proven fixes and also some strategies to use if your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch battery life starts acting up.

Some of the steps here only require a few seconds of your time. Others could take you a lot longer. Here are a few things to try before taking your phone or tablet down to your local (if you have one) Apple Store.

Restart Your Device

Sometimes a simple restart can help your device overcome abnormal battery drain. If you start noticing weird iOS 11 battery drain, try restarting your phone or tablet. Hold the power button, swipe, and hold the power button to turn it back on.

Download the Latest iOS 11 Update

If you’re having issues on iOS 11.0, iOS 11.0.1, iOS 11.0.2, iOS 11.0.3, iOS 11.1, iOS 11.1.1, iOS 11.1.2, iOS 11.2, iOS 11.2.1, iOS 11.2.2, iOS 11.2.5, iOS 11.2.6, iOS 11.3, iOS 11.3.1 or iOS 11.4, try upgrading to Apple’s iOS 11.4.1 update.

https://twitter.com/GymGodders/status/1016551181638864897

Some users claim iOS 11.4.1 has fixed their battery drain issues so it’s worth a shot if you haven’t been able to find a fix on your own.

Try the iOS 12 Beta

If you can’t wait for the next version of iOS 11, try downloading Apple’s iOS 12 beta.

The iOS 12 beta is an early version of Apple’s upcoming iOS 12 update (set for release this fall) and it comes with a long list of changes including performance improvements.

The beta is plagued with numerous bugs, but there’s a chance it’ll improve your device’s battery life. We’re running the iOS 12 beta on several devices and we haven’t run into any battery life issues yet.

If you’re interested, take a look at our guide to installing the iOS 12 beta. You’ll also want to look over our reasons to avoid it. It might be more trouble than it’s worth.

Use Wi-Fi When You Can

Using cellular data (LTE, 4G) can suck up your phone’s power. When you can, use Wi-Fi. It uses less power than a cellular network.

Check Your Apps

Apple’s iOS updates aren’t supposed to have a negative impact on your battery life and there’s a good chance it’s something other than the operating system causing the problem.

Apps like Facebook have been known to suck up battery life and there’s a very good chance you’ve got a rotten apple on board your iPhone or iPad. Applications and services will often act up after a major iOS release.

Before you do anything else, check your apps. Go into your Settings > Battery and check out the Battery Usage tool. It will show you the apps doing the most damage to your device’s battery.

If you notice an app draining a ton of battery, try deleting the app to see if things improve. You can always re-install it if you determine it’s not the source of the drain.

If you’d prefer to keep the app, try installing the latest bug fix to see if that helps. Developers will roll out iOS 11 support updates and these should help performance.

Update YouTube

The YouTube app was reportedly causing severe battery drain for some iOS 11 users. If you’re noticing extremely battery drain when using the app, you will need to curb your use or update the app with the latest bug fixes.Version 12.45 fixes an issue with battery usage.

If your battery life is draining rapidly while using YouTube and you’re positive it has nothing to do with how much you’re using it, update the app.

Disable Vibrations

Your device might vibrate whenever you receive a phone call or a message. These alerts are useful but they make the hardware inside your phone work and this work requires power.

If you’re fine without vibrations, you can always use a ring tone to alert you to new messages and calls, try shutting them off. It could help.

To do this go to Settings > Sounds and toggle Vibrate on Ring and Vibrate on Silent off. You’ll also want to go into each individual Sound and Vibration and make sure Vibration (located at the top of the screen) is set to none.

Manage Your Display

Your display can be a battery life killer if you don’t manage it properly.

The sensors inside your iPhone or iPad will adjust the screen automatically in certain lighting environments. Sometimes these sensors work as advertised. Sometimes they don’t. If your screen is bright for no reason, you might be costing yourself some battery life.

If you’re up to it, try manually adjusting your display to suit your lighting conditions. To do this, you’ll need to turn Auto Brightness off.

Go into Settings > General > Accessibility > Display Accommodations > Auto-Brightness > Off. Once you’ve shut it off, you’ll need to manually adjust your screen brightness. Fortunately, this is simple on iOS 11.

Simply pull up Control Center (swipe up from the bottom of your phone) and adjust the screen as needed. You can also adjust it in the Settings app.

Disable Raise to Wake

iOS 11’s Raise to Wake feature is handy but turning it off could save you a few battery percentage points.

If you don’t need your screen to automatically turn on whenever you pickup your device, go into the Settings app > Display & Brightness and toggle the Raise to Wake function off.

You can always turn it back on if you don’t see any improvements to your device’s overall battery life.

Kill Background Refresh

iOS’ Background App Refresh feature lets your apps refresh in the background in order to show you the latest data when you open them. It’s a nice perk but it’s also a resource hog.

Most people probably don’t need this feature enabled. To disable it, go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh > and turn it off for apps you don’t use.

You can also turn Background App Refresh off completely if you don’t want to go through your list of applications one by one. If you have a ton of apps, the process can be extremely tedious.

You can always turn the feature back on if you don’t notice any gains.

Avoid Dynamic Backgrounds

Animated wallpapers look great but they can be a drain on your device’s battery. If you want to save your battery you’ll want to use static backgrounds. Fortunately, iOS 11 delivers new static wallpapers.

Turn Off Fitness Tracking

Your iPhone comes with a motion co-processor that can track your steps and other activities. If you’re trying to stay in shape we’ll understand if you want to keep this feature on. If you don’t use your phone to track your fitness try turning the non-stop tracking off.

To do this head into your Settings app and tap on Privacy. From there, select Motion & Fitness and toggle the Fitness Tracking function off.  You might also want to toggle off any apps listed below Fitness Tracking in that menu.

Use Low Power Mode & Put It In Control Center

iOS 11’s Low Power Mode can help you save battery life and it’s a feature you’ll want to get familiar with if you haven’t done so already.

Low Power Mode’s been around for a couple of years now but we still hear from people who don’t use it or don’t know what we’re talking about.

In a nut shell, Low Power Mode shuts off functions that could be draining your battery. For instance, Hey Siri, automatic downloads, and mail fetch. You can turn Low Power Mode on and off any time.

Customize the iOS 11 Control Center.

Customize the iOS 11 Control Center.

To do that, head into Settings > Battery > Low Power Mode > and toggle it On whenever you need to save a few percentage points. We also recommend putting it in Control Center for easy access.

Apple’s iOS 11 allows you to customize Control Center (the menu that pops up when you swipe up from the bottom of the screen). We recommend storing a shortcut to Low Power Mode in Control Center for easy access.

To do that, head to Settings > Control Center > Customize Controls and tap the green plus sign next to Low Power Mode.

Use Airplane Mode

If you start noticing rapid battery drain, turn on Airplane Mode.

Airplane Mode, which can be accessed via the Settings app or Control Center, kills all of your connections including Bluetooth, cellular data, and Wi-Fi.

If you’re in an area with spotty service, your phone is going to be working hard to get a signal. When your phone is working hard, your battery is probably draining. Airplane Mode will prevent this.

Disable Widgets

Widgets are everywhere in iOS 11 and they could ruin your battery life if you’re not careful.

If you don’t use widgets or simply want to get a handle on them, swipe over to the right while you’re on your device’s home screen.

On this screen, scroll all the way to bottom of your widgets and select Edit. It’s the circular icon. You should now see a list of services and apps. These are your widgets. To deactivate a widget, tap the red circle with the white line and tap Remove.

Disable as many as you want.

Stop Killing Your Apps

While you might be tempted to shut down your apps to conserve battery life, Apple says closing apps in your multitasking screen won’t help.

It’ll be a hard habit to break for some of you but if you can manage you could see a positive effect.

Turn Off Assistive Touch

iOS 11’s Assistive Touch might be draining your device’s battery. If you don’t need Assistive Touch on your device, try turning it off.

To turn off Assistive Touch, go to Settings > General > Accessibility > AssistiveTouch, and toggle it off.

Reset All Settings

Once you’ve exhausted those options, it’s time to go nuclear. First, we recommend resetting your Settings.

To do this, go to Settings > General > Reset > Reset All Settings and then enter your passcode if you have one enabled on your device.

The process could take a few minutes and it will restore your device’s settings to their factory defaults so make sure you have all of your Wi-Fi passwords handy because your device will forget them.

Downgrade

If you were having a great experience on a previous version of iOS 11 you could try downgrading your device to see if that improves your device’s battery life.

We’ve put together a downgrade guide that will take you through the steps necessary to drop back down to an older version of iOS 11.

Apple tends to close up these loopholes pretty quickly so downgrading won’t always be an option.

Restore as New

If you’ve owned your iPhone or iPad for awhile, you might try restoring the device from a backup. Or, if you’re feeling really ambitious, you can try restoring the device as new.

You can do this via iTunes or iCloud and depending on your skill level and situation, it could take you more than 30 minutes to complete.

Buy a Battery Case or Battery Bank

If you’re willing to spend money to improve your battery you might think about buying a battery case or a battery bank.

There are a ton of battery case options out there and our list of the best iPhone cases will get you on the right track.

If you’d prefer not to cover up your phone with a bulky case, and battery cases are bulky, you might opt for a battery bank.

Battery banks are small and lightweight gadgets that give you multiple charges. One such device, the RAVPower battery pack can give you six full iPhone charges.

You should also take a look at Mophie’s powerstation plus mini and the Anker Powercore 20100.

4 Reasons Not to Install iOS 12.5.6 & 10 Reasons You Should

Install iOS 12.5.6 for Better Security

Install iOS 12.5.6 for Better Security

If you're on the fence, here's one of the best reasons to install iOS 12.5.6 right away.

iOS 12.5.6 has a vital security patch on board and it will protect your device(s) from harm. If you want the details, head over to Apple's website.

If you missed the iOS 12.5.5 update, it brought three security patches to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. You can learn more about the trio on Apple's security site

If you missed iOS 12.5.4, you'll get that update's important security upgrades with your iOS 12.5.6 update. If you're interested in the particulars, head on over to Apple's website for more.

If you skipped iOS 12.5.3, you'll get its security patches with your upgrade. Both of its patches were related to WebKit. If you want to learn more about them, head on over to Apple's security site

If you skipped iOS 12.5.2, you'll also get its security patch with your upgrade. You can read more about it over on Apple's website

If you also skipped iOS 12.5, you'll also get its patch with your upgrade. Apple's outlined the update's patch in detail on its security site

If you missed iOS 12.4.9, you'll also get its four security patches with your upgrade. You can read more about those right here

If you skipped iOS 12.4.7, you also get the update's three security patches (two for the Mail app and one for Wi-Fi) with your upgrade to iOS 12.5.6.

If you're running software that's older than Apple's iOS 12.4.4 update, you'll want to download iOS 12.5.6 in the near future because it brings iOS 12.4.4's security patch to your device. You can read about it right here.

If you're running software older than iOS 12.4.2, you'll get an its patch with your upgrade. You can read about the security contents of iOS 12.4.2 right here

If you're on software that's older than iOS 12.4.1, you'll get iOS 12.4.1's security patch with your iOS 12.5.6 update. You can read about that patch right here

If you're on software that's older than iOS 12.4, you get iOS 12.4's patches with your iOS 12.5.6 update. 

iOS 12.4 brought 19 security patches to the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. If you're interested in the specifics, you can read about them on Apple's security site

If you're running software older than iOS 12.3, your iOS 12.5.6 update carries iOS 12.3's security patches on board. The iOS 12.3 update brought 23 patches and you can read about all of them right here on Apple's site. 

If you're on software that's older than iOS 12.2, you'll get iOS 12.2's security patches with your version of iOS 12.5.6.

iOS 12.2 brought a whopping 41 security patches to iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. You can read more about the iOS 12.2's patches over on the company's website

It's important to note that Apple's iOS 12.2 update patched up an exploit that allowed websites to use motion sensors to "fingerprint" devices.

The exploit, discovered by researchers in Europe, uses JavaScript to snag data from a device's accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer when the user visits an infected website. If the attack is successful, a device can be tracked around the internet. 

Fortunately, Apple's patched up the issue. If you skipped it, you'll probably want to move to iOS 12.5.6 soon.

If you're on software older than iOS 12.1.4, you get four important security patches including fixes for a widespread FaceTime eavesdropping bug that lets you call someone via FaceTime and hear the audio coming from their phone before they pick up the phone.

If you're on software older than iOS 12.1.3, you get some additional patches with your version of iOS 12.5.6. Again, they're baked into your upgrade.

Apple lists a grand total of 23 patches on board iOS 12.1.3 and you can read about all of them over on Apple's website. 

If you're on software older than iOS 12.1.1, you should install the iOS 12.5.6 update on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch today. 

The iOS 12.1.1 update brought 17 patches for potential security exploits. They'll will help protect your phone. You can read about them here.

If you're running software older than iOS 12.1, you'll get 24 patches from that update with your version of iOS 12.5.5.

If you're on software that's older than iOS 12.0.1, your iOS 12.5.6 update brings two additional patches. Both patches are for potential lock screen exploits.

Long story long, if you store sensitive data on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, you have some really good reasons to upgrade to iOS 12.5.6 today.

14 Comments

14 Comments

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  2. Venom

    09/19/2017 at 5:19 pm

    If we disable all these features ..why buy an iPhone :-)

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  9. Tom

    09/27/2017 at 4:21 pm

    These are all nice tips but something that you shouldnt need to do just because of an ios update, except for maybe the FB app that is known for using a lot of battery. But if your battery was fine with the previous ios 10 these fixes here are not going to change anything about that. It’s a problem on apple’s end and you have to wait for them to fix it in a new update. Also remember the first few days after installing a major new update the phone will run some indexing of files, it will run in the background so nothing you will notice, but it will take some extra power from your battery. Once the indexing is done you should see some improvement on the battery life.

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