Ever since the iOS 13 update was released, people have been complaining about bad battery life. Well, it's not that your iPhone battery has gone bad overnight, nor did your iPhone for that matter. It can be blamed on the iOS 13 update itself. And even though Apple has released fixes for battery drains in iOS 13.1.1 update, there's a lot more you can do to diagnose and improve the battery life of your iPhone.
1. Patience is a virtue
Battery drains a quite normal after every iOS updates. Same goes for any operating system updates too. Post every update, numerous things happen in the background to bring things back to how they were. Everything from indexing photos and files, to recalibrating battery life. Which means that there more demand on the battery, and the battery meter might not be displaying the correct reading.
So be patient! Let the iPhone go through a few recharge/discharge cycles before deciding that there is a problem.
2. Keep your phone updated
Since the release of iOS 13, Apple released iOS 13.1, iOS 13.1.1, and iOS 13.1.2. iOS 13.1.1 contained fixes specifically related to battery life.
So if you've not downloaded and installed the latest updates, it's time to do so! Go to Settings > General > Software Update on your iPhone and download the newest iOS 13 update.
3. Update your iPhone apps
Sometime, the problem might be with an app (or multiple apps) and not iOS itself, especially when new versions of iOS have been released. It's always a good practice to keep all your apps updated before you go spending a lot of time trying to diagnose what's going on.
Open the App Store app on your iPhone, and click your profile icon in the corner then scroll down to Available Updates to look for updates. You can also pull down this screen to refresh it to view all the latest updates.
4. Have you Rebooted your iPhone yet?
Now this might seem like a simple fix, but you'd be surprised to know how often it works!
For iPhone 8 and later, simply click and release the volume up button followed by the volume down button, then press and hold down the power button until the Apple logo appears on the screen.
For iPhone 7 and earlier, press and hold the power button and volume down until the Apple logo appears on screen.
5. What's eating Gilbert Grapes
If updating iOS and your apps didn't solve the issue, and the battery is showing as fine, there is a chance that it could be caused by a rogue app that's draining the battery. And fortunately iOS offers you the tools you need to track down those misbehaving apps.
Head over to Settings > Battery, and here you will see a lot of data, including Battery Usage By App. Tapping in this area also allows you to switch Activity By App, which shows a breakdown of how much power the app is using while on the screen and how much it is using when in the background.
Using this information you can diagnose the cause of the battery drain issue. Here's how to use this information:
An app going berserk in the background will show lots of activity in the background compared to screen activity (try disabling background activity for that app and see if that helps).
It can spot charging problems (was the battery actually charging when you thought it was?).
It can be used to spot poor battery performance (look for battery charge falling rapidly).
6. Check your iPhone's Battery
If the above 5 steps didn't solve your problems, or you were not able to diagnose the cause, it might be a good time to carry out a quick battery check. Go to Settings > Battery > Battery Health on your iPhone. If this screen shows Maximum Capacity over 80% and Peak Performance Capability shows "Your battery is currently supporting normal peak performance" then you are OK. For anything else, your iPhone may need a battery replacement.
7. Disable background apps
Background App Refresh allows apps to update and refresh themselves automatically in the background even when they aren't shown on the screen. If you discovered an app in step #6 that is doing a lot in the background then this could be the root cause of the battery issue.
Go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh and either turn off the setting completely (not recommended but can help) or disable this for individual apps.
8. The nuclear option
This is a drastic step, but it can help you ascertain if the issue is a hardware issue or software. This is recommended as a last resort because not only it is very time consuming, it would also wipe your iPhone clean. So be sure to backup your iPhone before trying this.
