Battery drain after ios 26.5, is it regular?

It's been at least a week, maybe two, and my battery is awful now. Phone constantly overheating, battery health has gone down, and the charge that used to last a full 12 hours maybe lasts 8 if I'm lucky. I'm not even using a phone that has access to any of the AI junk but I suspect I'm still facing the consequences of a bunch of rich people falling for a scam.

So, not sure if it's normal, but ignore the people who brush it off when it's not happening to them, because it's certainly happening to me and this iPhone 16e is barely over a year old.

Asan iphone user, I have noticed a few times where the battery would drain but I was running a few apps at the time.

Asan iphone user, I have noticed a few times where the battery would drain but I was running a few apps at the time.

If you update to 26.6, that might solve the problem. I don't like the battery life of any of the E phones. It is short compared to the 16 or 16 pro.

What do you see when you open battery info in settings?

When you scroll all the way down, what three apps does it say are consuming the most battery? Are any of the percentages unusually high?

I had horrible battery life on the last couple iOS 26 versions, and noticed that Safari was using way more battery power than it should. Thanks to @Brian and his epic tech support skillz, I found out that the culprate was my ad blocker. I uninstalled it but haven't yet tried a replacement.

Questions for you.
• Do you ever close apps that are running in your app switcher? Or do you always leave apps running or just sitting there?
• Under Settings, General, Background App Refresh, do you have every single app enabled? Is it for Wi-Fi only, or both Wi-Fi and data, or do you have this feature fully disabled?
• Do you have any widgets running? Either on any of your Homescreens, or in your Today View?

The 16e is in fact an Apple Intelligence compatable device so I'm afraid you've been scammed. If you'd like to avoid being scammed in future, I'd suggest not purchasing an apple intelligence capable device as their soul function is to drain battery for very goodreasons that have to do with customer metrics and the like, it's all very complex stuff, you wouldn't get it.

This might have something to do with Apple Intelligence capable phones. They probably require more processing power to run all the extra features that probably drains battery. I’m just guessing. None of my devices are Apple Intelligence capable and I haven’t experienced any battery differences in iOS 26.6. I’m not saying that it’s not happening though I would never do that. I’m trying this continues to be a problem for people hopefully it will get resolved soon.

That was unnecessarily rude. I would rather a full explanation of what you're getting at rather than needless snark.

If you were joking, it missed the mark by a mile.

Always close apps in your app switcher if you're not using them actively. By actively, I mean you have the application focus on your screen and you are interacting with the contents of that application. Example, you have your YouTube app open, because you are watching/listening to YouTube videos. However if you have it just sitting in your app switcher all day long, that's just a waste. So close those apps. Hope that helps.

Update. The first days the battery will continue to have issues but later it will be stable. It suppose to index the system for iOS 27.

Apologies, I had thought I posted an explanation above but it looks like I posted it in the main ios26 thread. Anyway your phone is building a spotlight index in preparation for the new ios27 siri... Probably an attempt to skip the several day wait that would otherwise be required.

I think it's a long-standing myth that closing all apps from the app switcher improves battery life. From what I've read, iOS suspends apps that aren't actively being used. IIRC if an app is actively using memory, VO will say "active" after the name of the app in the app switcher.

Here's an article that quotes Apple itself on why you don't generally need to force quit apps on iOS.

Thank you for that explanation! Given that the battery drain is happening even on days when I barely use my phone, I can see that being possible. It's still very frustrating but hopefully it will stop soon.

Below is an excerpt taken from an article on the Apple discussions forum. I'm going to quote an amusing contradiction, and then the link to the actual article. Read it at your leisure and take it with a grain of salt. Personally, I think leaving apps open all the time in the app switcher is bad news, and Apple is well known for Poorly documenting their products and services. 🤷

It is a common belief that you should close apps running in background to improve performance and save battery life. Unfortunately, this is a myth that is not true in almost all situations.You should only close an app in the quick-launch (App Switcher) screen if it is "misbehaving" - not working right, or if it is using energy (as per Settings/Battery) and you don't need it at the present time.

If you click the link below, you can read the full article, including the bullet points that precede the excerpt I posted above. The contradiction lies in where it says that you should not close apps in the app switcher, unless it is using energy from the battery, then it goes on to have a bullet list of how closing apps in the app switcher does absolutely nothing and that there's no benefit. So my question for everyone is, if there's no benefit, yet there's a possibility these apps could be using energy (battery)), even in their ((suspended) state, why do we want to leave these open and running?

Again, take the article with a grain of salt, as for me, I will continue to close apps I'm not using Consistently. 🤔

Article link:

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-13491

I think just the fact that we use voiceover tends to use more battery in general. Takes more power to have a voice constantly speaking in the phone that it would be if we just use regular screens. As far as the apps were you concerned I will continue to close the apps that I am not using. Accepting I’ve gotten into the habit of doing it I might as well continue. I don’t know for a fact of Voice is using more battery, but it kind of makes sense to me because it has to run a screen reader say literally everything that the phone is doing. It seems that it would take more energy to do that. Again, this is just my theory. I have no way to prove that it’s my best guess. Also, it seems to be the people on here that are having any issues or only having issues with the Apple Intelligence capable devices. Since I have a regular iPhone 15 and an iPhone SE 2022 and neither one of my phones are app intelligence capable, and I’m also not really experiencing any differences in the battery and iOS 26. I hope that anybody who’s experiencing this look at this resolved soon as that could be really annoying.