Did iOS 7.1.1 Help or Hurt Battery Life on Your iPhone / iPad?

Apr 25, 2014 - 45 Comments

iPhone battery

Some users are reporting major differences to battery life for iPhone and iPad models that have updated to iOS 7.1.1, with some reports of improved battery life and others reporting increased battery drain, sometimes even rapidly like that seen with the 7.1 update (which is easily fixable).

So we ask the readers, did iOS 7.1.1 change your battery life at all?

From initial testing, there doesn’t seem to be much of an outward impact on battery made with iOS 7.1.1, and certainly nothing in the release notes mention the topic, but nearly every single iOS update comes with reports of either better or worse battery anyway. Until we find something a bit more conclusive, we’ll ask for your own experience; if you installed the 7.1.1 update, have you noticed a change in how long your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch lasts before having to recharge it again?

Did iOS 7.1.1 change the battery life of your iPhone or iPad?

Let us know your experiences in the comments, whether battery has gotten better or worse.

Personally, I haven’t noticed anything obvious yet and it seems about the same as iOS 7.1. If yours has gotten worse, consider making a few changes to fix it, and if you’re experiencing the warm iPhone with rapid drain issue, follow these steps to resolve that. Also, don’t forget to toggle off the Bluetooth setting, which routinely turns itself on with even minor software updates, typically it won’t impact things but if you have a car dash that syncs through Bluetooth or many other devices, the constant searching can cause some serious drain.

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Posted by: Paul Horowitz in iPad, iPhone

45 Comments

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  1. pmilligan says:

    I upgraded to 7.11 and my battery turned to s—-. It lasts about half a day. That’s unacceptable on my iPhone 6.

  2. Marc says:

    It’s horrible. I knew the problems other people had when updated to iOS7 and even had a quite good battery life, but since I updated to iOS 7.1.1 my phone can’t last all day. It drains 30% during night, this means with no use at all.

  3. Matco says:

    I never had problems, but from 7.1.1 its getting hot and battery lasts 4/5 hours with a normal usage, and maybe 2 hours using it intensively.
    Went To Genius Bar: battery is fine and device too
    Reinstalled it from zero a few times, nothing!
    Basically, it sucks.

  4. Phil Frederix says:

    I have an iphone 5S.
    Updated to 7.1.1 (11D201)
    With 4G deactivated I have to charge my phone every 5 days.
    With 4G activated… every single day.

  5. David Thomas says:

    A lot of you guys are stupid, you can’t complain about battery if have a 4s or even a 5. If your using a older iPhone you cannot expect the new iOS features and your battery to be as good as it was day one. Batteries do just get worn out, its not always Apples fault. Heres your options, stop being cheap and buy a 5s, go get a battery replacement or stop complaining.

    • Chris says:

      this is b**shit. I put a new battery in my iphone one month ago, battery life was really good on ios 7.1 then after updating to 7.1.1 I could see the drain almost real time! I decided to go back to 7.1 through IPSW and surprise! Battery drain disappeared.

    • Martin says:

      What a complete load of rubbish!

      I am happy with my 4S which was fine until I upgraded to 7.1.1. Why would I want to buy the latest model when I am happy with the version of phone I have? Why did the first v7 release not reduce battery time so significantly?

      Apple should regression test IOS against other supported versions of the phone and not release code which causes degradation to any version that IOS7 is supported on.

      Your statement only holds true for unsupported versions of the iPhone. You are clearly the stupid one.

  6. Johnny says:

    My Battery on my Ipad Air wifi goes down 20% in 1 hour after the new oppdate 7.1.1. This in normal surfing and now movie/game streaming

  7. FLP says:

    This morning when i left home at 6 am i had 91% battery reading, after i came home from work at 3:30 pm there was 14% left, the phone had only been in my rucksack as usually , also i have tried to enable bluetooth.

  8. KJ says:

    I have an i5. After this update my battery life has been draining at a very rapid rate. I went from 100% to 32% in 3 hours. My phone gets very hot as well.
    My background app refresh is off and my email is on manual.
    Any advice you can provide will be really appreciated.

  9. Andy says:

    5s here. No tangible difference from 7.1, but a bit better than 7.0x.

  10. Winski says:

    Impact about 25% NEGATIVE…. It reduced the amount of time between charges on ‘normal’ usage patterns… Both devices….

  11. Cas90nova says:

    Hi i have iphone 4s since i updated to 7.1.1 the battery don’t last for even 5 houra or 6 hours and that when i’m not using the iphone
    I wonder whats happening i thought my battery need change or something
    Now i take the charger every where cause the charger drop soooo fast

  12. FLP says:

    My 5S has larger drain of battery after the update, so now i need to charge it each day. Before i could keep going for 2 days.

  13. FRED says:

    Nothing!
    Apple do nothing!!!

  14. Elspeth says:

    I have an iphone 5 and the battery loses 1% every minute! I need help

  15. Winski says:

    So far, I’ve experienced about a 30% DECLINE in battery life.. Then I added an ‘extra’ battery pack. Last Asunday, 4/18/2014, this made things a LOT worse. On Sunday, the battery was draining at the rate of 10-15 % every 15 minutes… That’s when I got the AppleCare support folks involved …. Their best fix was to ‘restore the phone after erasing it…

    Basically, start from scratch…. Painful….

  16. Justin says:

    I have iphone 4S running 7.1.1

    Mostly use my phone for Text Messages, Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and a few regular type apps.

    Don’t make a lot of long phone calls on it, so can’t really tell much of a difference in that regard.

    I can say that since upgrading to 7.1.1 i can be on 20-15% battery, and that’s it. Phone shuts down. And have to plug in for recharge.

    • Ray says:

      I am also using an iPhone 4s and have noticed a change in battery life since the 7.1 update.

      When I applied the 7.1 update, my battery was draining within 2 days and I hardly use it for anything that will drain a battery; it usually lasted about a week before that.

      With this new update (7.1.1) it is lasting much longer. It is now 3 days and still has 41% capacity with similar usage as before.

  17. Jupiter Antunes says:

    Nothing different from 7.1

  18. Chris C says:

    iPhone 4S user…update 7.1.1 has ‘bricked’ my phone. It now asks to be plugged into iTunes and then to perform a system restore. Tried to continue with a system restore but even that doesn’t work. Going to an apple store tomorrow, doubt there’s much they can do. Thanks apple

    • vdiv says:

      Not a significant change on my 2-year old 4S. According to Apple the battery is still ok, but it seems that the battery management system cannot track its charge and it prematurely shuts down the phone with significant amount of charge left. 7.1.1 has not changed that.

      Apple’s suggestion was to blow it all off and start with a fresh copy of the OS. If I’m to that might as well get a new phone.

      • Kevin says:

        Try letting the phone run down flat, then charge to back up to 100% without using it. It resets the battery chip memory. 90% of the time, if the phone is plugged in without going flat, the battery chip tends to lose track of the actual charge of the battery. Doing this once every few months, keeps the battery in good shape and the battery chip in order.

    • Kevin says:

      Do you understand what the term “bricked” actually means? Coz if you did, you would never be able to restore or use the phone again. No? So lets just use terms we understand, ok.

      • Leart78 says:

        Yeah due to dfu mode iPhone it’s impossible to brick , the worst scenario will be to put the device in dfu mode and restore

  19. Katbel says:

    A little improvement for my
    iPhone 5s +
    The iPad did not see any change

    http://cdn.osxdaily.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif

  20. Katbel says:

    http://cdn.osxdaily.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif
    A little improvement for my
    iPhone 5s +
    The iPad did not see any change

  21. Robert D. says:

    Update turns Bluetooth on again! What is it with Apple and Bluetooth? If I wanted the thing on, then I would have turned it on.

  22. Mayur says:

    Battery got better instead :) :)

    • Paul says:

      Hoping for the same myself, but haven’t seen anything either way yet

    • Rocky7 says:

      Same here, I’m at work 11 hours a day plus an hour and a bit spent playing music in the car via bluetooth. My phone was still at 70% come home time tonight, where before this update i would have to charge it before leaving work cause it would be around 30%..I haven’t really noticed to much else different other than battery life so far.

  23. pete says:

    No difference here

  24. Kristian Platz says:

    I have a 5C with 7.1.1 and my battery life is very limited after the update.

    I will lose 70% during my work day normly max 40%

  25. Matt Chan says:

    No difference here. My iPhone 5 battery has been going steadily downhill since iOS 7 like this:

    iOS 6: Wow, great battery life! Wow this thing lasts all day! Amazing!

    iOS 7: Well this is bad, lasts half as long now, that sucks. Better charge it at home and at the office.

    iOS 7.1: Absolutely terrible, stuck to a USB charger all day. Sending iMessages must be a CPU intensive activity, phone dies after an hour of texting!

    iOS 7.1.1: no difference, still terrible.

    Call me a conspiracy theorist, but Apple seems to push updates that nuke the battery life and/or performance of 2+ year old iPhone models, purely coincidentally I’m sure, right around the time when a new iPhone model comes out and your contract cycle is up. Funny timing on that, huh? So here we are with my iPhone 5 lasting about 3 hours !!!JUST SITTING IN MY POCKET!!! before its totally dead, stuck to a USB charger in the office, car, and at home. But oh, in a few months the iPhone 6 will be out!

    • Kevin says:

      Why would Apple piss you off just for the fun of it, only to push you to their competitors? I’ve not had any issues with the updates. The only problem I’ve had with battery drain, is the dreaded Facebook app issue. The app was pinging home every 10 seconds and sucked the life out of my phone. Turning off Facebook in location services and background app refresh, problem gone. Maybe its a facebook conspiracy too now? Give us a break, please.

      • Leart78 says:

        Call me paranoiac but I feel that the web is full with fake users that are bad mouthing apple.

        • Bobert says:

          Some people are having legitimate, documented issues iOS updates affecting battery life – and it shouldn’t be dismissed from people like you who feel that any criticism against Apple is some sort of vendetta against the brand. All operating systems have problems, including those from Apple. Nothing is perfect.

  26. Steve says:

    Haven’t noticed any great change in battery life (still generally pretty poor), but have noticed a deterioration in iTouch again (even though further improvements were meant to have been made in 7.1.1).

  27. Chuck says:

    Another update, another battery discussion. Amirite?

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