If your iOS 16 beta is draining your iPhone battery, there are a number of quick and easy ways to fix the problem. In this article, I’ll show you some potential fixes for bad iOS 16 beta battery life.
Many beta testers are reporting excessive battery drain after downloading and installing the iOS 16 beta, claiming that their iPhones are no longer lasting as long as they used to before downloading and installing the iOS 16 beta. If you start noticing abnormal battery drain after installing the iOS 16 beta, and you don’t want to downgrade to iOS 15, there are some fixes that could fix the problem.
In this article, we’ve rounded up some simple tips and hacks tha will help you fix iOS 16 beta battery drain problem.
Use These Nifty Tips to Fix iOS 16 beta Battery Drain Issue on iPhone
1. Restart Your iPhone
If you start noticing excessive battery drain while running the iOS 15 beta, we recommend restarting your iPhone. Go to settings > general > shut down.
If a simple restart doesn’t fix the iOS 16 beta battery drain issue, perform a Force Restart. Force restarting your device can clear errors and fix iOS 16 battery drain issue. To do this, press and quickly release the Volume Up button, press and quickly release the Volume Down button, press and hold the Side button until you see the Apple logo on the screen.
2. Turn on auto-brightness
It can be tempting to leave your phone’s brightness set on maximum – but it doesn’t need to be on full constantly.
The brighter your phone’s screen, the faster your iOS device battery life will drain.
So consider turning on Apple’s Auto-Brightness feature, which will regulate the display brightness based on the ambient lighting wherever you are.
This can significantly improve the iOS 16 beta battery life over time, and is a handy way of keeping your brightness at the right levels automatically. Go to settings display and brightness and toggle on the button next to Automatic.
3. Delete battery-draining apps
Both inbuilt and third-party iOS apps are prone to acting up on iOS beta software and there’s a good chance one they’re the source of your problems.
Your iPhone has a built-in tool that lets you uncover exactly which apps are draining your battery life.
Head into Settings > Battery, and then wait for the page to load.
Next, tap on the ‘Last 10 Days’ option, which reveals battery usage for different apps from the past week-and-a-half.
If you scroll down, you can see the apps that have used the majority of your battery life, in percentage form.
So if an app has 20% next to it, that means it hoovered up a fifth of all battery life used in the past 10 days.
You can also toggle it to show the listed items by activity – keeping them ordered by battery usage.
So if you’ve spent very little time on an app but it’s high on the list for usage, that means it’s a battery killer.
This section also splits up the time that the app was running in the background.
Watch out for apps that use lots of battery and rack up lots of background usage time – they’re particularly bad for your battery life.
4. Disable GPS or location services—but only for power-hungry apps or apps you don’t need
Your phone’s GPS hardware, which it uses (along with Wi-Fi and other technologies) to determine your geographic location for mapping, run/bike-tracking, and other location-based features, consumes a lot of battery power. However, well-managed location services consume only a moderate amount of battery power.
For example, using the Maps app on an iPhone for a short trip will consume minimal battery life, as this app is designed to minimize GPS use; having the screen on during that navigation will consume significantly more. (This is, in part, why long navigation sessions use so much of your battery—you likely keep the screen on for the duration, and the screen draws a lot of power.) Similarly, step counters and activity-tracking apps that aren’t constantly monitoring your location don’t require much power while tracking in the background.
However, a run-tracking program that’s monitoring your precise location for the duration of an hour-long run will affect your battery level. You can take advantage of the previous tip (going through the battery-usage screen) to find big offenders: If a location-based app is using a lot of battery power, especially in the background, chances are good that the app is using GPS, Wi-Fi, and the phone’s sensors frequently. Depending on how much you value that app’s features, you can choose to let it continue to do its thing, or you can disable location features for it (either via your phone’s location-services settings or through the settings in the app itself).
Note: some apps let you choose whether to enable location services for each app all the time, or only when you’re actually using the app—an option we wish more apps would provide. If you choose “While Using the App” (under “Settings” then “Privacy” then “Location Services” then the app’s name), the app will still be able to determine your location while you’re actively using the app—in other words, when it’s on the screen—but not when it’s in the background.
5. Disable unnecessary push notifications
In addition to push email, which automatically notifies you of new email messages as they arrive, iPhone support push notifications, which allow apps to provide new information, sound alarms, display reminders, and more, instantly. Push notifications can be very convenient—they’re part of what makes a iPhone great—but every notification uses a bit of energy, as it requires your phone to wake up for a few seconds, including turning on the screen, to show you a message and give you a chance to act on it. If you get a lot of notifications, that energy use can add up.4
Determining exactly how much energy notifications use is difficult—in our testing, receiving a few dozen notifications over the course of an hour didn’t noticeably affect battery usage—but Apple recommend disabling notifications as a way to conserve battery power. If a particular app or service (say, Twitter or your email client) is constantly producing notifications, consider disabling notifications for that app. Go to “Settings” then “Notifications,” tap the app name, and disable “Allow Notifications” (or switch to a less-intrusive form of notifications, such as a Badge App Icon).
As a bonus, fewer push notifications means fewer interruptions in your day and less time spent using your iPhone (which, of course, also helps your battery last longer).
If you get a lot of notifications but have reasons (or just a predilection) to keep them coming, consider disabling notification vibrations instead. Every time your phone vibrates, it uses energy to move a little motor in the phone; over dozens or hundreds of notifications, that power drain adds up. You can disable all vibrations by going to “Settings” then “Accessibility” then “Touch” then “Vibration.” Alternatively, you can go to “Settings” then “Sounds & Haptics” and tap individual items under “Sounds and Vibration Patterns” to disable vibrations for each.
6. Always choose Wi-Fi over cellular
Many people, and even Apple, claim that using Wi-Fi for wireless data consumes less battery than using a cellular signal, so you should use Wi-Fi whenever you can. However, our testing found that this isn’t always the case. For example, when we tested in a location where both Wi-Fi and LTE signals were strong, on an iPhone an hour of browsing over Wi-Fi used roughly the same amount of battery power as an hour using LTE.
Where you will see differences is in areas where LTE coverage is poor. As we explain above, your phone uses significantly more power when trying to find and connect to a weak signal. So if you’re in a location where the Wi-Fi signal is bad, but you have a good cellular signal—so your phone is regularly switching between the two—disabling Wi-Fi and forcing your phone to use just cellular data will likely conserve battery power. Conversely, if your phone is struggling to get a good cellular signal, try finding an accessible Wi-Fi network (at a coffee shop or restaurant, for example) to use instead.
You’ll see the biggest impact of using cellular data when your phone has to switch between cellular towers in a continual search for a good signal. That said, in situations where you’re roaming on cellular data, you likely won’t have the option to use Wi-Fi (unless, for example, you’re on a train that offers Wi-Fi), so your only real option there is not to use cellular data at all—which might be inconvenient but will conserve a lot of battery power.
7. Install the Latest iOS 16 Beta
Apple will periodically release new iOS 16 beta software. While the company may not call out battery life fixes in the change log, new beta software always has the potential to help alleviate these problems.
If your iPhone is running old iOS 16 beta software, try moving to the latest update.
8. Stop ‘quitting’ your apps constantly
Closing iPhone apps constantly is a waste of time – and could actually hurt your handset.
Apple says you shouldn’t bother unless an app has frozen.
“When your recently used apps appear, the apps aren’t open, but they’re in standby mode to help you navigate and multitask,” Apple explained.
Part of the problem is that it’s tempting to think apps in your “carousel” are running.
But they’re actually frozen by your iPhone, so they don’t drain resources while you do other things.
Having to restart apps completely after being swiped away sucks up more battery life.
Also, the more strain you put on your battery, the faster it will degrade over time. That app will also take longer to restart.
It’s like loading a TV from standby, versus having the telly reboot completely.
9. Adjust Auto-Lock and Turn Off Raise to Wake
If you are still experiencing iOS 16 beta battery drain issue, it’s a good idea to set the Auto-Lock on the display as low as you can tolerate, which will cause the iPhone’s display to turn off after a short period of inactivity.
You can choose ranges from 30 seconds to never, but the lower end of the spectrum will help preserve battery life by cutting the display when it’s not needed.
Furthermore, if you really want to save iOS 16 beta battery, turning off Raise to Wake can help. You can access these Settings by going to Settings > Display & Brightness.
10. Use Dark Mode
Even though some users might naturally prefer a darker interface, it does help to fix the iOS 16 beta battery drain issue. This is due to the fact that the display will only light up pixels on the screen that are needed, the rest of them would remain off unless required. You can enable it by going to Settings > Display & Brightness and then selecting the Dark option.
11. Enable Low Power Mode
Apple’s low power mode on the iPhone works best by itself. The system disables certain aspects of the device that work in the background while giving you the option to resume work normally. It can disable background refresh, automatic downloads, and other aspects. You can enable Low Power Mode from Settings > Battery > Low Power Mode and toggle it On.
12. Enable Reduce Motion of Interface
The Reduce Motion aspect of iOS has always proved to be quite helpful in saving the battery life of the iOS 16 beta. The option basically turns off animations and allows less strain to be applied to the battery life. You can enable it by going to Settings > Accessibility > Motion and then turn on Reduce Motion.
13. Disable Background App Refresh
The next thing to do when troubleshooting iOS 16 beta battery drain issue is to disable Background App Refresh. Background App Refresh can impact battery life, so turning it off can help make your battery last longer. To do that, go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh and turning off the background app refresh toggle.
14. Turn off Automatic Downloads and App Updates
The automatic downloads feature is designed to sync apps between all of your devices by downloading apps that were downloaded on one device on the other devices as well. So if you download an app on an iPad, for example, Automatic Download will also download the app on your iPhone and this can cause your iOS 16 beta battery to drain faster. You can turn this feature off by going to Settings > App Store. Toggle off Apps and App Updates.
You can also turn off automatic iOS updates if desired by going to Settings > General > Software Update > Automatic Updates. Tap the toggle to turn updates off.
15. Reset All Settings
Another tip to help fix iOS 16 beta battery drain issue is to reset all settings. There is a possibility that the issue lies in the settings that you are not familiar with and hence, it would make sense to reset all of them. To do that, go to Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Reset and then tap on Reset All Settings.
16. Downgrade Back to iOS 15
If you can’t find a manual fix and/or don’t want to wait for Apple’s next iOS 16 beta, you can downgrade back to iOS 15.
See also: Top 16 Hidden iOS 16 Features Every iPhone User Should Know
Tips to fix iOS 16 beta battery drain issue
So that’s how you can fix iOS 16 beta battery drain problem. By getting rid of power hungry apps as well as taking control of power-sucking features, you can resolve the rapid power consumption issues. Take these tips into account, and you will see the difference right away. By the way, do you know any other tips to fix iOS 16 beta battery drain problem? If so, let us know in the comments section below.
See also: Common iOS 16 Beta Issues and How to Solve Them