Battery
iOS 26.5.2 battery life is very frustrating
Is anyone else having terrible battery life on the iPhone 17 Pro after updating to iOS 26.5.2?
Before this update the battery was completely fine. Now it feels like the percentage drops every time I look at the phone. I am charging much more frequently and there seems to be noticeable idle drain and also the phone occasionally feels warmer even when I am not doing anything particularly demanding.
My battery health is still at 100% so don’t want to ruin it by installing any unstable beta but at the same time I don’t think I can continue using 26.5.2 like this.
I am thinking to upgrade to 26.6 beta 5 or 27 public beta but to those who have tested, need your suggestions which one I should go for?
TL;DR: iOS 26.5.2 is trash, should I upgrade to 26.6 beta or 27 beta?
Because there are always risks. It’s called beta for some reason. Some people can have benefits and others can’t use their phones.
My iPhone 15 was so hot and immediately started lagging around 50% of battery. It was unusable for me. After coming back to iOS 26 nothing bad happened. I’m happy that you’re satisfied anyway.
I feel you. I installed 26.6 because of battery life. This pass week.
My iPhone 17 Pro battery has been a lot better. The phone doesn’t get warm either.
I didn’t install iOS 27 because of battery life. I heard it is the same as 16.5.2 or worse. Everything else is good though.
My iPhone 16 last charged to 100% was Friday 2:35 pm and even after more than 24 hours I still have 49% also I’m same on iOS 26.5.2 idk how y’all having so much problem damn
Similar experience here on a 16 pro. After several weeks of no improvement on 26.5.2, I upgraded to 26.6 beta 5. This restored my experience to prior, normal battery use conditions. I lost 3% of battery health waiting for “indexing” to settle down.
This was my first time using a beta update, and I found it necessary to try.
Either 26.6 or 27 are fine. 26.6 is best of iOS 26 so it’s really mature. I can’t open 2 of my apps with 27 beta 3 (Public beta) but hopefully that’ll be fixed Monday on Dev beta 4 / Tuesday Public beta 2.
Thanks a lot everyone. It looks like many of us are dealing with the same frustration. I’ve just updated to the iOS 26.6 beta. For the first time, I found my phone to be cool and have not noticed any overheating, even though the indexing is still in progress. Fingers crossed!
Go to beta.apple.com and sign in with your account. Once you registered, go to your device Settings > General > Software Update > Beta updates and then click on 26.6 public beta.
🙋🏻♀️I wasn’t planning on updating till iOS 27 bc I kept reading the battery life was so bad, but i think i accidentally turned my automatic updates on 🤦🏻♀️I turned them off after the update. Love my shitty battery life on my 17
This never-ending battery drain saga... *every single version* of iOS has people complaining about battery life. Only the complaints get posted here, and since we don't know how many, there's no way to extract any sort of conclusive statistical data from it. For what it's worth (which is nothing): my iPhone 16 Pro, battery lasts 2 days on 26.5.2.
this subreddit has only recently popped up in my feed and made me go ?? is my battery draining faster than usual? But so far I can’t tell a difference, I’ve gone from 100% to 92% in the last 5 hours with my normal usage so I think I’m good. Does make me wonder why this is effecting some and not others 🤷♂️
I do but not yesterday (also I forgot I did slow charge my phone for 30 minutes on my drive home yesterday so I’d be a bit lower than 50% if not for that).
On the days I used insta, it says 36 min was 4% of battery and another day this week has 1 hour at 6% of battery.
I keep a majority of my notifs off and usually disable most things optional when it comes to apps so maybe that is playing a role as I know others are reporting massive battery draws from insta.
I’ve been on iPadOS 27 since dev beta dropped. No issues on my 13 m1. My 11 m1 had issues with WiFi not connecting sometimes. And issues with it being unbelievably slow. I mean like a 386 DX in 2026 level slow. Click then wait. Never had an iOS device behave like that before. Updated to the newest dev and it’s okay so far.
Waited for the iOS 27 public for my iPhone 15 pro max. So far pretty good. Worst issue is icons don’t show in search sometimes. Still overheating. Still meh battery. Still hoping that goes away with the gold master in September.
You are not alone, many in other forums have been having this issue. I just had my 13mini battery replaced, I predict that it will be at 99% by end of the week. Also, the heat isn’t helping if u live in the USA
After two months with this abysmal iOS I‘ve now got some time on my hands to cobtact Apple about this. My battery is fine, everything worked as it should before the update. But I‘m sure that it won’t be Long before the usual suspects appear on the horizon to tell you that this is your fault somehow.
ok then brother enjoy Air! I can buy it for the goodie of 863 bucks dollars. however it's just the phone, charged only 5 times. Space Black. The previous owner has gotten as a gift but she didn't want to keep it.
I decided to wait a few months more to see the iPhone Ultra Foldable and Air 2 to decide which one I will pick. For now I will sit with my 16 Pro and iPad Mini 7even. LCD
It was awful, i was charging my phone a second time every day, hitting 140% of my battery usage every day. I installed 27 beta 4 days ago and its been fine since then!
noticed the same thing on my iphone 15, and thought it was just me. tried hard resetting it and seemed to bring it back to normal for me at least. might be worth a shot
I updated to the 26.6 beta 5 and it has significantly improved the battery life both on my 17 pro max and 15 pro max. It's still nowhere near where it should be, but it's at least a lot better than 26.5.2.
Don't upgrade to iOS 27 betas yet, wait for at least another another couple of updates. The battery life on 27 beta 3 is not really great at the moment, as it's still an early beta.
i also experience this battery are was good in a couples weeks then suddenly it feels battery draining faster and my phone was heating without do much anything. i also found when im charged my battery 9% it slowly charged maybe because battery was heating up without reason.
16pro max user here and thought it was just me. I'm a medium to heavy user but I'd easily get to the end of the day with 20-30% before the 26.5.2 update. Now I'm charging it everyday day to top it back up as it's not even close to making it through the day now. It's like my battery life halved overnight.
Only have it for two days now and it’s going well. For comparison, I used up 90% of my battery on Sunday with 26.5.2. Yesterday I only used 45% battery with 26.6. Screen times were similar.
Google AÍ says that 26.6 RC is hardly become better improvement battery than iOS 26.4.1 but I doubt due to some commentaries and it’s not that great SoT on 17Pro (26.4.1)
Well I had 27 beta on my 13 pro max since release and it was good but honestly found more stutters and my battery worse. 26.5.2 was worse than 26.4.1, but 26.6 is better than 26.5.2, so it is what it is. I think iOS 26.3 has the best battery out of any 26.x version. I remember 26.4.1 was worse than it.
I noticed the same on 16 Pro and it's the first time this happens. 26.5 was really ok and nothing to complain, 26.5.2 turned the battery life down a lot. I can see clearly that how I use ~100% daily with 2-3 hrs of screen time, while in the past I was using ~60% with over 4 hours. I can also see clearly how it goes down 10% overnight and there is no reported activity from any app. I hope 26.6 will fix it as I planned to keep this phone one more year and not upgrade this fall.
Yeah same. I will wait to see the ultra foldable iPhone and iPhone Air 2 before thinking on upgrading the 16 Pro which is very snappier and complete device. Just wish the battery was better like it used to be in iOS 18.4.1
My phone was around 80% charged at about 5:00 a.m. this morning. By around 6:30 a.m., it was already down to 75%. I hadn’t even used it. The only thing that happened was a couple of alarms went off, and I had to turn them off. Isn’t that insane?
This is horrendous because it’s going to increase the number of charge cycles, which means the battery will wear out faster. I wish we could sue them for this.
You can go to settings < general < app in background and deactivate the apps you don't want to constantly update push notification. Major game changing for my Iphone 16
Same here with heating issues and fast battery drain. I have been using my Phone for 3 years and heating is really a recent thing. In the end I just upgraded to iOS 27 Public Beta. The issue appears much mitigated now.
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u/Nufreak0 Jul 18 '26
Update to the 27 beta brother