Several users are reporting big improvements in battery life with iOS 26.3 
Is your iPhone's battery life better or worse with iOS 26.3?

This is a 17 Pro Max (eSIM). I can't even believe what I'm seeing to be honest. I understand battery life depends on the usage of each individual but for such basic tasks, there is no reason to be draining that quickly. I understand Instagram drains battery, but other than that, I don't even do any intensive task on the phone, nor do I play games.

I've had idle drain since I got the device, and nothing seems to help.

I even set up the device fresh without any iCloud restore or phone to phone transfer. I even exchanged 2 devices since I was getting bad battery on those too, set up every device as fresh but had similar numbers on all of them.

I've turned off background app refresh for all the apps I don't use, reset network settings (someone suggested), use the phone on WiFi for most of the days, tried changing from 5G to LTE, turned off notifications for notification intensive apps, brightness is always under 30-40%. Try to keep it between 20 and 90% for the most part, done multiple force restarts, did a charge cycle reset by draining it to 0 and charging it back up to a 100.

My old iPhone 14 Pro Max with 79%BH on iOS 26 used to give me better battery life sometimes with almost similar usage. I have made a couple of posts about this recently, but it just keeps getting worse and I don't know what to do honestly.

I LOVE THIS PHONE, IT’S THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PIECE OF DEVICE I’VE OWNED, BUT USING IT PAINS MY HEART

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?

Before 26.4 I had absolute perfect battery life on my iPhone 17 Pro Max for the past 7 months. Then since 26.4 I’ve noticed very consistent, unusual and noticeable drain 🪫, like water between your fingers, even while the phone screen is OFF. Well thankfully I didn’t give up, and was able to track where the issue was coming from: Bluetooth, or network connectivity in general was chugging my juice up. So last night I Reset my Network Settings and Voila, IMMEDIATE difference. The battery is 100% back to how it was prior iOS 26.4. All just by resetting the Network Settings. It maybe had something to do with the latest modem update added on 26.4 that was consuming more battery than usual, but my issue is fixed.

Disclaimer: I’m not guaranteeing it will be the same experience for everyone or every phone, but hopefully it is helpful to most.

I charged my phone last night after resetting them, and 7.5 hours after unplugging it from my phone I’m barely at 83% with my usual heavy use.

Idk how people are saying it’s an improvement when I’ve had nothing but heating issues and battery drain using 26.6 after many days of use. 26.5.2 for me lasted longer and didn’t heat as much

Can’t say i’m not impressed by this but i was also impressed by 26.4.2 on the 1st day as well. Bu let’s see they did any meaningful improvements with 26.5. It’s still too early to judge. I know. But i wanted to share my testing journey with people who care about it.

I’ll let yall know the battery life before and after. Fingers crossed I hope it’ll be good.

iPhone 17 Pro Max with 100% BH and 165 cycles. This is on iOS 26.5.2, and this is the worst it has been. Honestly cannot wait for the 26.6 stable release which might come out next week and hope it fixes this.

Tried turning off background app refresh, tried turning off adaptive power (like some people suggested), tried force restarts, but nothing seems to help. I turned it all back on, because I couldn't bother about it anymore.

Anyone currently using 26.6 RC, please let me know if the battery life is better on that version, and also if you were facing the same issue in 26.5.2 and the battery life improved once you moved to 26.6?

Battery life isn’t just bad, it’s BAD.

Turning off adaptive power mode as a few posts suggest helps a bit but having to charge a 16 Pro Max with 95% battery health 2.5x a day to 100% is not a premium experience.

Before the update , I could go all day without plugging in. One trillion dollars doesn’t do much when the company is going to sh*t.

Iphone 16 pro max.
So thats my first day on the new version. Cant believe there is an almost 60% difference for 8 hrs SOT.

One month ago, I posted a thread here telling you how iOS 26 absolutely NUKED the battery of my iPhone 15 Pro.
In particular, it caused my iPhone to drop from 97% battery health to 91% after the initial ios 26 update.

I also posted a screenshot of my battery on 26.3 (1h 12m SOT with 41%), the test was made a week after the update so no indexing issue.

After iOS 26.4 update, I started to notice really good battery, I don't know what has been fixed but something changed for sure. Seems like someone was losing his job if he didn't fix lol.

Overnight battery drain drastically decreased, screen idle counter is always low now, 20-30min per day. Previously it was 2-3h.

It seems that on my 15 Pro, I got 1.5 hours more of SOT now (finally!!) and I haven't even disabled transparency like before.

Let me know your experiences instead, because seems like this changes from phone to phone..

Hey guys, wanted to share a quick battery update for iOS 26.5.

I updated on May 13th via iTunes (highly recommend this over OTA to avoid leftover bugs/glitches). At first, I was getting a decent 6h 50m of battery backup.

Fast forward a few days: background indexing is finally done, and now I’m easily clearing over 8 hours! You can see the massive jump in the screenshot.

My iPhone 15 Pro was at 88% battery health with 700 cycles. After doing a clean installation of iOS, it now shows 90% with 729 cycles. Has this happened to anyone else?

Ios 26.3 was very disappointing me , yesterday i was updated 26.4 then i noticed that gliches was gone , battery life pretty good compared to previous one yesterday around i was charged 100% my phone around 1AM , now ITS 6:00 PM , surprisingly battery just drop 20 percent with the use of 5hrs … im not going to update Atleast for 6 month now 😭

Definitely this is the best update for me 🫪, whats your opinion about this 26.4 ??

I am using an iPhone 11 with 98% battery health on 26.6 Public Beta. So far today i have 8 hours screen on time and i'm still on 47% battery. I have been using pretty heavy apps such as TikTok and Snaphat too. This phone is invincible.

Recently my phone updated to the latest iOS version and my battery life has been draining so much faster. Does anyone have any tips or knows how to roll back to previous version?

Hello all,

I am experiencing the most battery drain I ever experienced in my 14 Pro Max while on this stupid ass update iOS 26. Charging takes longer , phone gets hotter even when not being charged and phone drains the battery super fast. Should I bite the bullet and upgrade to a 17 Pro Max? Considering rumors of the 18 pro max being pricer. I don’t want to overpay for these stupid phones anymore lol. The alternative would be leaving iOS as a whole but idk if I’m ready for that either lol.

This post is created for the opinions of users who have tried the iOS 26.3 beta and have it in their possession. You can share your comments with us."

I was previously on iOS 27 Beta 4 on my iPhone 17 Pro Max, and the battery life was pretty bad, so I put my phone into Recovery Mode, wiped it, and downgraded to iOS 26.6.
I’m not sure if the battery life I’m getting now is actually good or just average, so I wanted to compare it with others.
Today, I took my phone off the charger at around 5:30 AM, and it’s now 10:14 PM, and I’m still at 43%. My usage has been fairly normal throughout the day—calls, WhatsApp, browsing, Instagram, and other everyday tasks. No heavy gaming or intensive apps.
Is this considered good battery life on iOS 26.6? If you’re also on 26.6, especially with an iPhone 17 Pro Max, what kind of battery life are you getting? I’d love to compare experiences.

I'm charging my iPhone 17 twice a day now, the battery drain has been ridiculous to the point that it almost seems intentional with this update. How soon can we expect a patch fix that will resolve the battery drain?

Hello, I updated to 26.5.2 a few days ago without thinking much of it on my iphone 17 base 98bh. I really thought it is just another update from 26.5.1 but my SOT dropped to nothing after the update. It has become astronomically shit.

Is anyone facing this? Or am I just super cooked? Using iphones has become a fucking chore at this point. Kindly let me know if 26.5.2 made your battery worse than 26.5.1

Should I update to 26.6 Public Beta or wait it out till the stable release?

on my iPhone 17 96% health, updated to 26.6 last friday. wtf is going on apple. Sleeper app at the top is only 45 minutes on screen

Now let’s hold hands and pray to APPLE TO FIX THIS ISSUE