iPhone 12 Pro Max Battery Drain

[maxwilkes]

I just can’t put my finger on this but is anyone else suffering from severe battery drain? My iPhone 11 Pro Max drained 2% last night while my 12 Pro max drained 15%.

yesterday I got less than 5 hours of screen on time before my 12 Pro Max ran out of battery. Whereas my 11 Pro Max already has close to 3 hours screen on time and still over 75% battery remaining! I just don’t get it.

I’ve factory reset and setup as new (so not from a backup) and still the same error. Am also running the latest iOS (14.2.1).

Battery capacity says it’s at 100%. Apple claim my battery is perfectly healthy. That’s not healthy! I’ve checked the battery section of settings to see if it’s a rogue app or process and it’s not. Battery usage shows as NIL overnight yet it still lost 15%. Not even on 5G, all it does overnight it stay on WiFi and fetch background updates such as email, social media etc. Same as the 11 Pro Max yet that loses 2% while the 12 Pro Max loses 15%. Please advise?

[maxwilkes]

Just to confirm...I'm getting battery drain using just ONE regular Vodafone Nano SIM.

[Mark]

Thanks for the information @maxwilkes, I'm sure this will be resolved soon and when we have an update, we'll get it posted here for you.

[maxwilkes]

There’s literally a 49+ page thread here on the Apple Community whereby owners of the iPhone 12 series (12, 12 Pro, 12 Mini, 12 Pro Max) are experiencing battery drain. Those with dual sims are reporting it as are those with single sims. Apple still refuse to acknowledge there’s a problem. There’s clearly a problem.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251956914

[maxwilkes]

This is appalling (this is my replacement device btw). 1 hour 45 minutes screen on time...that’s all I’ve got out of the 12 Pro Max before it’s down to 29%! The rest is just idle drain! I also noticed that 2-4 minutes on Safari was enough to drain it 2% (that’s 10% every 20-40 minutes). I can squeeze well over an hour into Safari with the 11 Pro Max before it loses 10%. Funnily enough my 11 Pro Max has over 7 hours screen on time and still has 23% remaining! And that’s including the minuscule drain of 2-3% it has overnight! The 12 Pro Max, however, is draining at an exponential rate...my replacement device is no better. Spoke to Apple yesterday and they were absolutely oblivious to the problem.

[Mark]

I understand this issue would be frustrating @maxwilkes and not what you'd want from a new phone. If this is a manufacturing fault, it will be covered by your warranty. Visit your local Vodafone store, or pop us a private message through one of our social channels and we'll be able to arrange for this to be sent for repair for you.

[maxwilkes]

I have a THIRD replacement scheduled to arrive tomorrow. But judging by what everyone is saying on the apple community this is either a manufacturing fault that will result in a recall program (if apple have the decency to acknowledge the issue) OR it’s a software/modem firmware/carrier issue which they’d need to resolve with a patch. The thing that makes me angry though is apple are sitting in silence and basically dismissing me when there’s 72 pages of people reporting similar issues.

[maxwilkes]

Can confirm THIRD replacement is also experiencing the same drain. What's worse is I held out for the release of iOS 14.3 in the hope this would address the battery problems but I can confirm that it hasn't. At least not for me.

Following the latest responses to the now 90+ page thread on the Apple community I can see that 14.3 addressed the battery drain for some networks (namely EE and Sky Mobile) as they received a separate modem firmware update. But Vodafone UK/Vodafone Europe are among the list of carriers that received no such modem firmware update and are still suffering from severe battery drain.

I tried to return the device today as I'm now getting fed up and don't want to pay £68 a month for this...at least not until the issue is fixed...but I was informed that I am now past my returns window and all they can do is offer me yet another exchange. I've had three already!!! An exchange will NOT fix this issue.

I need to bring this to Vodafone's attention as this issue seems to be isolated to their network alone. I can confirm that the EXACT SAME Vodafone UK SIM card works FLAWLESSLY (and with no drain) on the older 11 Pro Max. So that tells me the issue is either with the iPhone hardware or with the new modem firmware (as the 12 series uses a new Qualcomm modem instead of an Intel one). Either way, the issue remains unresolved!

[vasilev3]

Hi

Guys after the third exchange from Apple find out this is not from the Iphone specialy my one is from the sim card.

I'm on O2 and during the night my battery was drain from 73%  to 53%.

Last night i've put an EE sim card and battery gone from 71% to 68% which is significant change.

So in my case found the issue.

So i have to call O2 and find out what we have to do.

[maxwilkes]

It’s not an issue with the SIM card itself as my SIM in the 12 Pro Max had issues whereas in the 11 Pro Max it did not. On the now 100+ page thread on the apple community EE has stood out as one of the networks without drain. Not sure why that is but the issue does seem to be isolated to specific European carriers of which Vodafone is one. Unfortunately I’m contracted to Vodafone and my device is locked to them so I have no way of telling if EE will solve the problem for me. I think the affected carriers need to communicate with apple and work a solution. I am currently beta testing iOS 14.4 beta 1, which includes a new firmware update, and the drain is dramatically  better (anywhere from 4-10% in an 8 hour period...usually 4-6%...as opposed to 15-20% on earlier iOS versions). But it’s still no match for the 11 pro max (which lost only 2-3% in the same time frame using the same SIM). So there’s still substantial room for improvement.

[vasilev3]

Don't know but for me working when i changed the card dramatic battery saving.

Normal dranage over night is from 2 to 5% apple said.

Had lot of discuss with them as i said change 3 phones.