Now that more users have updated to iOS 7.1, a continuing (yet fairly small) stream of complaints have surfaced about battery life for some iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users that have moved to the latest version of iOS.
Battery issues are reported with some degree of regularity with a subset of users with just about every single iOS update to ever exist, and from the looks of things, the limited battery problems with iOS 7.1 are similar to those that appeared with iOS 7.0.6. That’s a good thing, because it means there’s probably a very simple solution. Also, the iOS 7.1 update may have re-enabled a few settings that were previously turned off, so the reduction in battery life may simply be a matter of toggling those settings off.
If you feel battery life has suffered after updating an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to iOS 7.1, take the following steps and you should be able to resolve the issue completely.
1: Check / Disable Background App Refresh
After personally updating a handful of devices to iOS 7.1, a few of them re-enabled Background App Refresh seemingly at random. Background Refresh is a handy feature but it really impacts battery life since it lets apps keep active while not being used. If your battery life is mysteriously suffering post-update, check to see if this turned turned itself back on, then turn it OFF if so:
- Head to Settings > General > Background App Refresh > toggle to OFF for everything
2: Turn Off Bluetooth
Speaking of features turning themselves on, Bluetooth turns itself on for every single update to iOS since the 7.0 release. Typically this shouldn’t impact your battery much (unless you have a ton of devices around that it’s trying to sync with), but if you don’t use it then it’s worth toggling off anyway. Thanks to Control Center, it’s super simple:
- Swipe up from the bottom of the screen to open Control Center, then tap on the Bluetooth icon to disable it
3: Fix Rapid Battery Drain and Warm / Hot iPhone After iOS 7.1
Some users have experienced extremely rapid battery drain after updating to iOS 7.1, usually accompanied by an iPhone or iPad that is warm if not outright hot to the touch. This problem first surfaced with iOS 7.0.6 and I experienced it myself, and some users are encountering it post iOS 7.1 update too. Fortunately it’s super easy to fix with a 2-step process:
3a: Quit All Apps
First, double-tap on the Home button and swipe up on every open app to quit out of it.
3b: Force Reboot The iPhone / iPad / iPod touch
Second, forcibly restart the iOS device by holding down the Home and Power buttons concurrently until the device reboots itself. Here are the buttons:
The mysterious rapid draining of the battery and heat should now be resolved. It’s not clear why this works, but it worked for the exact same problem that occurred with many who had the 7.0.6 update (including myself).
4: iOS 7.1 Still Losing Battery Too Fast? Try a Clean Install
The final option is to reinstall iOS with a restore. You’ll want to backup before doing this.
- Launch iTunes and connect the iOS device to the computer
- Back up iOS to iTunes and iCloud before doing anything else, this is important so you can restore your stuff
- Choose the iOS device within iTunes and click on the “Restore” button, confirm that you want to restore and erase everything
- When finished you can either set it up as new, or choose to restore from a back up
Yes performing a full restore can be annoying, but the good news is that
clean installing also seems to resolve the “low memory” crashes that were impacting some iPad Air and iPhone 5S devices, particularly with apps like Safari.
Give these steps a try and let us know what works for you.
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