How To Fix iOS 6 & iPhone 5 Battery Drain Problems

As soon as users upgraded their iPhone or iPad to iOS 6, or users who just purchased the iPhone 5 (which came pre loaded with iOS 6) they noticed their battery draining much faster than it had before.

One of the things, with the latest iOS 6 release, you will notice is Apple’s fixation on maps and location aware apps.  As soon as you complete the upgrade you’ll notice that every single app you have on your iPhone or iPad that has location aware capabilities will be enabled.

In some cases, this means 20 or more apps are now all of sudden running with location enabled in the background.  As you can imagine, if your iPhone or iPad is all of sudden having to process 20 apps’ locations, then the battery life is going to go down.

If you double tap your home button (the circular button on the bottom of your iPad or iPhone), you’ll see a string of apps that you can swipe left through.  All of the apps lined up here in this area are apps that are actively running in the background on your iPhone or iPad.

Again, if you have a ton of apps showing up that are active and running in the background, then your battery is going to take a serious hit.

How to fix iOS 6 battery draining problems

#1:  Disable location awareness on your apps

The first fix is to disable all of the apps that have the location aware feature enabled on your iPhone or iPad.  As you’ll see, with iOS 6 you now have a lot of apps that are processing your location.

1)  Tap on “Settings” on your screen

2)  Tap on “Privacy”

3)  Tap on “Location Services”

Now look through that list and turn off all of the apps that have location enabled that you either a) don’t use the apps much, or b) there’s no real need to have location enabled.

Disabling the location settings on these apps is going to take a huge burden off the batter of your iPhone and iPad.

#2:  Kill active apps you aren’t using

The next fix to your iPhone or iPad battery drain issue is to kill the active apps running in the background that you aren’t using.

1)  From the home screen of your iPhone or iPad, double tap the home button (the circular home button)

2)  You’ll now see a string of apps appear at the bottom of your screen > press and hold one of those apps until they start jiggling and you see a red circle with a minus sign

3)  Start tapping the minus sign to close out the apps.

You are not deleting these apps from your iPhone or iPad.  What you are doing is stopping them from processing in the background and draining your battery.

I hope these tips helped you fix your iOS 6, iPhone, and iPad battery drain issues.

If this does not help you with your battery life issue, your battery might need to be replaced. If this is the case, try finding an apple repair shop that will replace your battery for you.

Photo Credit: Robert Holland