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iOS 14.2 Reportedly Causing Severe Battery Drain Issues in Older Devices

Users of older iOS devices are reporting that iOS 14.2 is causing severe battery drain issues on their devices. The reports are coming in on the Apple Developer forums and Reddit.

Symptoms of the issue include rapid battery drain and taking much longer to charge than usual. Some users say their devices are losing more than 50% charge in less than 30 minutes, with larger drops of 5% or so within just a few minutes of use.

The issue appears to have its roots in the devices’ software, as multiple reports indicate the battery life sticks at a high percentage before dropping, then seeing a sudden gain in battery life following a device restart.

Newer devices don’t appear to be affected, as reported devices include the iPhone XS, iPhone 7, iPhone 6S, and first-generation iPhone SE. The 2018 iPad Pro running iPadOS 14.2 is also reportedly affected.

Apple released iOS 14.2 and iPadOS 14.2 on November 5, just two weeks after the release of iOS 14.1 and iPadOS 14.1. The update included new emoji and wallpapers, intercom, people detection, and more.

There are no reports indicating that the battery issues were fixed in iOS 14.2.1, which was released on November 19, and fixed bugs with MMS messages, unresponsive lock screens on the iPhone 12 mini, and issues with Made for iPhone hearing aid devices.

Apple recently released the third developer and public betas of iOS 14.3 and iPadOS 14.3, but it is unknown whether or not the beta fixes the issue.

(Via MacRumors)

Chris Hauk

Chris is a Senior Editor at Mactrast. He lives somewhere in the deep Southern part of America, and yes, he has to pump in both sunshine and the Internet.