I can’t help but notice how bad my iPhone’s battery life has gotten since upgrading to iOS 18. It got even worse with iOS 18.1 and 18.2. There are very few days when I still have more than 40% battery left by lunch time. A mobile battery has become a constant companion in my life.
Things were bad (night or day), battery consumption was much higher than I remember, and low power mode didn’t provide much relief.
It’s time to investigate the problem.
Related article: iOS 18.2 update causes a spike in iPhone battery life complaints – what you need to know
But I wasn’t optimistic about finding a solution or workaround. These days, the only solution to problems like this is to wait for Apple to patch the problem. But I’m not holding my breath considering I’ve been watching this problem get worse and worse over the past few months.
So I decided to investigate. When I have a problem with battery drain, I always first try[設定]of[バッテリー]Check the screen. This section is a treasure trove of information not only about your battery, but also about the apps that are running and consuming power. There are two graphs displayed here. battery level. Shows how the charge level changes over 15 minute intervals. The other thing is activities. Use a bar graph to show which apps are active and using battery power every hour. Tap the bar to learn more about what happened on your iPhone during that time period.
However, other than increased usage of the home and lock screen (basically activities on the lock screen such as notifications and widgets), I didn’t see anything unusual. I tried disabling the always-on display on my iPhone. The settings to disable are:[設定]>[表示と明るさ]>[常時表示]– but it had no effect.
The problem continued to occur.
After some more research, testing, tweaking settings, and a lot of frustration, I discovered that the culprit was Apple Intelligence. When you enable Apple Intelligence (the settings are[設定]>[Apple Intelligence & Siri]), we found it impossible to get through the day without charging. However, when I disabled this, my battery life returned to previous levels.
Also: iOS 18.2 with Apple AI is available for iPhone. How to download (and which models support it)
Here comes the problem. I didn’t even use Apple Intelligence. I had it enabled for testing purposes, but I moved on to other things and forgot about it. Apple Intelligence wasn’t very impressive, but I didn’t expect it to drain the battery so much when not actively using it.
This problem doesn’t seem to be limited to my hardware, as I’ve encountered There are many similar reports. Plus, it doesn’t seem to be limited to iPhones. Apple Intelligence has also been criticized by some people. Excessive battery consumption on MacBook.
I think this effect can be reproduced on my iPhone, albeit to a lesser extent. My iPad. Turning on Apple Intelligence reduces battery life like a stone. Turning it off will return it to normal.
Also, what is AI? Everything you need to know about artificial intelligence
It’s reliable like clockwork. This adjustment also appears to affect the excessive battery consumption seen in the iOS 18.3 beta.
If your battery life has been particularly poor since moving to iOS 18 and you have Apple Intelligence features enabled, that could be the culprit. I say “may” because this could be one of those “mileage may vary” situations. However, if Apple Intelligence isn’t very useful to you, you have nothing to lose by turning it off.
