iOS7 Eats Up Battery Life

[Richard Serkes]

The new iOS is really draining the battery life of my iPad. I went online and found that this is a common and serious complaint about the new operating system. But it's not universal. Some people are reporting no change at all and a small group is actually reporting a better battery life than before. But most of the complaints are reporting a serious hit on battery life. Lucky me, I'm one of those.

I'm sure this and other bugs will be dealt with in future updates so I'm going to hang in there. And yes, I've read the "fixes" online, and tried them all with no success. My battery life still stinks.

After a full charge I unplugged my iPad and put it to sleep, not turned off. I waited an hour and my battery level was 86%. That means I lost 14% of my battery in just one hour while the iPad was sleeping. See the problem?

If you're looking for some fixes here's where you can get a good list and specific "how to" instructions: http://osxdaily.com/2013/09/19/ios-7-battery-life-fix

[Stephen Hart]

I've seen such complaints, but I haven't seen any change in battery life.
This may have to do with particular apps, or with apps that refresh in the background (which you can control).

[Richard Serkes]

Here' something I'm going to try tomorrow. When I open my iPad it looks as if the screen never went to sleep now that iOS7 is in charge. I have the official Apple Cover that uses the magnets to sleep/awake and it always worked just fine with previous versions of the operating system. With iOS7 it appears that when I start to lift the cover the screen is on. If that's the case then not going to sleep could be a contributing factor to the battery drain problem.

I've not loaded the new operating system to my wife's iPad because I wanted to get comfortable with it before introducing it to her. So I checked her iPad (with iOS6.x) and after lifting the cover there is a slight delay before the screen comes back to life. So her cover seems to be putting her iPad to sleep but my cover isn't.

I can tap the power button to manually put the iPad to sleep and will do so tomorrow before closing the cover just to see what happens to battery life.

[Richard Serkes]

I think I'm on to something concerning the inability of iOS7 to use the Apple Smart Cover to put the iPad to sleep thus running down the battery. I noticed for the last couple of days that even with the cover closed the iPad would feel warm as if it was working and when I'd start to open the cover the display was on rather than in the sleeping mode. The battery level was dropping as much as 14% per hour even when I wasn't using the iPad at all...with it sitting on my desk with the cover closed.

This morning I charged my iPad to 100% and then disconnected it from the wall outlet. Then I manually put it to sleep by tapping the power button. Then I closed the Apple Smart Cover. In one hour I checked the battery life and it was still at 100%. I continued to check once an hour for five straight hours making sure I manually put the iPad to sleep via the power button and each time the battery level was 100%.

I don't know if this is the problem others are having with poor battery life but it seems to be for me. So until Apple comes up with a bug fix for the poor battery life situation I know that in my circumstances after using the iPad rather than just closing the Apple Smart Cover to put the iPad to sleep I must manually put it to sleep by tapping the power button.

[Ray Bentsen]

My Marware cover with magnetic closure works just fine to put my iPad3 to sleep under iOS7 (7.0.2).

Richard, are you sure that you have the correct Lock/Unlock setting chosen in General Settings? (see screenshot)

[Richard Serkes]

Yup. Things seem to be working now that I have 7.0.2.