Battery Drain on iPhone 16 Pro - iOS 26.1

First, I know there are similar questions, yet none of them helped me fix the problem.

I have an iPhone 16 Pro 256. Since I got this phone, I have had the battery drain problem unless iOS 18.6-18.7, maybe. I have a very good charger from Anker, but every time charging to 100 takes 80 - 90 mins and provides around just 5 hours of screen time. Let me mention it is on airplane mode always and just wifi, low power mode is always on, reduce motion is on, screen always display on is off, I don't play games since battery problem, battery health is 97% after 250 full charge cycles.

So, how to fix the problem?


I don't have access to Apple Store or any Apple-related related in my region. Other phones are providing much better screen on time in real life than whatever ever said on the internet. Every year, promising for the next year to update and fix the problems or a better iPhone, is there any real support for customers it sounds like iPhone is just a scam

iPhone 16 Pro, iOS 26

Posted on Nov 28, 2025 10:39 AM

Reply
3 replies

Nov 28, 2025 11:06 AM in response to Moham_mad

Depends on what third party apps you have installed. Provide the screenshot of what you see at Settings > Battery with the green battery graph along with the top apps consuming the battery. Is Instagram there? That one has been identified as a notorious power hungry app, but we would need to see your list.


A note on your Battery Health, don't be surprised if you see it drop as on average the charge cycles would indicate that the battery health would be closer to 95%. Even that is not bad, just don't want you to be surprised if it happens.


This Support Site is made up of Apple users, so we are here to provide assistance when we can, but we are not Apple employees. Official Apple Support varies by region and you can find those options here:

Contact Apple Support - Apple Support


I am getting all day battery life with iOS 26.1 without using any of those methods you described to cripple your device, so I suspect you are experiencing a specific app related issue on your device.

Nov 28, 2025 4:07 PM in response to Moham_mad

The screenshot is more beneficial as it shows the green battery graph that has the rate of the drop and the apps show the percentages with the other important factor being background activities and how much time is spent on that. I haven't use Chrome on my iPhone, but on my Mac if I use it, the fans start to run up and Activity Monitor spikes on CPU use so I do know on that platform it is quite power hungry.


For reference, my phone is the regular 16 and I average about 8-9 hours of Screen On time. Never have to charge it during the day and just charge it all not every night with the Optimizing Charging option. Don't really pay attention to how much battery is left at the end of the day because it never has been an issue. Mostly use Safari, Messages, and Mail with a bit of gaming in between. I never use Airplane Mode, Low Power Mode, and have not turned on Reduce Motion.


The most clear approach for testing is to backup the phone to a computer and do a Factory Reset without loading the backup to get a benchmark on your usage without any of the third party apps, then add them back one at a time. You always have your archived backup to restore the phone to exactly where it was. The other way is to work backward by removing the apps one at a time and compare the difference. The high battery usage apps and the ones that are showing Background Activity are a good place to start.


As noted already, the Instagram app has been a problem for most. Meta has provided 11 updates to the app over just the last month and apparently some of the updates resulted in better performance and others not so much. Even Google called out Meta for the battery drain with the app on Android phones.

Battery Drain on iPhone 16 Pro - iOS 26.1

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.