Battery Drain on iOS 26 and iOS 26.0.1.

Good morning everyone,

I would like to report a VERY SERIOUS problem with the battery and performance.

I have a NEW iPhone 15 with 100% battery capacity and only 22 cycles (which I did myself; when it arrived, it was at 0).

However, after updating to iOS 26 (and even with iOS 26.0.1, the situation remains the same), I continue to have VERY SERIOUS problems with the battery life of my NEW phone.

Today, I was busy all day and did not use my phone from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., yet it still dropped from 90% to 45% WITHOUT DOING ANYTHING. No apps were open, the “Refresh apps in background” option was not enabled, the screen was set to turn off automatically after 30 seconds, and automatic brightness was enabled. So it's definitely not the phone's fault because it's BRAND NEW with a 100% ORIGINAL battery, nor is it the settings because it was in PERMANENT POWER SAVING mode. So the fault lies solely with iOS. There are no excuses.

I am writing this message to urge Apple to resolve this issue as soon as possible because, from what I have read on X, I am not the only one.

Has anyone else had this problem?

Thank you very much and have a good day.

iPhone 15, iOS 26

Posted on Oct 1, 2025 8:07 AM

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Posted on Nov 7, 2025 9:48 AM

andrea_filice wrote:

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/6028a191-4116-4e02-8c7d-9e0e04dbdba9

Meta needs to calm down, it's not possible that Instagram consumes 38% of my battery for a simple 2 hours. Whatsapp has 22% of use but anyway how does it in the background to have gone 1 hour and passes if I have never made a call or something like that

You are absolutely correct and even Google has called out Meta for battery draining on their devices. Meta has the worst track record for introducing bugs in their apps, and attempts to resolve it with another update that introduces a different bug. For example, Instagram was just updated 4 days ago with 12 updates in just the last month. It is clear very little in-house testing is being done and the users are really the bug testers.

The apps are free for you to download and use, but Meta is making billions off the data they are able to gather on you and that is also done on your device that is using the battery. They do this by building a Social Graph for everything you do on their platform, including information from others liked or commented on your post and those that you did to others. Processing is being done in the background on your device and any notification you receive will launch the app in the background to process the payload. That is simply their business model and it is no surprise that Meta owns WhatsApp as well.

It is no surprise that without those apps, you have exceptional battery life. Once you are able to identify the problem, it is up to you how you want to proceed. If you are unhappy with the Meta apps, contact them and express your disproval and if they are unwilling to offer any solution you find acceptable, then quit using those apps. It really is your choice what apps you have installed on your phone and the Developer of the app is responsible for how that app performs.

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