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iOS 13.6 overheating and battery drain issues

I have an iPhone SE 2nd gen and I’ve been experiencing surprisingly hot temperatures and performance issues. I tested it in Geekbench a few days ago and got a CPU score of 1321 and today I got 789. I don’t know if this is because of the later iOS builds . However when using 13.5.1 I got great performance. And long battery life.

Could this be just my iPhone or are others experiencing this as well?


[Edited by Moderator]

iPhone 11

Posted on Jul 18, 2020 10:41 AM

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Posted on Jul 19, 2020 1:19 PM

This started out as a promising Q&A on the battery drain issues with 13.6, but the conversion took a turn and the issue was never addressed.


I downloaded 13.6 Thursday and since then my phone runs hot and my battery life is terrible. Anyone else having issues?

298 replies

Jul 23, 2020 12:51 AM in response to AndyLau

Hi Andy, I can see you might be concerned, however nothing about the battery health numbers you quote should concern you. It is not a linear process, it is an estimate and all phones behave differently.

It's like the Health app - I see people saying "my wife and went on the same journey and it gives us different distances". Yes it would do that, being based on how it jiggles in your pockets. Battery Health is an estimate looking at the voltage compared with what it thinks the new voltage should be.


My own iPhone was purchased 25th March and is now on 97%, my other phone purchased 21 month ago is on 85% and I am happy that is normal.


Battery drain however will depend on many things. The apps you have, the settings and most of all if you have a large iCloud Photo Library. If you do, you should expect a large drain for a few days while thousands of photos get synchronised and in many cases re-analysed for faces, objects and all sorts of stuff Apple think you need.

Me, I use USB and a Mac for my photos and will never change.


iPhone Battery and Performance

Jul 27, 2020 1:11 PM in response to LD150

Thanks Peter - a great idea. The more of us that post to that Apple feedback channel (rather than this discussion channel), the better. Here's what I posted just now:


"I've had a major and sudden drop-off in battery performance with my iPhone SE which I bought just over two years ago and which I otherwise really like. Since iOS 13.6 has been installed, the battery life is a small fraction of what it used to be.


There are many other users reporting this issue, with various iPhones including quite new ones. Have you seen this forum: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251596587 which has maybe 100 comments from users over the last two weeks?


Will the next software update fix this issue? My phone is almost useless right now and I have to use my work phone for private purposes. Hope you can fix this soon."

Aug 18, 2020 6:59 AM in response to _Kyle46_

Kyle46 - Well the remedy for instability is the same is the remedy for high battery use.

Safeguard your photos and data offline on a PC or cloud

Backup if you really want.

Reset to factory settings and set up as a new phone

Build up your apps direct from App Store and only the really important ones.

Reinstate the data

Do not restore from backup.

`Say goodbye your "social history" - it is just junk.

See how it goes. If it still restarts it is probably hardware.

(Usual Trolls please note: I said probably, and I am only talking to Kyle46)


Here is a guide for those steps:

How to back up your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch

Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod to factory settings


Aug 19, 2020 5:50 AM in response to _Kyle46_

If you did import them to Mac Photos then sync them back they would take up half the space. Just sayin.


If you use "icloud photos" remember that is not a backup; it is a sharing mechanism . If the phone packs up they may well disappear. Ensure you are using icloud backup or Mac backup as well as icloud photos. Another reason I import then sync

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-250002769

Jul 21, 2020 2:51 AM in response to IvanEvans

OK now the mods have deleted the parts of the post that violated the rules...


There is no inbuilt problem with this 13.6 and the drain problem experienced by the few 13.5 users was "fixed" by 13.6.

However it is possible to have a bad update or bad apps.

Always use a mac or pc to do all iphone updates if you possibly can.

So to fix this use a mac or pc to

  • Backup
  • Restore as NEW device

Before restoring from backup test the phone again with just stock apps.

If you still burn battery suspect the hardware.

I would then build up essential apps from App Store rather than a Restore from backup.


Jul 21, 2020 3:20 PM in response to Ebennie

My device was the same. Just power down the phone all the way off, then turn it back on, unlock screen, then we it down again. Wait 30 seconds and power it back on. I did this and all problems went away. Fast charging is back, no overheating, and great battery life is back.

This photo is showing 75% battery left after 7.5 hours heavy use. Yesterday I was at 8% at same time of heavy use.


Jul 28, 2020 7:56 PM in response to Thor2020


Just FYR, the snapshot of battery report on 13.6 over last night. Been experiencing it for a week, so I did a thorough test last night by turning on airplane mode, turning off wifi/bluetooth/airdrop. Some posts are saying Apple Music is the problem, but in my case, there’s no activity recorded. More weirdly, both screen on and off times are zero. BTW, that report is after I tried to reset all settings.

Aug 10, 2020 8:43 AM in response to cid176

Same here on battery getting hot and then draining. I've tried resetting the network connection and it's persisting. The phone was just fully reset two months ago on the last IOS update, so I highly doubt it's because any weird info data lingering migrating to the new IOS. There's def something wrong with this version. As you can see - I even had the signal bar and battery missing for a moment on my home screen. It would show up everywhere else except the home screen. Anytime this issue happens or my phone gets hot, I normally will soft reboot it. Never had these issues prior to the update. I actually had issues with Bluetooth and car play prior and now that seems to be fixed.

Aug 28, 2020 8:18 PM in response to AppleFromAtlanta

Hi all, for idling battery drain issues:

if draining is above 25-30%?? or more? pls chk your phone's mother board. mainly IC chip. i hv recently repaired my motherboard IC chip. and idling battery drain stopped. iphone 6splus.. somehow motherboard is affected without any reason. pls try to chk. if no idling battery drain, wait for next update

iOS 13.6 overheating and battery drain issues

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