iOS 14.5 Battery Drain Test on iPhone 11, iPhone 8, iPhone SE

BY Rajesh Pandey

Published 28 Apr 2021

Cool iOS 14.5 Features

Apple is adding a ton of new features to iOS 14 with the release of iOS 14.5. While the company has ensured that newer iOS releases do not slow down iPhones, the updates do have a negative impact on battery life. Recent iOS 14 releases have led to a notable decline in the battery life of iPhone 11 and older iPhones. Does iOS 14.5 fix all such battery issues?

Apple did fix some battery life woes with the iOS 14.4 update, but then iOS 14.5 adds a number of new features which could again have a negative impact on older iPhones.

A battery drain test by YouTube iAppleBytes seems to indicate that iOS 14.5 brings about a decent boost in battery life on at least one iPhone model. The iPhone 11 lasted for 5 hours 54 minutes in Geekbench’s battery drain test, while it lasted for 5 hours 33 minutes in the same test on iOS 14.4.

On every other iPhone that was tested though, the battery life was notably worse than what it was on iOS 14.4. In the test, the iPhone XR lasted for 5 hours 10 minutes on iOS 14.5 vs. 5 hours 28 minutes on iOS 14.4.

Similarly, the iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 lasted for 4 hours 6 minutes and 3 hours 47 minutes in Geekbench’s battery test on iOS 14.4. On iOS 14.5, their battery life went down to 3 hours 38 minutes and 3 hours 29 mins, respectively. The 2020 iPhone SE also saw its battery life score going down by 10 minutes.

If you have already updated your iPhone to iOS 14.5 and are facing battery drain issues, check out these tips to improve your iPhone battery life.

iOS 14.4.2 did help improve the battery life on selected iPhones, but compared to the initial builds of iOS 14, newer builds do have a negative impact on battery life.