12/7 Update below. This post was originally published on July 9.
Apple has recently confirmed two serious issues for iPhones and iPads, and now there is another.
Apple iPhones suddenly experience severe battery drain due to Apple Music
First discovered by MacRumors, a growing number of iPhone users report serious battery drain issues. It is focused on Apple Music and you don’t need to be a subscriber to be affected. The pre-installed app is monopolizing battery resources anyway (even if you remove it) and iPhones hit badly only last for a few hours on a full charge. Apple Support is acknowledging the problem, but currently the only solution it offers is a full factory reset, also known as the nuclear option.
7/11 update: Millions of iPhone owners have been affected by a second issue in the last 24 hours with many of the most popular iOS apps including Spotify, Tinder, Pinterest, TikTok, Venmo, which repeatedly crash when open. The problem is actually due to a bug in the Facebook SDK that allows these apps to integrate login with Facebook functionality and even if you don’t use Facebook to login to these apps it will still be affected simply because the functionality it is part of the application. This is the second time that the Facebook APK goes down in 2020 and exposes a fundamental weakness in Facebook’s integration with iOS apps (Android apps were not affected). Facebook has now solved the problem, but there is clearly work to be done so that iPhone and iPad users are not affected by this over and over again.
07/12 update: Apple has confirmed to me that it is aware of the problem and is investigating. IOS 13.6 and iPadOS 13.6 were expected to release last week, so it’s unclear if Apple is trying to make a last-minute addition to the code to fix this problem, or if the company can fix it remotely. As mentioned below, server-side flaws are usually quickly fixed, but reports continue to flood social media and user anger grows over the “insane“and”ridiculous“battery discharge levels. Some are also calling Apple for “ignore” the problem – which I can confirm is not. What makes it more complex is that some users aren’t completely affected, while those affected include Apple Music subscribers and non-subscribers on all models of iPhones compatible with iOS 13, so there is no clear pattern here. Apple needs to fix this, and soon.
Also, the problem seems to affect all supported iPhone models (and some iPads) on multiple versions of iOS, including iOS 13.6 and iOS 14 beta versions. And the problem seems to be spreading rapidly.
Since the MacRumors report, users have flooded Twitter, jumped to Reddit (1,2,3,4) and mentions of the problem in the Apple Support Communities forum have seen a thread grow to 11 pages with more than 500 users saying they have this. problem, while another one has turned 30 pages at the time of publication with over 1800 users saying they have the problem. Comments on the MacRumors article also exploded.
If you want to diagnose if your device is affected, navigate to: Settings> Battery> Show activity. Affected users will see that Apple Music’s background usage is out of scale. Some users have found that doing an iCloud reset helps, others have reverted to normal use by removing the app, but, as mentioned above, for others this makes no difference. Apple Support factory reset hint works as well, but it should be the last resort.
Affected iPhones Show Apple Music Consistently Depleting Background Battery Life
So what is causing this? Given the breadth of iOS devices and versions, all signs point to this being a server-side issue. It is unknown if it can also be fixed from the server side, but normally we would have seen it before. Apple iOS 13.6 is slated to launch this week (possibly as soon as tomorrow), but then again, has Apple had enough time to get a fix or will we be waiting for iOS 13.6.1 or even iOS 14?
The good news is that the inclusion of iOS 14 buys Apple time, but now pressure is mounting for the company to explain what’s happening. I contacted Apple about these reports and will update this post when I know more.
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