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A few days ago, Apple released a support document outlining some drastic steps that people affected by significant iPhone battery drain after installing iOS 14 can take to try to remedy the situation. It is important because every time you need to clean a device, there is a risk that you will lose data.
But does the proposed solution work?
The answer is yes, but …
Must read: Is the iPhone battery bad after installing iOS 14? Apple offers help
I was contacted by three people following the release of the supporting document. All were affected by the battery drain issue and all had two or more of the symptoms highlighted by Apple in the support document.
Let me remind you of these symptoms:
- Workout route maps are missing from the Fitness app on iPhone for GPS pre-workouts from your Apple Watch.
- Activity, heart rate, or other health-related apps won’t start or load data on your Apple Watch.
- The Fitness app or Health app won’t start or load data on your iPhone.
- Health or Fitness app reports inaccurate amount of data storage on your iPhone.
- The Activity app reports an inaccurate amount of data storage on your Apple Watch.
- Ambient sound level data or headphone audio level data from Apple Watch is missing from the Health app on iPhone.
- Higher battery consumption on your iPhone or Apple Watch.
The reason I need to remind you of this will become clear later.
The three who contacted me decided to follow the steps outlined in the support document, which basically comes down to making sure you have a backup to iCloud, unpairing the Apple Watch, factory resetting the iPhone, and then going back to charging everything (a process that takes a few hours) and thankfully all three saw a significant battery improvement within a couple of days.
So the solution works.
But…
Another reader who got in touch decided to do it too, but they were only experiencing battery drain issues and none of the other issues. Also, they didn’t have an Apple Watch.
But they thought it was worth a try.
They cleaned their iPhone, recharged everything, and were a bit disappointed to find that the battery drain was just as bad.
At least they didn’t lose any data.
What this means is that if you’re suffering from two or more of the above, just as Apple said, it’s definitely worth a try (make sure you’ve backed up your data). If the only symptom you have is a low battery, this effort could be a waste of time.
Personally, unless the battery drain was absolutely abysmal, I think I’d wait for Apple to release iOS 14.1 and hope that that solves the problem without the hassle of cleaning and restoring, setting up Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connections, and all that jazz. .
