Battery Life Short

[Canuckgal]

My iPad Air 2 is just over two years old. I do use it a lot and would charge it every night. It's now needing a charge earlier in the day. Is there possibly anything running in the background that needs to be shut down? Is there anything like Control Alt Delete to end tasks?

 

[J. A.]

Take a look at Settings - Battery - Battery Usage. There, you'll find a list of apps or features using up your battery. If it's an app, force close it. Facebook is one of those apps that can use quite a bit of it, if you don't close it after using.

 

[giradman]

My iPad Air 2 is just over two years old. I do use it a lot and would charge it every night. It's now needing a charge earlier in the day. Is there possibly anything running in the background that needs to be shut down? Is there anything like Control Alt Delete to end tasks?

As to 'quitting' an active app, use the Multi-tasking Screen by double pressing the HOME button - suspended apps (and there will be MANY) are displayed; by pressing and flicking up, the app is closed.

Apple has plenty of KB articles discussing lithium ion battery technology - just one HERE - some of the suggestions may help; also, Apple recommends that about once a month, the battery should be near completely discharged (< 10%, BUT NOT ALL THE WAY!), then charged overnight - this will recalibrate the battery monitoring technology, and hopefully improved its endurance.

Finally (depending on whether you have a computer), download Coconut Battery - plug in your iPad, run the app, and select the 'iOS Device' tab - see attachment below of my wife's Mini - the 'battery health' is 90% (simply the current capacity, i.e. 4521 mAh, divided by the manufactured capacity, i.e. 5018 mAh); another important number is the 'Loadcycles', now @ 401 - in general, at 500 or so cycles, the battery should maintained about 90% of its original capacity - SO, if you can post a similar pic or provide the numbers mentioned. Dave
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[Canuckgal]

Thanks, giradman. I thought there might be something hidden that was open.

As soon as I get access to the family shared computer, I'll download that app.

 

[Jupiter7]

You could also try turning off Background App Refresh in Settings.

 

[Canuckgal]

Jupiter - Just turned off several apps that had background refresh on - I was surprised these were on. I hadn't looked at these in a long time and thought they were off.

J.A., just checked battery usage and saw that it's mainly Safari and Google.

Thanks.

 

[Jupiter7]

You're welcome!

 

[LannyC]

As a rule of thumb, after 1,000 charge cycles (1000 tmes from near-flat, or 2000 times from 50%, etc.) the battery will only hold about 80% of its original capacity--e.g., last 8 hours instead of 10. That's just the nature of batteries.

 

[giradman]

As a rule of thumb, after 1,000 charge cycles (1000 tmes from near-flat, or 2000 times from 50%, etc.) the battery will only hold about 80% of its original capacity--e.g., last 8 hours instead of 10. That's just the nature of batteries.

Well, Lanny. has presented a different charge-capacity-age number from my previous post (which stated 500 cycles @ 90%) - his 80% capacity @ 1000 cycles is simply what is expected w/ a declining battery; the latter is more likely related to the Li-Ion batteries in Apple's laptops - check HERE, the batteries put in their laptops are probably different from what is put in their iPads, i.e. think more 500 cycles for a 80-90% reduced capacity for the latter iDevices.

As an example, I posted my wife's Mini which looked good for a battery < 500 cycles; BUT shown below is my iPad Air 2 w/ a similar number of cycles w/ 76.5% capacity - I would expect closer to 90% - my AppleCare just ran out, so I may be stuck w/ a potentially defective battery? Now, I'm planning to purchase a new iPad this year, so not a big issue - will sell the old one online - bottom line compare cycle number w/ percent deteriotating capacity - there is a difference between 500 vs. 1000 cycles. Dave
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