iPhone 17 battery drains quickly even when idle with AirPods connected

I’ve been using iPhones since 2012 and never had this bad of battery drain even when the phone is in my pocket idling. Right now I have a iPhone 17 256gb that I just got in August. With my airpods connected by 12 pm my phone is at 20% and it’s in my pocket almost the entire day to that point. That’s with only having played maybe 2-3 hours of audio to my AirPod pro 3s. Battery health is still at 100% but I shouldn’t have to carry a battery pack every day just to make it through the day. I don’t believe even 1 hour of screen time even in a game should be using 30% of my battery considering it’s an idle game. Indexing for ios27 is complete.

I had similar problems with my iPhone 15 where I was only getting ~3 hours of battery life with a similar routine. I work 10 hours a day in construction I shouldn’t be needing to charge so often.

Posted on Oct 1, 2026 3:27 AM

1 reply

MrBill3

Level 10 (105,133 points)

Oct 1, 2026 4:04 AM in response to Cbragdon98

Hello,

Go to Settings > Battery and scroll down to BATTERY USAGE BY APP to see the apps that are consuming your battery. If any of the apps have unusually high usage they can be shut down (swipe up from the bottom of the screen or double tap the Home button, scroll left or right to find the app, then swipe up to shut it down).

As time goes by you should be able focus on the problem apps. Usually it is a rogue app constantly running in the background. You should then be able adjust the settings for the problem app to solve your problem.

Good luck.