iOS 8 users have been reporting battery drain issues.
When Apple’s latest OS was in beta phase, developers started reporting that their Apple devices were running out of juice very rapidly from Beta 4 on, and that their devices grew very hot while being charged.
Apple appeared to have resolved the overheating issue in the public release iOS 8 version, but battery drain complaints can still be heard from iPad Air and iPhone 4S users.
As it is still early days yet for the public release iOS 8 OS, and complaints of severe battery drain are widespread at the moment, existing hardware issues could be one possible reason for users experiencing battery life problems.
The iPhone 4S in particular was released in 2011, and it is likely that the battery on that device has been charged past its healthy range cycle for most users.
Even owners of more recent devices like the iPhone 5 and iPad Air could be owning devices with less than optimal battery health, so seeing increased battery drain with a more advanced software could be nothing unusual.
Users can do their part to save battery life by turning off unwanted Notifications (Settings > Notifications), switching off Location Services (Settings>Privacy>Location Services), disabling Background App Refresh (Settings > General > Background App Refresh), and stopping their devices from constantly searching for data via Fetch New Data (Settings > Mail > Contacts > Calendars).
If doing all of the above doesn’t solve the issue, users can try to clean install iOS 8 on their phones.
In a nutshell, users will have to first back up their data via iTunes onto a computer.
Next, the phone or tablet must be placed in DFU mode (Device Firmware Update).
Connect the device to the computer, hit “Restore” on iTunes, and the application should install a fresh copy of iOS 8.
After that, sync the Apple device with iTunes to restore the data.
Do note that doing a clean install may not solve the battery drain issue in all cases.
