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by Naomarik 771 days ago
Didn't have to look long to find a comment mirroring how I feel about these devices. To me it feels like they're just adding power to an artificially castrated device I can barely do anything with. See no reason to upgrade from my original iPad Pro that's not really useful for anything. Just an overpowered device running phone software.
2 comments

I feel the same way. I just can't justify upgrading from my 10.5" Pro from years ago. It's got pro motion and runs most apps fine. Sure, the battery isn't great after all these years, but it's not like it's getting used long enough to notice.
Something has changed with how the iPads behave at rest. When I got my first iPad in 2010 I could leave it for weeks, pick it up, and it would hardly use any battery at all. Today, it seems like my iPad mini will eat 10% or more per day just sitting on a table untouched. I don’t like leaving it plugged in all the time, but with it being dead every time I go to pick it up, I simply stop picking it up.

Even a good battery isn’t that good. That seems to be a software problem.

My only theory is it’s turning on the screen every time it gets a notification. However, I have a case that covers the screen, which should keep the screen off in my opinion. I have thought about disabling 100% of the notification, but without a global toggle that seems pretty annoying to do.

My guess is something to do with Find My/ offline finding. That would cause it to wake up all the time, maybe Apple thought it was worth the trade off.
That was the cause for me, I disabled Find My on iPad and the batter doesn't drain any more.
> Today, it seems like my iPad mini will eat 10% or more per day just sitting on a table untouched.

That's abnormal.

If it's malware, do a clean reinstall from DFU mode using Apple Configurator on a Mac.

My last 2 or 3 iPads have been this way. I’d be surprised if it was malware.
It's unusual. Do they lose battery even in airplane mode?

What does Settings > Battery > "Battery Usage by App" show as the top consumers of power?

Does "Low Power Mode" make any difference?

I’ll have to play more with it for the other things. I haven’t invested much time in troubleshooting, since it seemed like that’s the way iPads just are now. Hopefully that’s not actually true.

When I looked at the top battery consumers in the past there wasn’t anything that stood out. I think home screen was at the top. It wasn’t one or two apps killing it with background activity.

"device I can barely do anything with" -> Apple can do anything with iPads, but we - regular SW developers - are cut off... :)
Software developers are not the only professionals to exist, and are far from being the market for tablets of all things.