Low Battery? It's the Apps!

Fast forward 20 years and the old battery drain problem is still with us. Perhaps the consequences are even more annoying, as we rely on battery-powered devices (phones) 24/7. In 2006 it was Windows Vista. Now it is iOS.

I rarely use flight entertainment systems, turning to my own screen most of the time during flights. My go-to app is YouTube in offline mode. During regular office days I flag various videos as "watch later" and have the app setting to have them downloaded in the background, so they can be watched offline. This worked for me well for many years.

But recently (I think I first noticed this in January this year) my phone started draining the battery very fast in flight. Looking here and there I traced down the problem to the YouTube app. Yes it was draining the battery very fast. So fast that the phone was becoming quite hot, which was unusual for an iPhone.

Have tried different solutions, playing with a number of YouTube app settings and nothing has really worked. Tried disabling "recommended downloads", as the idea was that despite being offline in flight mode, it was still trying to download something. That did not help either.

So far the only solution seems to be engaging the phone's "low power mode", which is indicated by the yellow battery bar. That helps, and to be honest, I wish I could keep this turned on permanently. iOS unfortunately has the logic to disable low power mode when battery charge is over 80%. So this needs to be turned back on manually.

I know I could write an automation script to engage low power mode every time I put the phone in flight mode. But I also use flight mode at home to force the phone to stop looking for cellular connection (I have none where I live) that drains battery too. The downside of the low power mode is the apps are less responsive and video rate is degraded so the UI experience is not the greatest.

The iOS low power mode somehow prevents the offline YouTube battery drain and the drain is clearly a bug in the app. The bottom line here is the battery performance characteristic is very fragile. Essentially any misbehaving app can derail it easily. With several dozen apps installed it is really difficult to pinpoint the problem.