iOS 17.0.3 increases the battery life of nearly all older iPhones. However, tests done on a variety of models found that the patch released this week generally doesn’t make dramatic improvements.
That said, there’s very good news for anyone still using an iPhone XR.
iOS 17 battery life improves a bit
Testing shows that the first version of iOS 17 reduced the battery life of an array of older models. And the first two rounds of “bug fix” patches didn’t make consistent improvements — iPhone 13 did better but iPhone 12 did worse, for example.
iOS 17.0.3 launched October 4 to fix a bug that caused the iPhone 15 series to run hot. But this same bug might also have been lowering the battery lives of previous models.
Tests done by iAppleBytes on a range of older iPhone models found that virtually all of them last longer on a single charge running iOS 17.0.3 than they did when running iOS 17.
Chart: iAppleBytes
For the most part, the changes aren’t huge, though. iPhone 13 increased 4%, for example. The iPhone XR is the standout, with a 30% improvement. On the other hand, iPhone 12 went down slightly.
And there’s room for improvement. Even with 17.0.3, the iPhone 13 and iPhone 12 battery lives are shorter than when running iOS 16.6.1, which a great many iPhone users are still on.
