iOS 17.1 boosts battery life of most older iPhones

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The most-recent iOS update increases the battery life of several older iPhone models, according to tests on a range of devices. And it’s a jump for almost every model tested over the first iOS 17 version.

But there’s still room for improvement.

iOS 17.1 generally brings less battery drain

Testing shows that the first version of iOS 17 reduced the battery life of an array of older models. And the first three rounds of “bug fix” patches didn’t make consistent improvements — iPhone 13 did better but iPhone 12 did slightly worse, for example.

Once again iOS 17.1, the first major update, brought good news and bad when it launched on Wednesday.

Benchmark tests done by the YouTube channel iAppleBytes on a range of older iPhone models found the iPhone 13, iPhone 12 and iPhone SE 2020 all saw increases to their battery lives by installing the new version. iPhone 13 went up 15% for the biggest improvement.

But the data also shows iOS 17.1 brought a drop in battery life for iPhone 11 and iPhone XR to below where they were running iOS 17.

While there’s been progress, most iPhone users would agree it hasn’t gone far enough. iPhone 13 and iPhone 12 battery lives remain shorter than when running iOS 16.6.1, which many iPhone users are still on.