Roger Fingas
Google's YouTube said it's working to solve a bug in its iOS app causing heavy battery drain on iPhones and iPads, even when running in the background.
The company made the announcement on Twitter in response to complaints. People have also reported the issue on sites like Reddit, and AppleInsider was able to confirm it on a test iPhone. In some instances devices may run unusually hot while playing videos, but this isn't universal.
Drain rates can also vary, though one person claimed that their iPhone X lost 20 percent of its battery in just 30 minutes.
Some users have linked the trouble to Apple's iOS 11.1.x update. YouTube's statement suggests that if so, it could be a matter of the the app's latest update being poorly optimized.
One stopgap solution involves viewing YouTube through its Web interface, whether on Safari or another browser. Not all features are available on the Web however, including YouTube Red perks like background audio and offline caching.
Christine McKee
Charles Martin
Mike Wuerthele
Marko Zivkovic
Malcolm Owen
William Gallagher
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28 Comments
Too late. Already deleted YouTube and will definitely not re-install. Watching them via DuckDuckGo in Safari is a better experience anyway.
… aaaaannnnd deleted.
Or you could just not use YouTube...The site is getting so it sucks anyways. Even their popular people are getting fed up with them.
First Facebook, now YouTube, but users blame Apple anyway. Par for the course.
My iPhone 6+ battery has sometimes been fine and other times it drops like a rock.
I don't use YouTube much -- at least not directly. But most of the battery drain seems to happen with FaceBook -- especially if I watch videos on it (some of which use YouTube).
Another drain (28%) appears to be the "My Heart" app that does research on heart health and activity. I would like to contribute to their effort -- but 28% is just way too much battery drain.