Apple’s latest iPhone software, iOS 17, may be causing another problem, with reports of some users finding their iPhones were turning themselves off at night, sometimes for hours at a time. If you’ve had this problem, you’re not alone.
Apple iOS 17 has had a busy start, with a couple of updates early in its life. Most troubling was one where the iPhone got too hot, which was the exact purpose of the most recent update, iOS 17.0.3. This seems to have fixed that issue for most users, and there have even been dramatic photos attesting to its success. You can check how the update is going with our analysis of whether you should upgrade here. It also seems to have fixed previous reports of battery drain, by the way.
But now, it seems, there’s something else and it’s down to what the iPhone is doing at night while you’re asleep.
Zac Hall at 9to5Mac found one morning that he needed to enter his passcode when he picked up his iPhone 15 Pro Max. Face ID wouldn’t work. This normally only happens when Face ID has been incorrectly invoked multiple times, by someone else trying to unlock it for instance, or after a restart.
That’s what had happened here, and Hall thought nothing of it until he came across a Reddit post which commented that the poster’s iPhone had turned itself off for four hours in the night. On reading this, he checked his battery history in the Settings app and found that it looked like the iPhone had also taken a rest by turning itself off.
While this surprise behavior happened to Hall’s iPhone 15 Pro Max, it’s not limited to that model. It’s worth remembering that the overheating issue was not limited to one version of the iPhone, either.
Redditors have said that it’s happened to an iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 12 Pro, iPhone 14 Pro Max, iPhone 13 mini and others.
If you think this has happened to you, go to Settings and then Battery. The graph showing the last 24 hours may have a gap in it. To be clear, it’s not like the one on my iPhone which I think shows that the phone last night stopped charging a bit after midnight, because it had hit 100%, but rather a complete blank.
Does this matter? Well, it’s never great when your phone is doing unexpected things. And what would have happened if the iPhone alarm had been set in that period when it was completely off? Or is that what really happened in any case—maybe the graph shows something different. As Hall says, “Despite what the battery level history shows, I’m skeptical that the iPhone actually powered all the way off for several hours only to power back up.”
I’d agree with that.
Either we’re about to hear from lots more people with this issue or it’ll vanish without trace. Apple hasn’t yet commented on this situation. I’ll add to this report if I hear anything, so please check back.
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