iPhone 17 Pro Max | iOS26 Is Actually Crazy Battery Nightmare | Power Consumption Deep Dive
byu/MarionberryDear6170 iniPhone17Pro

20250927 Edit: I’m really appreciate that you have sp much attention on this Deep Dive Review. But most importantly, you have to let Apple seeing this. Please send whatever bothered you to Apple🙏

Go to your web browser and type this> applefeedback://

This will lead you to Apple Feedback app. You’re welcome.

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Original Post:

Why I’m posting THIS

This is a deep dive analysis about how iOS 26 Liquid Glass animation is total battery killer, even on iPhone 17 Pro Max.

Here’s a video I recorded exposing how Liquid Glass in iOS 26 eats up your phone’s battery.

iPhone 17 Pro Max | iOS26 Is Crazy Battery Nightmare | Power Consumption Deep Dive

TL;DR

On my both 15 Pro Max and 17 Pro Max (iOS 26 official release), UI interactions (Control/Notification Center pull-downs, starting screen recording, Safari startup/page loads, etc.) repeatedly spike to ~10–14W, causing drain and heat.

Put it simply: constantly swiping the Control Center can drain as much power as playing a full 3D game on your phone.(You're welcome to try it yourself if you want, to see if your phone would heat up fast.)

Low Power Mode (LPM) consistently caps those spikes near ~5W, improving practical battery life (and I'll share the real world results with you).

Without LPM, from 100% → ~19–20%, I got only ~5h46m–6h30m SOT on 17PM. But with LPM on, I got 6h SOT with still 60% battery remaining, and 10h SOT from 100% → ~19–20% on 17PM.

My take: parts of iOS 26’s UI (“Liquid Glass”) are power-hungry; 17PM thermals just hide it better vs 15PM.

For example,

• scrolling down Control Center would get 8w~9w. With "Reduce Transparency" On, it spikes up to 14W.
• Doing Screen Recording itself with HDR format is getting 5w~6w now. (That means idling, If you started scrolling through Homepage it would go up to 9w~11w.)
• Using Apple Maps and starting the navigation would get peak 8w~9w in 1~2 sec.
• Recording Videos in 4K30 HDR would get around continuously 6W.
• Taking Screenshot(HDR) would get peak 7w~ crazy 17w

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/ Edit: I really appreciate that my Deep Dive Review got so much attention, but just to be clear, we still need to make sure Apple hears this so they can fix the real problems. If you’re on the beta OS, please don’t forget to send them Feedback.