Facebook is working to fix the battery drain issue affecting some iOS app users
Facebook is indeed investigating reports by some users that its iOS app is causing excessive battery drain.
The company, in a short statement to TechCrunch, said that it hopes to quickly have a fix for the issue:
“We have heard reports of some people experiencing battery issues with our iOS app. We’re looking into this and hope to have a fix in place soon,” the spokesperson said.
A number of users are reporting that the app is seriously hurting battery life on their devices, even with the background refresh option turned off.
There have been a number of theories floated around on what exactly is causing the issue. Federico Vittici from MacStories recently said he believes it may have something to do with the auto-play videos in the Facebook app:
My guess is that Facebook is hijacking audio sessions on iOS by keeping silent audio in the background whenever a video plays in the app. And because, by default, videos on Facebook auto-play on both Wi-Fi and Cellular and few people ever bother to turn it off, that means there’s a high chance the Facebook app will always find a way to play a video, keep audio in the background, and consume energy to perform background tasks.
If you are having issues with the Facebook app draining your battery, there is something that you can do now. Simply delete the iOS app and logon to the social network via the mobile site through Safari.
Or if you have to check Facebook through an app, try out the seldom mentioned Facebook Paper. Users can check out their News Feed and post updates in an ad-free environment.
While I haven’t had any issues on my iPhone 6s Plus with the Facebook app, the battery issues seem to be fairly widespread. We’ll definitely let you know when Facebook offers a fix – more than likely with an app update.
If you didn’t know, you can access detailed battery usage in iOS 9 by heading to Settings and then selecting Battery. You can view detailed stats from the last 24 hours or the last seven days.
For other news today, see: ResearchKit projects study autism, epilepsy, and melanoma, Gary Allen, the man behind ifo Apple Store, dies age 67, and Yahoo Mail’s huge update brings all-new UI, multiple mailboxes and more.
