Nasty Surprise #1: ‘30% Bug’ Made Even Worse
Remember the ‘30% Bug’ I brought attention to in November? It is a problem which causes many models of iPhone to die when their battery reaches about 30% of charge remaining. The problem was subsequently referenced by the Chinese Government’s watchdog the China Consumers’ Association in a warning to Apple as it was failing to “meet basic consumer needs for normal wireless communication.”
Well iOS 10.2 brings no fixes for this issue. Given Apple continues to deny any model other than the iPhone 6S is affected (though it has widened the range of affected 6S model numbers entitled to free battery replacements), this is probably no surprise.
That said this also won’t do much to pacify affected users, notably on Apple’s official Support Communities forum where the 11 page thread I previously reported on has now ballooned to 50 pages. Moreover some users are reporting iOS 10.2 makes the problem even worse on their devices.
“Same here, iOS 10.2 actually made the problem worse,” says Apple Support Communities poster ricardo jb in response this growing theme on thread. “The battery percentage seems to get stuck at some level for a while, even with battery draining apps such as pokemon go running, then it drops different percentages at different moments, it's really random.”
Many users claim the issue began with iOS 10.1.1 and it can affect all iOS 10 compatible iPhones (the iPhone 5 and above). So perhaps a fix can indeed be made in software without the need for a battery replacement, but if so then iOS 10.2 isn’t it.