YouTube promises fix for severe battery drain on iPhones & iPads
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.
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.
Comments
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.
Is it that they assume the big guys, like Google, can be trusted to do them right thing, and a light touch is sufficient?
See above. Apple does have a review process, you know.
That would be my guess. I think they also get some kind of priority, as I've seen smaller apps announce an update is released but has to be approved and be a day or two (even for an important bug fix), while big apps can get released super quickly, even multiple times per day it seems sometimes.
But, I guess... what are the alternatives? I've seen nothing else that does what YouTube does or even gets close. I'd imagine delivering video at that scale is a super hard thing to compete with. I guess if you've got enough money and popularity, you could just directly deliver content via your own means.
But while I’m a developer I’m a desktop and systems dev so I’m not an expert on the review process.
Who ever claimed there should be no way to quit broken apps? I’ve never heard anyone say that, ever.
But as I cited specifically in my prior posts you are referencing with the Craig comment, there are a certain subset of app categories which can benefit from force quitting when something is amiss — GPS, file transfers, and media players, which can all run background tasks. iOS app management is not the issue here, a bad app is. iOS made this clear by exposing battery usage stats which means the OS design is doing its job and raising the flag on bad apps. To see this and then suggest to people that they force quit all apps all the time is foolish and counter productive — you’ll incur the additional startup overhead on ever app’s relaunch, consuming more power needlessly.
Yes, Craig Federighi knows what he’s talking about.
As far as alternatives go...well I believe YouTube holds the rights to certain things so if someone were to try and develop an alternative they would be sued.
when looking at the apps I don’t see anything unusual. Must be unreported background activity.
My whole point the other day was along the lines of, %$*@ happens... so while on paper, it just works, in reality, it doesn't really. Yes, on iOS you have to worry about app/memory management much *LESS* than on macOS, but it isn't bullet-proof. If that's your point (making Craig correct?), then we're in agreement.
Ahh, yea, good point. IMO, this is more a problem with the algos and activists. They are trying to use 'AI' because they can't manually censor content, but then that system gets gamed by activists. I know a few popular channel creators (1M+ subscribers) who've had their channels shut down with zero inappropriate content.
YouTube is going to be more concerned with advertisers though, as that's how they make their income. I'd expect that.... though they have to keep content fresh as well, so they can't get too lopsided. This is a tough challenge, but I think they could do better.
But, in regards to ads, it is kind of scary. My son watches a few Minecraft channels that have pretty family-friendly content, but sometimes that ads that come on before them would easily be rated R in TV/film, if not adult/M. IMO, ads are should be something they have a lot more ability to control.
And, then this whole 'Russia' baloney adds another aspect into the mix, as I think the major social media outlets are chomping at the bit to actually try and make the case as it makes their lousy systems look highly competent. While real advertisers are starting to question the effectiveness of ad buys at all, suddenly the social media players are trying to claim effectiveness unheard of in the ad-world. But, the politicians they are now selling that story to are far too stupid and gullible to figure this out before dumping $billions in their coffers. (ex: according to the testimony, 'Russian hackers' spent $46k on an ad buy that reached 126M people. That's $0.36 CPM! Where do I sign up? Or, I sure want hire those 'hackers'!)