YouTube app killing battery on iPhone 6s

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Gawd
Joined
Aug 25, 2010
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I have an iPhone 6s 128 GB on iOS 10.3.3. I've noticed that for the past week or so, the official YouTube app drains the battery really quickly while watching a video. The phone also warms/heats up while watching a video when previously I never noticed an increase in temperature while watching videos. I haven't changed anything and the YouTube app is always up-to-date. I do remember one thing though. Just before this started happening, the YouTube app crashed when switching from the subscriptions list tab to the home tab. This is the first crash I've gotten with the YouTube app. After that crash, it seems it drains the battery real quick and heats up the phone when watching videos. I've tried deleting the app and reinstalling it and it made no difference. Any ideas?

Just to give you an idea, I was just watching an 11 minute video and the battery went from 67% to 61% by the end of the video.
 
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did you reboot the phone? did the quality settings change? the higher the quality the harder it works lowering battery life.
 
I hadn't rebooted the phone and the quality settings are the same. The highest I am offered, even on 4K videos, is 1440p. I'm always at 1080p or 1440p quality when watching videos (I select the highest quality). Previously, as stated before, the phone never even warmed up a bit when watching 1440p videos. But now it does. However, I've noticed it is getting better (as in it heats up less now but that could be because I am not watching longer videos right now). Maybe over time it will cure itself. I also just rebooted the phone to see if it helps but it seems it is the same.
 
While the iPhone 6s Plus has 1080p, regular is 750p; so you really should be watching 720p.
 
But I get better quality when viewing the higher resolutions even on the 750p screen of the iPhone 6s. I think it has to do with how YouTube compresses videos. The same was true when I was using a 1080p monitor on my PC. I would view 1440p or similar resolutions for better quality. I am now using a 1440p monitor though.
 
yes but to do that requires much more power, thus increasing processor/gpu load, creating more heat and draining the battery faster. are you sure you were at higher res before? because this sounds normal to me.
 
Not at the time this started happening. It was on the same version of the YouTube app; nothing changed on my phone.
 
Just watched a 25 minute video at 1080p. Battery went from 86% to 80% by the end of the video. Phone was also just every so slightly lukewarm. Guess it is improving on its own.

I have noticed one thing though. When the phone would heat up a lot, it would heat up right around the camera lens area. Strange place to heat up I think.
 
Also you can check Settings -> Battery and see exactly where your battery power is going. It's probably youtube and probably fixed itself, but I've seen some wierd things, like an outbound mail get stuck in the queue or a background app downloading an update that has eaten battery life too.
 
Don't see anything unusual in Settings -> Battery.

By the way, just watched another 20 minute video with the quality setting at 1080p. Battery went from 74% to 70% by the end of the video. The phone was just barely warmer than idle temperature. Looks like things are returning to normal.
 
Can any other iPhone users tell me if their phone warms/heats up when watching YouTube videos through the official YouTube app?
 
I don't. But I also don't watch videos beyond the resolution of my display. I have an iPhone 7 Plus, and it's 1080p. I suspect my videos are most often playing at 480p and sometimes 720p, but hardly 1080p.

How about you stop watching 1080p, 1440p or 4K videos on the 720/750p display of your iPhone 6S and tell us if that's still draining your battery and heating up your phone.
 
I'm on iOS 11.1 now. I updated to every version of iOS 11 after 10.3.3. Now, on iOS 11, I have bad battery life in general (not just when watching videos). I am down 1-2 hours of on-screen usage. YouTube videos still heat up the phone even when watching 720p content. Funny thing is that I'll watch a video and it will heat up the phone. Then I'll watch another video and it won't heat up the phone (as much). It's random or something because not every video heats up the phone (at the same quality setting). Will a full wipe/restore help?
 
Sprkd1 said:
I'm on iOS 11.1 now. I updated to every version of iOS 11 after 10.3.3. Now, on iOS 11, I have bad battery life in general (not just when watching videos). I am down 1-2 hours of on-screen usage. YouTube videos still heat up the phone even when watching 720p content. Funny thing is that I'll watch a video and it will heat up the phone. Then I'll watch another video and it won't heat up the phone (as much). It's random or something because not every video heats up the phone (at the same quality setting). Will a full wipe/restore help?
Click to expand...
It usually does.

Times when it won’t are going to be when you have an actual hardware problem.
 
Sprkd1 said:
I'm on iOS 11.1 now. I updated to every version of iOS 11 after 10.3.3. Now, on iOS 11, I have bad battery life in general (not just when watching videos). I am down 1-2 hours of on-screen usage. YouTube videos still heat up the phone even when watching 720p content. Funny thing is that I'll watch a video and it will heat up the phone. Then I'll watch another video and it won't heat up the phone (as much). It's random or something because not every video heats up the phone (at the same quality setting). Will a full wipe/restore help?
Click to expand...
Wipe it and set it up as a new phone. See if the problem is there. Then restore your phone from your backup and check for the problem again.
 
YouTube app has been garbage since about a month or two ago. I had to turn off background app refresh because it just kept doing some nonsense in the background. Still gets a bit warm during videos, not sure wtf Google is doing.
 
I have this same issue with the iPhone 7 Plus after updating to iOS 11.1. Like the OP said it was worse at first when watching YouTube the phone would start getting hot underneath the camera area and Battery would rapidly start to go down (like 5% per video). After a few days I’ve noticed it’s not as bad as before but still gets a bit warm from time to time.
 
I'm waiting for the public release of iOS 11.2 and then I'll most likely do a full wipe/restore. Hopefully iOS 11.2 will address the battery life issues everyone (iPhones older than 8/X) is having on iOS 11.
 
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