Featured Image Credit: CFOTO / Contributor via Getty
There are several things you can always count on when it comes to Apple. Firstly, the tech giant will release a new iPhone like clockwork every year, and secondly, it's that its users will always have a problem with the latest iOS update.
Keen to keep moving with the times and iron out the kinks, Apple regularly delivers iOS updates to keep our iPhones ticking along until they're eventually made obsolete and we're forced to upgrade. The problem is, with each new iOS adding a ton of features under the hood, it can take a toll on our sometimes struggling iPhones.
One of the big talking points of any update is whether we get a new crop of emojis to explore, although we're sorry to report there's still no bank robber emoji (that was just the Mandela Effect).
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With the unveiling of iOS 18.4 on March 31, iPhone users have been getting to grips with new additions like priority notifications, visual intelligence, and a Sketch option for Image Playground. Some thought that iOS 18.4 could be the biggest one yet and revolutionize the iPhone after the sluggish rollout of Apple Intelligence, but yet again, you're back to bemoan your battery life.
Brand-new emojis in iOS 18.4 including:
We can imagine we'll be using 'face with bags under eyes' a LOT after a heavy weekend, but are a cute crop of emojis and some Apple Intelligence updates really worth seeing your battery bar go into that dreaded red zone every few hours?
Posting on X, one concerned iPhone owner wrote: "iOS 18.4 is terrible. Before updating battery health was 87% and after update became 79. This is insane."
Another vented: "iOS 18.4 on my 16 PM, it improves the speed but I noticed drains in battery life and my phone getting warm while using it for a while."
They were joined by iPhone fanatic @oldappletech, who showed a chart of their battery life since the update and concluded: "I take it back. Battery life isn’t just sh*t in iOS 18.4 it’s utterly horrendous."
Casting your minds back, we had the exact same issue with iOS 18.3, and with Apple usually on it with bug fixes, these battery woes usually soon die down. As someone on Reddit pointed out: "Apple mobile devices always experience a temporary drop in performance immediately after an OS update/upgrade while the operating system rebuilds caches and indexes, and downloads and installs app updates. Naturally, while the device is busy doing this, battery performance will also be impacted."
iOS 18.4 draining my battery like a spent teacher at the end of the school year!!! pic.twitter.com/OVtboWr0Z2
— Tokelo (@MaybeNotArsenal) April 4, 2025
Even though the battery issues are sure to put some people off from downloading, Apple has warned everyone to update now.
We're told to immediately update to iOS 18.4 due to it tackling an impressive list of 62 security vulnerabilities. One of these sounds particularly nasty as it affected the iPhone Kernel and allows malicious apps to try and enter passcodes to locked phones.
As for battery blunders, we're told to follow all the usual tip and tricks to eke a little more out of your iPhone battery, like making sure your apps are up to date, turning on lower power mode, and possibly think about turning off Apple Intelligence if things are really bad.
