On another iPhone 6s Plus we found that while Facebook had been used for 21 minutes, it had clocked up 57 minutes of background activity, costing 10 per cent of battery life.
Advertisement
Reports of the battery drain began cropping up earlier this week, with one user, entrepreneur Matt Gilligan, explaining in a blog post that Facebook’s iOS app was causing up to 15% of battery drain over a 7 day period.
However, iPhone users still complain about a massive battery drop, which is believed to be caused by the Facebook app.
“Unless the app is playing audio in the background, Apple’s normally pretty strict about not letting apps abuse background modes in this way”, Jonathan Zdziarski, a security researcher, wrote me over email.
The toll that the Facebook app takes on battery life has been known for a while, but with the release of Apple’s new mobile operating system, which allows iPhone users to see a summary of how much battery their apps are using, more people than ever have realised the impact that the app has.
Others have suggested push notifications are draining power, but that’s doubtful.
More sinister suggestions include that Facebook may be listening to its users via their phone’s microphone, although Facebook has previously denied its microphone function is “always listening”, saying it asks for permission before switching on. Ironically, the best way to reduce the battery and data consumption of the Facebook app in the background is to switch Background App Refresh back on. We’ll definitely let you know when Facebook offers a fix – more than likely with an app update.
Advertisement
Another user, Nick Heer, also blogging about the issue, dubbed Facebook’s use of resources as “user hostile”, asserting that: “Facebook is actively creating channels to continue refreshing their app in the background when the user has explicitly stated that they do not want it to”.
