PocketCasts Updates in Dec 2024 Drains Battery (on iOS)
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I can’t be more exact given the frequent release cycle of PocketCasts, but some release in early December 2024 meant a significant amount more battery is now being used than before. My phone usage habits are very set. It’s virtually now just a podcast player. Prior to this update I used to listen to 3+ hours of (pre-downloaded) podcasts a day and there might be the odd day where I might make a few short calls. Now, I barely listen to 1.5hrs of (pre-downloaded podcasts) and my battery is at 40%. By 7pm, it’s at 15%. I haven’t updated the OS. I have an iPhone 13 mini on 1OS 17.7.1 with 86% battery health. All of those details are as before. The only change I made was updating Podcasts to a newer release.
Please, would someone look into this as a matter of urgency? It really isn’t acceptable to unleash code this. It clearly never underwent real-world performance tests involving extended listening.
Thank you.
PS. For those commitment-phobes who don’t buy annual licences, there is good reason to go with a monthly plan and keep your switching options open.
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Looking through postings on this discussion board, I can see other reports of high battery usage going back years. These also compared PocketCasts with other apps, in their favour. Then it seems in Dec 2023, PocketCast devs issue a “partial fix” –(#1249) was made and then the issue was immediately closed.
A ‘commit’ does not equal problem solved.
This seems to illustrate how little battery consumption actually matters to PocketCast devs. So depressing!
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Update 19th Dec 2024: I thought this might be worth sharing if it helps shed further light on this issue. Today I switched off mobile data on my iPhone (13 mini, iOS 17.7.1). It’s now 20:22 and I’ve listened for over 4.5hrs of (pre-downloaded) Pocket Casts and I still have 56% battery left. I even used bluetooth headphones for 1hr 10 minutes. Astonishing difference. Looking through some of the release notes for this latest update for Pocket Casts, I noticed the following:
“Background sync now works so slick, Thousands of episodes? It won’t miss a trick!”
I wonder if there are now more frequent background syncs happening or something to account for the rapid battery drain. For now, I’ve disabled mobile data, but this is not a solution.
I hope someone looks into this. Thank you.
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@tommyrot9e0c9208ac we’ll likely need to dig into app logs in order to determine the cause. Could you reach out to us through the app to send those along? You can do so by navigating to Profile > Help & Feedback > Get in touch.
You may receive an automatic response after reaching out, but you can reply to that email to get in touch with us directly.
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Hi Mike,
As I dove into the Pocket Casts app to do this I noticed that the log attachment is automatically enabled. So, I’m reminded that I submitted this feedback log days ago. I don’t know how you’d associate that with this ticket though. (The email address is the same, so I hope that serves as a identifier.)
I’ve also submitted another log report. So you should now have two. I mention in this second one that I disabled (mobile data) cellular from my iPhone days ago. I was struggling to get though one day on a single charge without that drastic measure. Please bear that in when reflecting on these logs.
Thanks.
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Mike et al,
To recap, my general battery consumption was fine until I updated PocketCasts (either in late November or December). This is the only app that I updated that had permission to use data as a Background Activity.
OK, today my mobile operator provided me with my cellular data history for the past month. This covers the period in question. There’s a link to retrieve that PDF below.
https://www.icloud.com/iclouddrive/067qKrinzpd4ipKtTh2Q85n5Q
Let me know when you’ve retrieved it and I’ll disable the link.
It’s bizarre to me that there are so many frequent callouts to retrieve data because I’ve been at home this month (with wifi).
It’s the evening on 21st Dec 2024 and my mobile operator confirmed there’s been no data use since 18:15pm on 19th Dec 2024. I disabled cellular data on my iPhone at that date/time to see what the impact would be. Though usage of Pocket Casts has remained the same, there is no cellular data usage and, as a result, battery consumption is much improved.
What is baffling is if PocketCasts was making background requests too frequently, why those requests would use cellular data instead of wifi. I’ll check my DNS network monitor to see if it can yield any more insight.
Anyway, I hope that helps.
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Thanks for sharing the cellular data history. We have downloaded the file, so you can disable the link now.
We also located the debug log you’ve sent us–thank you for letting us know.
I’ve now reported your issue to the developers to investigate further. When we have an update, or if we need additional information from you, we will reach out here again. Thanks,
Pocket Casts Forum 