---
title: "Why is my iPhone 18 overheating and draining battery fast on iOS 20 preview?"  
description: "Why is my iPhone 18 overheating and draining battery fast on iOS 20 preview?"  
author: "Manish Sharma"  
published: 2026-09-22  
updated: 2026-09-22  
canonical: https://www.mindstick.com/forum/162192/why-is-my-iphone-18-overheating-and-draining-battery-fast-on-ios-20-preview  
category: "iphone"  
tags: ["iPhone 18", "ios", "Battery Life", "troubleshooting", "hardware"]  
reading_time: 1 minute  

---

# Why is my iPhone 18 overheating and draining battery fast on iOS 20 preview?

Hey everyone, I've been noticing an unusual issue with my iPhone 18 testing unit over the last few days. Whenever I record 4K spatial videos or run heavy AR navigation for more than 10 minutes, the back of the device near the camera module gets uncomfortably hot to the touch.

Along with the heat, the battery percentage drops by about 15% to 20% in less than half an hour. I checked the background activity in Settings, and 'Photos' and 'Kernel Task' seem to be consuming a massive percentage of battery life.

## What I've tried so far:

- Restarting the phone and force closing all active background applications.
- Disabling Background App Refresh for non-essential software.
- Resetting Network Settings and toggling Low Power Mode.

Has anyone else experienced similar thermal throttling or rapid [battery drain](https://answers.mindstick.com/qa/94751/my-android-phone-battery-drains-so-fast-what-should-i-do) on recent builds? Is this likely a firmware bug related to the new image signal processor, or could it be a indexing issue after updating? Would love to know if there's a workaround before the next update drops.


---

Original Source: https://www.mindstick.com/forum/162192/why-is-my-iphone-18-overheating-and-draining-battery-fast-on-ios-20-preview

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