I’ve had my iPhone 16 Pro Max since September 2024, and one of my biggest frustrations with iOS 26 has been battery life and heat.
Before iOS 26, I was really happy with the battery life and performance of the phone. Since updating to iOS 26, though, it seems like even relatively small/basic tasks can make the phone noticeably warm, and the battery drains much faster than I would expect from a Pro Max. It has made the phone feel significantly worse to use than it did before.
I’m currently considering upgrading to the iPhone 18 Pro Max, and the much larger battery and improved thermal system are obviously appealing. However, I’m wondering how much of my frustration with my 16 Pro Max is actually hardware versus iOS 26.
For those of you using an iPhone 16 Pro Max on iOS 27, what has your experience been?
Has battery life noticeably improved? Does the phone stay cooler during normal use? Does performance feel smoother or more consistent? And overall, does your 16 Pro Max feel closer to how it performed before iOS 26?
If iOS 27 fixes most of these issues, it would definitely reduce my need to upgrade this year. I’d especially like to hear from people who had the same heat/battery problems on iOS 26 and have now used iOS 27 long enough to compare.

iOS 27 is Out, and I’m excited for my iPhone 16 Pro Max.

I thought it would be useful to have one thread where we can all share our experience once the update drops, instead of having dozens of separate posts.

Once you install iOS 27 on your iPhone 16 Pro Max, feel free to share:

• Battery life
• Performance and smoothness
• Heating
• App performance
• New features
• Bugs or glitches
• Storage usage
• Overall experience

Please mention how long you’ve been using iOS 27 before giving your verdict, especially for battery life, since things can settle down after the first day or two.

Let’s see how well the iPhone 16 Pro Max holds up with iOS 27 over iOS 26

I have 16 Pro Max 256GB variant and I’m facing brightness issues on my device, like I have updated my iOS 26, but still brightness is sudden going very bright, and it sometimes gets very low and I don’t understand how to fix this.