It seems like OF 2.1 is using quite a lot of battery. I often get between 10-20% even when not using the app much.
At work, I do not have the best signal (2 dots out of 5). This should be compared to to Things by Cultured Code that would usually consume only 1-3%.
What I find odd is that it is not affecting sync time. It takes around 6-8 seconds to sync which I find quite good considering that I’m in Europe and the server is in the US.
Would it be something in the background sync that is causing it?
Interesting! Have you checked the system’s battery usage screen inside Settings? If you open the Settings app, then choose General > Usage > Battery Usage, you should see a list of apps sorted by highest battery impact.
I’d be curious to see where OmniFocus shows up in that list, and also if it has any text associated with it – for example, since my copy of OmniFocus syncs frequently in the background, I see the phrase “background activity” below the app name. What does your Settings app show?
I can confirm a similar battery drain. I haven’t used OF 2 on my iPad Mini for the last 24 hours and OF have used 27% of battery usage and the use is described there with background activity. That’s pretty high. I am also a new OF user and my database isn’t that big (66 actions in total). On my iPhone OF has also used most of my battery power with 20%.
Well, that level of battery use does seem unusual – I wouldn’t expect the Universal build to hit the battery any harder than the previous iPhone-only or iPad-only apps. If you don’t mind sending an email to our support team, they can try to help figure out why Settings is reporting such a high level of battery impact.
Yes, that’s what I did and it now shows 22% and ‘poor signal’ (translated from Danish - not sure what it would say in US settings) below. (As I mentioned, I don’t have the best signal at work). But OF is still way above any other app despite little use.
Despite this, the update is REALLY amazing! The best update you have ever done!
Hmmm… it almost sounds like iOS gave OmniFocus the opportunity to do a background sync, but that sync coincided with a period where there was poor or no network signal. In cases like that, the phone has to crank all the radio antennas up to maximum to try and transmit/receive data.
I’m honestly not sure if we’re able to check that sort of thing and decline the opportunity to perform that background sync, but I can see how it would be useful to be able to do so! I’ll file a feature request on that so someone from the engineering side of the company can have a look at the idea. Sorry for the trouble that caused!
One other thing occurred to me - one thing OmnIFocus does when you go to switch to another app is start syncing any un-saved changes you just made in order to try and ensure that your other devices have up-to-date information to work with.
If you made some edits in one of these areas or times with poor signal, that also seems like it could cause symptoms like you’re describing. I’ll add that possibility to the item I just filed so we can consider both potential causes. Hopefully you won’t see this again, but if you do, trying to narrow down or distinguish what’s actually triggering the battery drain will be a big help. Sorry again for the trouble!
Thanks for looking further into this. Actually, I’ve seen the issue again. This morning OF had used 26% over night. Phone was not being charged overnight and was left with wifi on connected to our home network (but still connected to the carrier). So, no apps where being used actively by me during the night. Obviously, one could then argue that it might be 26% of almost no combined power consumption. But I do notice that the battery has been drained more than usual.
Thanks again for looking into it!!
