Should having iOS Developer Mode set to On cause excessive battery drain?

Crizzle · 2023-11-21T11:55:51+00:00

There was an error rendering this rich post.

I have been suffering from excessive battery drain on my iPhone SE3 while running BitDefender Mobile Security on iOS 17.1.1 with iOS Developer Mode set to 'On'. I appear to have solved my battery drain issue by setting Developer Mode to 'Off'. I develop iOS apps in Xcode and have been using Developer Mode for testing my apps and also for using them from day to day without having to buy them (from myself!) via the App Store. I have now bitten the bullet and bought one of my own apps (iNetWorth) from the App Store so that I can use it with Developer Mode set to 'Off'. Since setting Developer Mode to 'Off' I have had no issues with excessive battery drain. Is this expected behaviour by BitDefender Mobile Security? It's not a show stopping problem but it would be nice to be able to run BitDefender Mobile Security with Developer Mode set to 'On' and without an associated excessive drain on my battery.

Find more posts tagged with

Accepted answers

All comments

Flexx

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/97939/should-having-ios-developer-mode-set-to-on-cause-excessive-battery-drain

Kindly have a look at below stated link

https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/answer/84108/

If issue persists, kindly contact Bitdefender support by visiting https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/

Based on your selected product and the type of issue you're facing, you can get in touch with a support representative through email, chat, or a phone call.

If you choose email, you will receive a ticket number on your registered email. The support team will reply within the next 24-48 hours, excluding weekends.

Regards

Crizzle

Hi Flexx

Thanks for the prompt response. However, the article at the link does not address my question. In fact, I cannot find any reference to iOS Developer Mode in BitDefender support documentation. I raised my question in case I had missed any existing information on this issue.

I suggest it may be useful to warn users, somewhere in the support documentation, that running iOS devices with iOS Developer Mode set to 'On' can lead to increased battery drain - if increased battery drain with iOS Developer Mode set to 'On' is an issue and, of course, if it is one that BetDefender cannot (or prefers not to) address.

Regards

Crizzle

Flexx

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/331280#Comment_331280

@Alexandru_BD, @Mike_BD any information on this

Regards

Alexandru_BD

Hi,

@Crizzle are you sure that the battery drain is related to the Mobile Security application and not just the developer mode? We have received several reports in the past concerning high battery usage in conjuction with Web protection, for example and there's a rather long thread where this behavior was discussed:

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/323753#Comment_323753

Regards

Crizzle

Hi Alexandru_BD

Thanks for pursuing this. I cannot be absolutely sure that Developer Mode is not causing battery drain with apps other than Mobile Security but I am as sure as I can be that this is the case, based on the output of the Battery item in Settings, which showed that Mobile Security Background Activity was using over 50% with Developer Mode set to 'On'. Even with Developer Mode selected to 'Off', Mobile Security Background Activity is still using up 29%of my battery. However, my battery life is acceptable, even with this usage; furthermore and in Mobile Security's defence, I note that Mail Background Activity is currently using 16% (with 'Fetch' set to 30 minutes).

Reading through the thread that you attached to your response, it occurs to me that this thread is not in conflict with my current understanding of the issue. Please note that I do not run Mobile Security with Web Protection deselected; I do not want to have to switch it on and off, depending on whether or not I am browsing the web or accessing it via my apps - that would be too onerous. I do deselect Web Protection when I am using a public WiFi network but I do so by turning your Premium VPN app on, which halts Web Protection automatically. It seems logical to me that Developer Mode may increase the workload on Mobile Security, because I presume that Developer Mode allows uncertified / un-notarised apps access to iOS functions and storage that Mobile Security aims to protect. I suspect that Developer Mode may also trigger network activity associated with checking that selected apps are linked to Apple Developer Accounts and that this activity could, in turn, trigger Web Protection filtering. However, this is all, of course, supposition on my part. Nevertheless, I do still believe that having Developer Mode set to 'On' leads to Mobile Security using more energy than having Developer Mode set to 'Off'.

I do not regard this as a bug, necessarily; it may simply be an unavoidable overhead, in which case I would have found mention of it in your user documentation beneficial. Fortunately, I suspect that very few folk run their devices with Developer Mode set to 'On' - but might it not be useful for BitDefender to acknowledge Developer Mode's potential impact?

Regards

Crizzle

Alexandru_BD

Just following up here.

Regarding the part with Developer Mode set to ON, unfortunately we do not have any insight on how much this affects the battery consumption, but the development teams will keep this in mind as a point of reference for any investigations in the future. Regarding battery consumption in general, all I can say is that it is a problem for which we have had reports for a very long time on the forum, and it continues to resurface for some users.

The developers kept trying to find possible causes for this problem and released subsequent fixes that helped certain users, but currently they didn't manage to find a main/major cause, the solution of which would have a much wider impact on users. They will continue to investigate this behavior from various angles and hopefully they will be able to find a fix that would solve the high battery consumption once and for all. I just hope they can overcome any limitations imposed by the actual OS, as this is also something to keep in mind, sometimes Apple doesn't give you a "free hand" to look everywhere.

Regards