Save 50% on a 3-month Digiday+ membership. Ends Dec 5.
Facebook is publicly apologizing to users of its iOS app after it was discovered that it drained people’s batteries.
The issue was identified last week by Circa co-founder Matt Gilligan, writing on Medium that even with the background refresh turned off and the app shut down, it accounted for 15 percent of all battery drain in one charge.
“Whether we’re talking about battery life, data usage, or load times, they’re all valuable resources to mobile customers,” he said, demanding that Facebook make a “priority” in fixing the annoyance.
More than a week after Gilligan’s post exposing the problem affecting the iPhone’s most downloaded app ever, Facebook’s engineering manager Ari Grant said the problem has been fixed in a public post on the social network.
Turns out, the issue centers around “CPU spin,” said Grant explaining “A CPU spin is like a child in a car asking, ‘Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?’ with the question not resulting in any progress to reaching the destination.” In this case the app was repeatedly asking the phone to carry out an unnecessary task. That repeating process caused the battery to bleed energy.
That, combined with a faulty audio issue that wasn’t powered off after watching a video, resulting in the unintended and the very annoying battery drainage. “We are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused,” Grant wrote.
An update being released today is supposed to fix the issues.
Ad position: web_incontent_pos1
Images via Shutterstock.
More in Media
Digiday+ Research Subscription Index 2025: Subscription strategies from Bloomberg, The New York Times, Vox and others
Digiday’s third annual Subscription Index examines and measures publishers’ subscription strategies to identify common approaches and key tactics among Bloomberg, The New York Times, Vox and others.
From lawsuits to lobbying: How publishers are fighting AI
We may be closing out 2025, but publishers aren’t retreating from the battle of AI search — some are escalating it, and they expect the fight to stretch deep into 2026.
Media Briefing: Publishers turn to vertical video to compete with creators and grow ad revenue in 2026
Publishers add vertical video feeds to their sites to boost engagement, attract video ad spend and compete with news creators.
Ad position: web_bfu