Q: iPhone 4S 5.0.1 Update Improves Battery w/ Settings Reset

Well here's a summary of my day today. I unplugged at 11pm last night and left the phone overnight. When I woke I was at 99% after 6hours. I turned on Time Zone to see if I would notice any difference in battery drain, to my surprise things were normal. Anyway I took the subway to work, listen to a 20 min pod cast while in a no signal area and once I got to work I left my phone on stand by. This was the result by then:

Moving along, I left work at around 3, for the whole day I was basically texting on and off, around 10 msgs and the rest was stand by. Here is the picture after that:

I was in the basement where signal was patchy and lost a good 5% in 10mins. Anyway I left work on my way to class listening some songs via Bluetooth and catching up on some news:

I thought this was a big drop, considering the radio should be asleep when it says "No Service" ..After class I started to head home, again listening some music via bluetooth only:

Battery was now dropping like a rock basically. Not sure why. By the time I reach home I was at 1%..cont to pt2

Pt 2:

Thinking the phone would shut down any minute I was shocked to find it actually lasting a extra 30mins:

Now before you say I need to calibrate my battery and what not, I've done that around 12 times already! ..I still think battery life is bad, but not worst than my DROID X, just comparable. Also I took a picture of the diagnostic log after it died and this is what it read:

It would be intresting if we could compare these logs. The last time my battery died at 1% it read 3301mV, so something is still off. Any suggestions? I'm so confused with this issue.

Sorry for the long post

 

davidch wrote:

 

Matt+ wrote:

 

Steve Jobs is the man.

 

your battery results look good to me.  it is very difficult to get a iPhone battery to perform like an iPod primarily because of the phone capabilities.  the phone portion has to continually communicate with the carrrier network (i.e. waiting for call, etc to come in).  the 3G protocal makes it even worse due to the data demands etc and currently 4G is much worse.  glad it worked out for you and to your last comment... yes he was something else

 

Oh yeah...was the man.  His legacy is so strong, it still seems like he is still alive.  But this is for another thread. 

One last thing. At around 8 30 pm in my picture with 13% remaining. My friend in class had his iPhone 4 and I asked him how his battery life was doing after the update. He said he was at  62%, after two days. I jumped and took a look at his usage, it read 2days, 10hours for stand by and 4 hours 30mins for usage. Think about that for a second, looking at my stats above shows I'm using my phone less, and he is using his MORE than me with more apps than me.

I really don't want to give up on apple. I hope these pictures and the information helps.

I have been having similar issues with my battery life on and off (I am constantly make tweaks to try and improve my battery life).

I didn't keep as good of records as you but yesterday I did a battery calibration that finished at about 11 pm.  I unplugged the phone and overnight the battery dropped to 92%.

I got up at 7 and used my phone for 5 minutes or so before I went to school for 4 hours (with a 15 minute break).

I used voice, text and about an hour of games at noon when I got off of school.  My battery was dead by 5 pm.

I have always suspected battery calibration issues because it takes longer to drain the first 20% than it does for the last 20%.  Also, it seems that the iPhone has circuitry with the battery which trickle charges and prevents overcharges.  I think there may be some software issues related to this.

So, tonight when I decided to do a calibration, I decided to kill my battery, close out all apps (except Real Racing 2 to drain down to zero), put my phone in Airplane mode and charged the battery for ~5 hours.

The results look very promising with calibrating this way.  I restarted the phone to restart the usage counter and my phone is at 18 min. usage and 50 min. standby... I am still at 100%.

Would anybody else be willing to try this out to verify if I have stumbled onto something?

Also, I wanted to report back with screenshots tomorrow.  Can anybody tell me how to take screenshots?

Just reiterating, but when I called apple today, some issues are with software and some really are battery problems. If you did a restore and it didn't work, you will need to get it replaced or checked...Apple (via phone) is sending me a rebuilt or new phone (they aren't sure which). Apparently the outsides are new but the guts are put back in and tried, retried, and tested.  So if you did a restore and that didn't work, and if the back of the phone is warm/hot to the touch and you can see the battery life drop as you use it, you may have a battery issue and should take it in. I did a restore and noticed my phone does better in standby, but typing this for about 5 minutes, my battery dropped from 43 down to 37%. That is a problem. Take it in. (and don't forget to back it up to iCloud first)...;)

If  i reset all setting, would not I lose my contacts and other applications that are installed on my phone?

Here's my story...

Had poor battery performance since day1. Did the 5.0.1 update last week and recalibrated battery (drained and charged to full). Got better results but still not all that good.

I then found this thread yesterday and took davidch's advice and did a reset and set the phone up as new. I then drained the battery until the phone shut itself off and then fully charged it. I took it off charge at 11pm last night and left it overnight, unplugged with the following settings:

Wifi: off
Bluetooth: off

Siri: on

Location services - Maps, Siri, Find my phone
System services - All off except Compass Calibration

Notifications - Calendar, Reminders, Mail, Messages, Phone

Push: off
Fetch: 15m

I have an Exchange account running (Google) for Mail, Contacts and Calendars. It's set to Fetch 15mins

When I took a look at the phone this morning, this is what I had:

Battery: 76%
Usage: 4h 57m

Standby: 9h 13m

now those figures wouldn't be too bad but...What the **** is going on with the usage????? The phone was in standby all night! The phone has always had this kind of usage reported since day1. It's losing charge in standby and reporting that its being used in standby.

Might be worth mentioning I have patchy reception around my house. I have good reception at the office but still expereience drain and usage in standby.

My stats right now, at home,  are:

Battery: 57%
Usage: 6h 31m
Standby: 11h 33m

I've literally only used it for checking the stats, and changing the odd setting - no more than 30mins. No calls, texts, emails or internet. I also downloaded an app - System Activity Monitor (as advised by somebody a few posts ago). This didn't show any unusual CPU activity.

I'm seriously considering doing a full restore from iTunes with the 800mb 5.0.1 update and starting from scratch!

davidch wrote:

 

sflomenb wrote:

 

davidch wrote:

 

sfiomenb,

 

that is probably a good idea. tell them the steps you have gone through. sorry it didn't work out. i am hearing that the are working extremely hard on this and should have annother update shortly that would not require my process. i am not sure that it would fix you issue which maybe the actual battery.  good luck

I really wish it worked, and what is even more upsetting is that your method worked for basically everyone else except me.

 

Thank you, and everyone else who tried to help me, for your aid.

 

I hope the people at the Apple Store will know what's wrong with my phone. Do you know what would happen if it is a defective battery? Would they just replace the battery on MY phone? Or would I get a whole new phone? Would they be able to do this in the time I am at the store, or would it take a few days?

 

it hard to say what they will do for sure if it is a defective battery.  the battery is farily easily replaceable with the right tools, but they may just replace the whole phone for you.  good luck and let me know how it works out.

If they do replace the entire iPhone, should I set it up as new or restore from my backup?

Apple support told me to always set up a new iPhone or iPad as new.

If I were to use Davidch's method of resetting, should I update to 5.0.1 first, or should I stay on 5.0.0? 

Also, I'm guessing I should sync my phone before starting this process, to preserve my pictures just incase?  I only have around 50 pics, no music, and a bunch of apps, but these should all be safe once the reset is complete, right?

Thanks for getting back! I haven't had to restore anything through your method, but, should that happen, I'd gladly take your advice. I will do some more testing and see how the phone performs.

Let's just hope the new update that's scheduled for next week turns the tides for those whoose phones are still hampered by this.