Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

My findings have been much more simple:

Siri Raise to speak off and EVERYTHING else on, including wifi, BT, locations, push for exchange and yahoo mail, fetch for gmail.   Notifications on.   location services all on.   4s 64gb received on day one.  AT&T in eastern MASS

When connected to wifi, wither at hone or at the office, I get no battery drain issues.   Drains at 1%/hr standby and slightly higher when using.

During my one hour commute, I lose anywhere from 5 - 20%, depending on usage while driving.   Any such usage would be voice calls only, connected via car BT or not, doesn't make a difference.

For better or worse, I have become convinced that iOS5 and it's handling of wireless signals for data, is the culprit here.   Why else would being attached to wifi eliminate the problem?   Why else would the problem show up immediately when going off wifi?   Since turning wifi OFF does not prevent the problem, I can't point to the phone searching for a wifi signal as the culprit.   Everything points back to the handling of 3G data.   The 4s has a new antenna configuration that works for both GSM and CDMA and iOS5 obvioulsy is set up to deal with that. Maybe, just maybe, it's that software which is wreaking havoc with our battery life on all models.

I'm one of the luckier ones, in that I'm attached to wifi  for a large part of my day, so dealing with this problem while APPLE works on a fix is much easier for me than for many other out there.   I've been easily able to get through the day without running out of battery, then simply charging overnight.

You may be right about 3G but actually those devices are a bit too complex in terms of usage and condition scenarios to be analyzed in a linear way insofar as symptoms go. Imagine someone had the exact same setup as you but his wifi equipment was configured with a low TTL setup or had an unreliable signal i.e. push would have to be reinitialized very often. So there would be a drain. So for two apparently identical setup there would be drain in one case and not in the other. Or lets say another scenario where this other guy would have a 1 hour commute through train and they would have 3G repeaters in the train - my point here is coverage. Again, similar scenario, different result.

It goes that far, in my opinion.

Jameson! wrote

 

When connected to wifi, wither at hone or at the office, I get no battery drain issues.   Drains at 1%/hr standby and slightly higher when using.

In my situation WiFi makes no difference at all. Either data system, WiFi or Mobile Data, gives me similar phantom usage and the resulting battery drain occurs. For my phone it's not 3G data, itself, I'm pretty sure of that. That of course does not mean it isn't for you.

The similarity I can see between your situation and mine, Jameson!, is that I can drastically improve matters by using airplane mode but not by replicating that mode manually, i.e. by turning mobile data off, WiFi off, Location Services off and BT off. That indicates, not very conclusively I realise, there may be a link between our two phones' issues. The only other way I can get really good battery and no phantom usage is to take out the sim but leave WiFi on. Again a slight correlation with your tale, given Cell data is taken out of the picture.

I guess the common links here could be:

• Sim Card [though you may not use one?] or its reader.
• Aerials
• The way the phone manages the cell receiver
• Or simply that the iOS is still miss handling things horribly and the weakest link in anyone's set-up looks like the cause.

Ok, so if I take your points on board, maybe [just maybe] my phone is set to use WiFi but doggedly decides to use 3G instead, hence why it's labouring and creating poor usage. In my overnight tests, by forcing data off [AP mode] or preventing the possibility of it [removing sim] that it could be that what I am seeing is what you are too. Hmmm. I can only think that I'll have to continue tests and check the mobile data stats in the morning to see if much data was sent/recieved that way despite WiFi being available.

Food for thought... Thanks

I think I found it. Last night I toggled off location services to make sure nothing was running.  Siri is disabled and no apps were multi tasking and this is what I got.  Tonight... we start to add things back in to see what happens

You are correct. There are 2 other forums to note that offer up fixes. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3526981

and  https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3484755  The tip offered by Davidch has helped a lot of people's phones and is a simple fix.  Also guys Apple has acknowledged there remains a few more issue and they are working on it. Folks here seem to think they are the majority and in reality most people that own these decvices have no issues at all. Just like anything the ones having problems look for resolutions and make the most noise. Its human nature. The millions of people who are not having issues are not scouring the forums and web looking for resolutions. Its that simple. Now I know I will take heat and be called Fanboy or whatever but  this is a fact. Ant BTW I had a small battery problem too , no where near some of the nightmares I have read abiyut here but a slighe one none the less. Any the 5.0.1 update solved it for me. Which brings another point, it solved it for a LOT of people. So here Apple is with millions of phones with no issue, a lot with an issue that were solved with 5.0.1 and some more that were not helped at all. So I am sure that makes it a little more difficult to say "oh X is the problem"  and fix it because if it were X then every phone out there would have the problem.  Last comment for the folks stating probably hardware there have been numorus  tests confirming that not to be the case, like iPhone 4 on iOS 4 fine til 5.0 then bad then back to 4 and all ok again, and iPhone 4s (2) 1 with issue and the other without and the phones restored with each others backup and the problem switch phones. If that dont confirm its software I dont know what does. Not to say there could be a few out there with definite hardware issues but highly unlikely. Anyway check out the two links I provided above and see if any of that will help  (esp Davids fix) until Apple releases the permanent fix. I promise if it works it will be more worth while. Good Luck!!

Good point!, I have read that the Baseband code has had a major jump in version # in iOS 5.1 . I also understand that that's whats responsible for the 3G/cell modem section. Sooooo if Apple is aggressivly changing that thus creating lots of versions it could be a source of the battery issues. Hopefully we will see soon.

My iphone 4S have a big problem with batery life, time is 7 at 8 hours

Just turn off location finder for all applications, turn off Siri, then probably you will resolve your battery problems. I just purchased iPhone 4S a few days ago and become very upset about the battery life and really regret of my purchase. Yes, it is ridiculous you have tremendous of application in your hand but shouldn't use them, becasue you need to take care of the battery! Otherwise, you need to charge your phone 2~3 times per day.

I am waiting for Apple's upgrade of iOS 5, and if they couldn't solve the issue, I will definitely return it.

OK. I assume you all have paid good money for Apple to provide you a decent phone that does what it's spec sheet says - 8 hours talk time on 3G.

Why is it that you are trying to tune the phone and addressing it like an opensource problem. This is a bad release of a product that has not been tested properly. Considering the amount of effort put in by everyone, it appears like Apple is getting away scott free and this will encourage them to offer worse products to consumers.

Can someone with an Apple badge please respond and solve the battery problem. This is getting to be a nightmare.

vsfromca wrote:

Can someone with an Apple badge please respond and solve the battery problem. This is getting to be a nightmare.

460 pages (in this thread alone - there's many others too) and no response from anyone officially Apple would suggest they're unlikely to admit there's an issue now.

As it doesn't perform as specified, just return the phone, give your cash to someone else. Job done.

That's exactly what I plan to do. I have scheduled a call tomorrow with Apple and after that if the solution is not satisfactory, Apple can have their phone back and return my money siriously

sbailey4 wrote:

 

[...]Folks here seem to think they are the majority and in reality most people that own these decvices have no issues at all. Just like anything the ones having problems look for resolutions and make the most noise. Its human nature. The millions of people who are not having issues are not scouring the forums and web looking for resolutions. Its that simple. Now I know I will take heat and be called Fanboy or whatever but  this is a fact. [...]

[heat] [heat] lollll. Why would you take some heat for stating the obvious? Since the big bang things have been cooling down, so it comes as no surprise that this does too. I think you're right in your observation that most devices don't have the issue, even though I think you're somewhat wrong in the analysis - but who cares really. To sum it up, 70% of the population has the cold sore virus but they're not scouring the "cold sores forum" - but you can't predict when you'll get the sores and that's troubling. I'm pretty sure Apple have been focusing on limiting the outbreak that could be triggered by different factors, like stress and external agents, to speak metaphorically. Cranking the heat was required for those who denied reality and offered a condescending approach to the problem, or made it a have/have not class affair - I'll always remember the "drink a nice beverage and be more productive in life" guy. It was also required for the high level priests who always end up their posts with things like "Apple doesn't owe you anything", whereas accountability and merchantability is completely owed. When you're a giant and someone comes up to you and wants to fight, you don't put on glasses and say you can't fight. I don't think Apple behaves like that at all, despite their silence in the forums - I guess those guys don't talk but do - but the fanboys serve as mere padding and it's not Apple's fault. I suggested a long time ago it was past management who was in part responsible for the distortion. Some people love Apple yet haven't bought into that and I was happy to discover this.

I wanted to add in relation to the 2 links you posted, that the first one is really just a list of hand-picked stuff from the current thread, whereas davidch's thread is really the more interactive one where he's quite supportive and answers individually to questions and such.

Tc.

Yes....the 'hospital' is where you find ailments....not good health.  I'm very grateful to have my phone working now, the way it should. Thanks for your input.

I agree mostly with what you say, but for those of us that have tried all the fixes proposed and all the suggestions to no avail, it is falling on angry ears.  I have EVERYTHING turned off - Siri, location, Bluetooth, mail push AND fetch, cloud and still only get 2.5-3 hours per charge.  Not only is this insanity, but with everything turned off, what did I buy the phone for????

If, as you say, there are apple engineers working on this, where are they? Why doesnt one, JUST ONE, write here and let us know that these posts have been read and they are looking into it?

If it indeed were just a few of us, why has this thread been read  over 600,000 times with almost 7,000 posts?  UNPRECEDENTED

There are likely a lot more people out there having battery problems and don't bother to post in these forums. My coworkers who have the 4S as well as one who upgraded to iOS 5 on a 3GS all are having battery problems but they are not posting here.  No doubt, many more do not realize that the battery could be better than it is.

I have phantom usage of about an hour after a 10 hour period on standby and I thought this might be because of 3G  transmission, however after installing a data monitor, there is not much being transmitted after all. However, when I am on Wi-Fi, I do not have a major battery drain. It is mainly when I'm on 3G where I get an unexplained battery drain while on standby.