Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

Just happened again!

iPhone 4 was at 40% when I went to bed, woke up with it totally flat. My iPad with even MORE settings enabled lost 1% !!!!

My iPhone seems to drain at an ok-ish level between 100% and 60% but then it disappears within a couple of hours on standby. *** is going on?

I have an appointment with the genius bar tomorrow morning but I'm 2 weeks outside my warranty so I doubt they'll do anything except test the charging cycle.

If it turns out the hardware is fine and the software is causing it, do we have a case to put to Apple or the mobile carrier to demand some service? If the software is stopping it from actually working as advertised then surely it is a breach of service right?

The battery problem seem to be related to icloud mail syncing,  For me battery problem wasnt all that bad and with so much tests overnight with all settings on I lose between 6-8 % of battery when I woke up to see my mail been fetched.

the night before I decided to just to untick mail in icloud settings and to my surprise I only lost 1% which is incredible.

So I decided to to restart my icloud setup and last night with mail syncing on I only lost 3% so this has improve dramatically also or it could be apple is working on thier server to fix icloud relating to the battery issue.

I hope this helps someone

@ Tamarillo

I am starting to believe that this starts to look more and more like a hardware issue (e.g. antenna?, Wifi chip?, 3g chip?, CPU?, bad manufacturing process?, etc.). The iPhone 4S has been launched later then expected by several months (due hardware/manufacturing issues?) and already ~2 months have passed since has been launched and since the phatom battery drain issue is with us. Every day which passes and it makes more and more look like a hardware issue to me.

I was wondering if I should go to apple tomorrow like i was planning because im not sure if this battery is good or not? What do you think.

Usage 3 hours, 53 minutes

Standby 15 hours, 56 minutes

33%battery

I did the whole reset reset to the T, twice but Im not sure it improved. If you anyone could help I would appreciate it.

zSkeptic wrote:

 

3dmac wrote:

 

robrobedin wrote:

 

I received my iphone 4s yesterday and have restored it via icloud and my account. everything is as per my 3gs.

 

i charged it up over night and today i have used it for 25 mins and the battery is already at 91%.

 

I have used siri for about 7 mins

maps for about 2 mins

safari for about 1 min and the rest just playing around.

 

I also asked siri to create a reminder for after i leave work - i notice that the location icon is always on and wondered if this was the problem as to why battery is draining at a rediculous level.

 

 

This should not be the case apple as its part of the phones function -

how are you going to fix this.

 

its not great so far.

Aloha andrew,

#1 thing you needed to do is a FULL discharge cycle in order to calibrate the NEW LIPO battery. This will get it to full capacity.  Any new lipo battery in ANY new device comes with only a storage charge. This is not a full capacity activation charge. This needs to be done by the end user by using the phone till is shuts down (Black screen) then pluging it in for a full 12 hr deep charge.

Full lipo capacity will now occur in the lipo.

For what you noted as usage I will only drop 1-2% ( on 3g not wifi). Now what you need to understand is If you loaded ALL OLD iPhone 3gs apps- they may not work correctly with an A5 chip setup with iOS5.

But from the #s you just noted, Your Batt is OK, You Need to do the Proper charge calibration.

I don't believe there is any recalibration occuring when you discharge the phone to zero.  I see that many people keep on publishing this information but iPhones batteries are precalibrated and there isn't anything that consumers can do to change that calibration.  I have let my battery drain to shut off because I think it terminates some rogue processes and may extend the capacity a small amount but that is it.  Regardless of what people are reporting, I doubt user's battery problems are being fixed through this discharge process.  Li based batteries do not have memory so they do not need to be reconditioned or fully cycled.  In fact you cannot drain the battery to zero because the phone has a protective circuit to shut down when the battery reaches a low enough level.  If the battery gets too low, you can actually cause damage.  The best thing is to charge the phone whenever possible and not to let it sit unused for long periods so you always have electron activity.  Just my 2 cents.

Actually Lipo's req. a full conditioning routinely in order to keep them at optimum capacity ( full electron movement. Discharging the phone till dead is only to set safe limits just like any Lipo in a laptop. Min voltage is 3.2volt per cell ( in this case a 2s 7.4v 1465mah) BUT this is not the threshhold voltage when the phone turns off, thats 3.7v per cell. Full charge is 4.20v/ cell.

The phone comes with a storage charge ( and a lipo can have over a year or more shelf life !! )

Yes lipos do not suffer from memory, BUT usable capacity will if not conditioned ever so often during use. Lipos like to be discharge to keep things moving.

Note: I use large hi amp packs in my TREX 450 heli !!

enx23 wrote:

 

@ Tamarillo

Every day which passes and it makes more and more look like a hardware issue to me.

There may be some hardware issues out there. And I suspect there's more than one cause to the widespread (and it is widespread no matter what Apple say) issue of batteries draining very quickly. But the vast majority of cause(s) would seem to be software, not hardware. Reading the rest of this thread (and all the others) supports software issue(s) as the cause - people have dramatically improved battery life by wiping their phone. And there's the report that where two identical 4S's (one experiencing silly battery life, one not) were restored from images of each other, the "fault" followed the image, not the hardware. As it is clearly a fault retailers should have no problem in refunding any units returned to them.

The fact that we are squabbling about the characteristics of battery charge and discharge cycles is a sign we are forgetting what - for most people - is a gadget to increase communications, organisation and - yes- fun!

I get irritated seeing advertising describing the miracle features awaiting me on my new iPhone 4s. Siri telling me something when I get to an appointment - games, music...

The truth is I am frightened to even let it have mobile data usage and notify me of important messages.

What I have is a device I continuously pamper to in order to suit it's temperamental ways.

And that is ridiculous. Look at the number of threads and views spinning off this subject. It is - in spite of some peoples "I'm alright" comments - quite clearly a terrible indictment of a product which offers so much yet has a functional deficiency.

And we are forced, for corporate as much as technical reasons, to endure this and say "Aaahh well - that's what Apple are like. They don't ever say anything much but they are working on it."

They are innovative and stylish and I love their computer platform. That does not absolve them of responsibility with a market which makes them Billions upon Billions of dollars.

Such is the modern customer relationship for corporates, however, that I suspect as many lawyers are working on making sure no class action or litigation can succeed as there are engineers working on the problem ;-)

I feel foolish now. Like a gullible guy who thought that the shiny watch I bought down the market was a real Rolex - just because I paid Rolex prices.

Hotphil wrote:

 

enx23 wrote:

 

@ Tamarillo

Every day which passes and it makes more and more look like a hardware issue to me.

.... people have dramatically improved battery life by wiping their phone....And there's the report that where two identical 4S's (one experiencing silly battery life, one not) were restored from images of each other, the "fault" followed the image, not the hardware.....

Nobody has changed the battery life, it is still bad.

User changed the way to use the iPhone and not like they want - they have to do that.

About the report - i know it, there are no serial numbers, who says the two 4s are identical? what means identical?

Only a Dev who can install iOS4 instead of iOS5 on the (and maybe cut Siri out of it) can say something to software issues (Apple e.g.).

It is a hardware problem - how can somebody belive that changing software takes over 2 Months, without hope to improve something? (take a look to 5.1 beta discussion - do user really need an improved Siri? in this situation?)

imho they try by changing software to circumnavigate a hardware problem - this is only in some circumstances possible and has low succes rate.

Ok, before I keep on complaining… I would like to know what you guys think of my battery usage numbers:

I am currently at 15% with:

usage 5hrs 12 min

standby 16hrs 52min.

I know that this is not ‘that’ bad, but still… I would really appreciate being able to charge my phone every other day and no sooner. I managed up to 3/4 days with my Blackberry or Motorola, is it really unachievable with an iPhone?

This is not a BlackBerry or Motorola, so forget about 3/4 days of usage, that ain't gonna happen. You can however use a couple of tricks to improve the battery life of your iPhone.

Hi slk0h

It's all very subjective and very much depends on your set-up and situation. Post a more detailed description and folk may be able to be more helpful. [for example was this simply while the phone was idle and not at all used; was it on-the-go with some use of features; what is on and what is off; etc...]

Personally if I was getting those stats during the day with use, I'd be quite happy. [Well happier than I am now]

I really don't think anyone above really light use can expect a 4s to last 3-4 days.

You can't compare Apples to oranges, or Berries; they're just not comparable.

It's just weird, i HAVE a battery problem, not just today.

I am abroad for work, so i don't have acces to 3g and Wifi. This means i have no communication with internet on my device.

I know i haven't used it alot, but see how this works out:

bleepingApple wrote:

 

Hi slk0h

 

It's all very subjective and very much depends on your set-up and situation.........

 

.....You can't compare Apples to oranges, or Berries; they're just not comparable.....

Yes it is subjective, in my situation 36h with 4h usage is not enough - i need minumum 48h to load it over night.

And yes you are right, you can't compare oranges to an iPhone - from an orange you always get more than 99% from what you expect.

I bought an iPhone 4s yesterday and after a full charge and about 4.5 hours of mostly being on standby, my battery had dropped to 55%, about 10% per hour. I also noticed that there was a location services arrow on the status bar. When I checked under Location Services in Settings I found that the Setting Time Zone service (it's under System Services at the bottom of the Location Services page) appeared to be using it constantly which presumeably meant GPS was permanently powered and therefore draining my battery. I turned off this service, the location services symbol disappeared from the status bar and now my battery drain on standby is about 1% every 2 hours which is in keeping with Apples 200 hour estimate.

Not saying that this is everybody's problem but hopefully someone may find it of use.

fenman59 wrote:

 

I bought an iPhone 4s yesterday ...

That's fine, maybe you are lucky and have no problem - Apple goes a new way in technology, repairing software by changing hardware. Keep in mind, i had the problems after some weeks.