iPhone 2.1 battery dramatically WORSE than EVER before

18 hours of standby and 5 hours of actual usage is amazing battery life for an iPhone, and I would be estatic for performance like that!

Had the same problem of battery drain. Went to AT&T to see if they had thoughts on the matter and they didn't. Got home and decided to turn phone off and reboot. Since then.. no problems! Knock on wood!!!

Dale, I've done just that. The reception is still worse - where I received 2 to 3 bars in my office it vacillates between barely showing a bar with Edge and barely showing reception and no Edge. I'll have to wait and see what the battery does and also see how voice quality is. I haven't used it since restoring it. I just don't understand why reception would get worse when that was one of the things the new update was supposed to make better. I do like that the ipod now shows the artist and album beneath the song name.

I'm having this same rapid battery drain issue, with two variants -- I have NOT yet updated to 2.1 (still on 2.0.2), and attempts at shutting the phone off fail - the phone will restart a moment or two after it appears to have responded to the shut off command.

Anyone else seeing this specific type of problem?

I've not been able to pin down the reason, but within 20 minutes of unplugging my phone I'm already down to about 92 percent battery. Four hours later I'm looking about 40%. I've not changed anything in my configuration or settings. Something is seriously broken but I don't know what. I can pick up the phone at any time and it's warm to the touch. This thing gets worse with each release. Shame on you, Apple, for releasing this crap without proper testing. I can no longer recommend iPhone to my friends and family.

What a difference a day makes!

As I reported yesterday I had taken a monumental battery hit since 2.1, going from a complete charge at 6:30 am to to about 50% by just after lunch with the thing sitting on my desk untouched the whole morning.

Last night I found that Location Services had either been turned on during the update or by accident. I turned it back off, fully charged it overnight & with another day of identical very light usage I had almost an undetectable drop in the battery indicator at the end of the work day even with unplugging it from the charger over an hour earlier today. With the exact same usage throughout the day yesterday I was at about 25% battery remaining when I left work.

I'm not really sure what Location Services does but for that kind of astronomical battery improvement it'll stay off.

Could be a coincidence? I'll keep track of things over the next few days & see if the improvement maintains.

It seems that the 2.1 update has dramatically reduced my battery life. I leave the iPhone charging overnight. Pre-2.1 (at version 2.0.2), the iPhone would last me the entire day (with still partial green battery most days). Post-2.1 the battery is dead by noon (only about about 4 hours of usage). I haven't changed any of my workflow habits. The only thing different is the 2.1 update. This is on the 3G iPhone. There are other buggy things like the App Store listing updates for 3rd party apps, but when I go to apply the update it shows "Installed" in gray so I can't do anything, but the App Store icon still shows a number of updates to perform. This is the buggiest update yet. Apple needs some QA help.

I just did the 2.1 upgrade too! Of course, I too have the same problem! Do you think it's a plan for all of us 2G phone users to "upgrade" to a 3G phone??? After 2 days of the so called upgrade, I got up this morning at 6 with a half charge and now I've had to put my phone back in the charger! I was red line and almost no charge at all. HMMM, Apple is seriously becoming a "person non gratis" with me!

I did the 2.1 upgrade last night (was having this issue on the prior version of the software), and then followed a prior poster's advice by doing a full restore of the device - after the upgrade - thru iTunes. The batter does not seem to be draining today, but I still have the other (potentially unrelated) issue where telling the phone to turn off results in a reset, not a power-off. If anything changes I'll post again.

IF YOU ARE HAVING BATTERY ISSUES WITH YOUR 2G IPHONE AFTER INSTALLING UPGRADE 2.1, READ THIS . . . .
On Sep 16, 2008 7:19 AM I posted a solution in this forum that has worked 100% for me. I no longer have battery drain. My reception has improved, Mobile Me works fine and I have no issues. I am running my 2G with 2.1. The solution is to reinstall your iPhone software back to the original settings by opening iTunes and selecting the second option in the "Version" section on the Summary page for your iPhone. This restore process will erase your iPhone software and data, so be sure your Address Book, Calendars, Bookmarks, Tunes, Photos, eMail settings are all up-to-date and stored on your computer. After the new software/firmware is installed, you will need to reload this data (stored on your computer) back to your iPhone. I do not work for Apple. I am not a techie. But, this solution has worked successfully for me. I have no idea what caused this battery drain problem. However, that is irrelevant if the problem is resolvable, which I have been able to accomplish. Dale

After reading and complaining about all the problem that were the same as I had (hot iPhone and severe battery drainage) I tried the simplest route. I turned off my Location Services and then turned off my phone. After a few minutes I turned it back on, charged it and whaddoyaknow, it is keeping it's charge. Try it! I will definitely monitor the usage, as I use it to read my books. (www.ereader.com) So far I haven't seen any change in the battery useage and it's no longe hot to the tough. You'd think Apple would send out an advisory to us 2G iphone users....

*Ok, I know this thread has basically been solved, but I'd like to post my iPhone 3G usage results for day 3.*
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*I'm running everything (3G,Location Services, Push, Bluetooth, etc.) It seems like the iPhone 3G sorts itself out once you sync it after the update to 2.1, so to clarify my complaint, I was mainly concerned that my battery meter wasn't working, but now I know it's fine since the sync.*
*At the 20% warning my results were: 17 hours,44 Minutes Standby/4 hours,33 Minutes Usage.*
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*I continued talking on bluetooth after the 20% warning for about 15 more minutes and let the phone sit to 18 hrs, 43 minutes on standby/4 hours,54 minutes usage before finally putting it back on a charge.*
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*Before doing this update I would leave my iPhone plugged into a charger anytime I wasn't using it because the battery life was so unreliable. This is no longer necessary today, but I will charge it back up once it drops to half from now on. It really can't hurt. I once spoke to an apple care rep who told me that it was a bad idea to completely drain battery every time before recharging. He said doing it on occasion (once every 6 months or so) will help to recalibrate the battery, but other than that, to keep the battery charged up.*
*It makes sense to me. At least you know when you walk away from a charger you probably have 17 hours before worrying about plugging up again ;-)*

I experienced the same profound battery drain on my original 2G iPhone. When, on the second day of the problem, my phone completely ran out of power I charged it overnight and then, after booting up, turned off bluetooth, wifi, push and location services. Throughout the day as I used my phone the battery life was robust. I then turned on bluetooth and wifi -- still maintained long battery life. I then crossed my fingers and turned on location services and push (I use MobileMe). Today, after a full day of use I'm seeing excellent battery life. Unlike other posters, I didn't restore my phone.

I think it was another posting I read that speculated about how a full power drain might reset the power management circuitry - akin to the process of resetting the battery on a MacBook. Certainly, it feels like this might have been the case as I didn't do anything extraordinary after my phone was completely drained of power.

one thing ive discovered is that location services turns itself back on when i use the maps.... i have to go back into settings and shut it off, just like wifi if i dont want it to drain my battery...