iPhone Update 2.2 Drastically Reduces Battery Life

Hmm .. the battery seems fine to me. Actually, i thought it improved. After i updated on saturday night, i went to sleep. I woke up 4-6 hours later (not exactly sure). I went to check my phone for any apps update and i realized that i forgot to turn 3G off. The battery did not reach 20% at all. I assumed that it improved because it was more than 4 hours with 3G on. Anyway .. i usually test the battery with edge and few usage. On 2.1, it drained after a week. I hope 2.2 last until a week or more. It seems like some iphone has the issue .. only france??

I did a complete restore with the new firmware, as after one day I can tell that the battery is better... My iPhone was unplugged about 6 hours ago and it is about 50% of battery... so it is more or less like previous 2.2...

If anyone is experiencing this problem try to fully restore your iPhone

How do you do a complete restore?

You just press Restore instead of Update! but when complete make sure you set up AS A NEW PHONE, not a backup.

I selected "from a backup" after the restoration finishes and I can tell that it seems everything is working ok right now. I think that the battery is lasting even longer than ever...

hmm... interesting!
Still some other options to consider:
1. "IF" R2.2 has truly increased signal reception or speed, this will drain battery a little faster.
2. "IF" one has left their iPhone in 3G reception mode despite not using it very much, you cannot ignore the volume of traffic on a particular tower and the increased bandwidth being consumed at the time this happens and the iPhones continuous attempt to connect to a tower, or other towers... especially on Mobil Me, seeing it utilizes PUSH mode. That little "spinning wheel" will run like the
little Ever Ready bunny trying to connect to 3G, burning-up battery resources in the process of doing so. I live 3-miles from the nearest tower and literally watch the number or bars vacillate from barely 1 to 5 within a span of 5-10 minutes... and when I have 5-bars showing, my battery isn't as visibly drained, as when it connects at only 1-2 bar's.

Personally, I haven't seen any pro's or con's relating to downloading R2.2 regarding my battery or the number of available "bars" on 3G. In my eyes, it still comes down to the available bandwidth on the tower nearest you, based on how many people are accessing it? Overall, too many variables (app's your accessing, BlueTooth, Location Svc's, GPS, Surfing the web, emailing, 3G or Wi-Fi usage and of course, available bandwidth while iPhone is attempting to connect to "limited" 3G network).

I don't think 2.2 effected my battery life much, if at all. I did do an experiment today though. I turned off 3G to try to assess the impact on battery life.

Yesterday, I got 8 hours of life from my battery from full charge to 10% warning. I use the phone pretty heavily, but request fetch email, rather than scheduling it, and turn off most of the other services (location, etc) unless I need them. I do use Bluetooth a lot...and I've found it really drains the battery. I don't use it on weekends, and I have NO battery problems at all.

Today I got a little more than 10 hours, everything else being relatively equal. That seems pretty good to me.

I will submit that Bluetooth has an extraordinarily high impact on the iPhone though. I had a Blackberry Pearl before, and I was on bluetooth most of the day and had to plug in very infrequently. With the iPhone, I've gotten into the habit of basically plugging in whenever I have the opportunity.

But that's just me...*** do I know?

My 16gb 3g seems to be just fine. I was listening to MP3s, using 3g today and didn't notice anything different.

Noticed the same, but since doing this to my 1st Gen iPhone battery life is actually BETTER than before:

1. Drained battery to 20% warning
2. Charged fully
3. Synced
4. Did a RESET on the phone

Now I see NO battery life loss at all, and I have been using the phone normally for about 5 hours. So the battery life improved. Phone is faster too. Try and let people know if it works. Shouldn't have to, but at least it helps.

I recently tried to upgraded my iPhone 3g to 2.2 but some error happened during the installation and i was forced to do a restore on another PC so this made me set it up as a new phone and my battery life seems way better than 2.1. I have push mail, WiFi, and 3G turned on all day and still get good battery life. About 5 to 6 hours of use even if i browse the net, watch videos, get and send mail, and use applications. Stand by time has also increased, with the 2.1 i would fully charge it and leave it on stand by for like 7 hrs and it would go down to about 3/4. With the 2.2 today it has 10 hours of stand by time and the battery shows 100% still. I bought my phone like about a month ago so it came with the 2.1 OS. This battery drain bug may be caused by a glitch with the installation or something.

Same problem here. Even with WiFi turned off, my standby time has been killed. It's just a few hours now, while with 2.1 it was a day or even longer.

Restart your device. This improved my battery life to a better level than with 2.1.
Try it out!

I come back to this forum after a few days of testing.

Strangely everything seems to have come back to normal and I am indeed experiencing a good battery life (2 days, one really for I hate running out of gaz).
The first thing I did was to recharge the battery. This did not help. Then I switched it off and recharged the battery yielding no better luck. I then discharged completely the Iphone (as was suggested in this thread or in the other thread on this problem, see previous post). This helped but I am not sure this was the thing that did it as I had also synchronised the phone with the MAC after recharging.

In any case the problem is gone for the moment. Still this was a bad experience enough because it has broken my confidence in the device and I now carry my charger when I leave my office for too long, which is not so convinient really.
In any case, I will keep you posted if the phone relapses.

Me too, updated and barely get 3-4 hours of standby, no use! Come on Apple...
i need a phone that works!

I had a similar experience, except that when I came back to work today, the problem returned.

I think that the people who are focusing on network connectivity issues are on the right track, because my phone right now, which has sat locked on my desk all day, unused, is now at half its battery life. While I was at home over the holiday weekend, it could go several days without a charge, with no change in my behavior as a user.

Additionally, I know that my phone has problems in this area (downtown Washington, DC, a few blocks north of the White House) setting up/receiving calls. I actually just missed meeting up with my girlfriend for lunch because the phone did not receive her calls, and only notified my that I had voicemail after I picked it up and tried to call her.

So, to summarize:

1. Anyone who wishes to suggest battery-saving tips, thank you, but please save your time-- I am aware of them all and have employed them. They do not help.

2. I did not have this problem with 2.1, but I do have it with 2.2.

3. I only have this problem in a specific area that probably receives very heavy tower usage. Unfortunately, I work in this location, and do not intend to find a new job that will better accomodate my phone.

4. I am really, really unhappy with Apple/ATT right now. Apple, please solve this, it makes my phone effectively useless!