Has Apple acknowledged the battery problem with new 3Gs?

Wi-Fi also ***** power out of the iPhone even when it's not in use. I've noticed that the battery on my iPhone will drain more overnight when I leave the Wi-Fi card on versus turning it off. I always leave 3G and Wi-Fi off unless I'm using them, this helps me save battery life.

I'm sure that there are problems in some of the new iPhone 3GS batteries, nothing is perfect. I'm also sure that the firmware could be part of the problem as well. When a new firmware comes out for a new phone, you shouldn't expect the best battery results until after a couple updates on the phone. Now you would think that the phone is released so it should already be optimized, but the mass circulation of a device opens up new problems that testing on a smaller scale could not.

There may well indeed be a problem with some 3GS batteries, just as there have been some hardware problems with the first generation iPhone and 3G, which is what the warranty is for. As with any other potential hardware issue with an iPhone under warranty, as already provided in the U.S. you can call AppleCare at (800) 694-7466, or make an appointment at an Apple store if there is one nearby.

There is definately something amiss with your phone or perhaps a problem with software.

The first charge on my phone (mostly used at home) yielded almost 7hrs in mixed use...I put this down to the improved power handling/lower power wi-fi in the 3GS...it's actually better than my old 3G phone

Second and third charges have yielded about the same as my 3G (4 to 5 hrs) as these were more 'out and about' using the AT&T 3G network.

It ***** but if you figure Apple shipped 1m phones and if only 1% (probably a low estimate) were defective in some way...that's 10,000 people with a problem phone.

McMan,
My experience is similar to yours.
I have the original iPhone which worked (still works) incredibly well.
Updated to the 3GS and was severely disappointed with its inability to be used for more then 4 hours of light use which means 35 minutes of 3g talk time and 15 minutes of GPS and the balance in stand-by mode. This type of performance kept recurring over the 4 days that I had the 3GS.

This scenario even occurred even when 3g was turned off, wi-fi turned off, Blue-tooth turned off, factory setting restore (twice) and complete power drain to full recharge. I also noticed that the recharge time was significantly longer on 3GS.

So yes you are not imagining things the battery life is far worse in the 3GS then prior iPhone incarnations.

I had to return the 3GS to the AT&T store and I was told that this is about the expected battery life for the new 3GS and I had to pay a 10% restocking fee.

The lesson in all of this is not to be an early adopter wait until the model life cycle is almost up then purchase the product. At that point it may be cheaper and the bugs will have been worked out.

You shouldn't have returned your iPhone for your money back. There is seriously something wrong with your iPhone if you only get 4 hours of usage from it. I've had an iPhone 3GS from day 1 and it's been working great, especially the battery life. The people at that Apple store had no clue what they are talking about if they told you that is what the battery life is supposed to be. You should have asked to exchange yours with another one and you would have been fine, but instead you took a 10% hit. Next time have them swap out the phone. There is nothing wrong with being an early adopter if you know how to deal with problems that arise.

My battery life is significantly better than my 3G version. Trying to be somewhat scientific, I was running the new XM app (loads of fun for me) continuously for as long as I could. Running the app means you're continuously connected to a WiFi or 3G network. I also took calls, and of course, read emails and text messages (which, because the iPhone lacks multi-tasking, caused me to have to restart XM). After about 6 hours, I still had juice left. My 3G version of the phone required recharging at least twice a day. I hated that problem.

Anyways, how do you guys determine the exact percentage of battery life left? I couldn't find anything in the settings that allowed me to do that.

BTW, Allan Sampson has been contributing to these forums for six years (starting within days of my starting here). He has the right to be snarky to individuals who come to this forum making claims that based on their n=1 experience (or even less logically, the number of views) they can conclude that Apple has "lied" about the battery life. Give me a break.

If you have an iPhone 3GS, Open Settings->General->Usage-> Then enable Battery Percentage. For some reason, Apple only enabled this feature on the 3GS, but who know if they will also enable it on the 3G and the 1st gen iPhone eventually.

I see no problem with battery usage on my 3GS.

With 3G ON, Location services ON, Wifi ON, IMAP checking of 4 mail accounts every 60min, Push ON (for me.com mail account).

1) I'm getting 24 hours of moderate usage between charges: (30-45 min intermittent 3G talk time, 45-60 min of intermittent internet usage, 5-10 min of intermittent GPS usage, the rest is standby)

2) Yesterday, in addition to the previous use pattern I described, I also streamed (over 3G internet connection) 2+ hours of national public radio and got ~8 hours of total use leaving a 14% remaining charge on the battery.

That's not bad in my book. I have noticed an increase in battery life after a few charge cycles (discharged to ~20%)

This post is worth exactly $0.02

I agree that battery life is no better on the 3Gs than it was on the 3G, at least not on mine. I have wifi and location services turned on, witch tend to drain the battery faster, but if you consider how slim and trim the phone is compared to most others, the battery can't be but so big. My problem with the phone has been signal strength, but that's another topic.

Envision99 wrote:
If you have an iPhone 3GS, Open Settings->General->Usage-> Then enable Battery Percentage.

Hey thanks! I wouldn't have thought to look there.

Huh, I really did think the battery life logging profile was true. I guess it was after all.