Iphone 3GS... Is it dead.

iPhone was replaced at the Apple store the next day. Lost call history, photos, etc., but kept the same SIM, #, and billing info. I had backed up a couple of days prior, so didn't lose all photos, and call history wasn't worth restoring for. I did have to setup mail, calendars, and contacts again, though.

So far, no problems with this phone. Still gets warm, battery performance is about the same. Only positive is that an issue with my original seems to be fixed now. If I last used iPhone with wifi, then again several minutes later when no wifi was available, I have to switch in and out of airplane mode to force a connection.

add me to the list as well....

32G 3GS Black

Got it the day they came out.

Was driving to work, had it in the charger. 20 minutes later at work, went to unsleep the phone and will not start. Holding both buttons down for reset only shows the dead red battery. iTunes does not recognize. Unfortunately, I'm a pilot so it will be a few days before I can get to the Apple store.....pain in the @$$ !!!

My phone came back. I won't claim this is a solution, but I'll mention it anyway.

I verified that my phone wouldn't turn on. I pulled out the SIM card to try it in my iPhone 2G (doesn't work, incidentally). When I put the card back in my 3Gs, I was able to turn it on. Has been working fine for a few hours now.

No idea if that's a real fix; honestly I doubt it. Still, just another trick to try if anyone else has the problem.

Add another. It has happened twice now. Plugged into pc at work to 100% charge, put phone in purse and didn't use all night. Went to use this morning and the phone was dead. I guess I will make an appointment at the Apple store to exchange it...It would be nice if they would address this problem!!!

It would be nice if they would address this problem!!!

They already are - by replacing the defective phones. This is a hardware defect in a very few 3GS
iPhones. Since >99.99% of iPhones don't have this problem, it isn't generic to the iPhone 3GS.

This worked for me. Kept having the "low battery" screen with the lightning bolt when plugged in, but didn't come back for 3 hours. Couldn't get into DFU Recovery on my Windows box, but got it to work on my Macbook Pro after three tries. Unfortunately iTunes couldn't restore, kept getting err 1601. Last ditch effort, removed the SIM, and my phone immediately came up! Didn't have to DFU or anything. And it charged to 100% during its whole "I'm out of juice" phase.

Good luck to those still having issues.

Follow-up: Just got back from the Apple store and they agreed that it is a defect in the phone. They replaced the phone with a new one, so I have my fingers crossed.
Note: The guy did say at first that it was probably a software issue, but after doing diagnostics, he said it was the first true defect he had ever seen in an iPhone (a bit suspicous about that, but just happy that I got a new phone, so hopefully I will not have to deal with this problem anymore).

Ok, i am not the only one with this problem now that i have been reading it happening to a lot a people.

I have a 32g 3GS abd last night i went to bed with 77%, woke up this morning ( 8 hrs later) to check the time, phone was not responding, so i put it on charge, it was dead. It did take charge and when i charged it to 85% took it off charge and within 3 hours was down to under 20% (the back of the phone was quite warm aswell).
I have had the phone for 4 weeks and never had this excessive battery drain before. I did a few resets to no avail, although reading some of the feedback i turned off the 3G and so far it has stopped the excessive battery drain and it is not overheating, though the past 4 weeks i have had the 3g turned on and it was only last night starting to excessively drain the battery.

Me too.

32GB 3GS. 95% charge last night when I went to sleep, this morning it was completely dead. I have no push configured applications. It was connected to my home wifi network, 3G enabled, but not being used actively by anything that I'm aware of.

Same here, 3Gs 32GB, just got it a few days ago and did a lot of work to get music, gmail imap, and various apps set up. Was using it this morning at work and battery was great, listened to music most of the day without seeing very much drain on the battery (as expected, what good are all these features without a solid battery?). Used the headphone to pause the music as I had done previously that day without problem. 1 hour later I left to go home and it would not turn on (S*... I thought). Got home and plugged it in and battery reads dead / 0%. I can't yet tell if it's charging, or if it will get warm (indicating a serious hardware defect). What a PITA.

Same issue here. Phone was fine for around 3 weeks, then 1 day battery was flat even though it had been on usb charge for a good old while

What i have found though is to get it work again, is to plug it into a power source for a few mins, then disconnect from power (it appears to go dead). Press hold and home key for 6 seconds apple symbol appears i can then use the phone. The battery meter reads 95-100%. The phone is fine for a few hours then goes into dead mode again. So i have to repeat, works with any power source, mains, usb & car charger.

This feels more like a software/OS corruption to be honest but i'm still going to take it into one of these apple stores and beat them with it!!!

Well, I guess that makes me the unluckiest user ever. It happened to my first 3GS and to the replacement as well. The first one died suddenly, never woke up. Takes to weeks to get a replacement here in Holland.
The replacement went down from nearly 100% to less than 20% in an hour or so. This time, it came up again when I connected it to the car charger. Since then (3 days now) it seems to hold, but sometimes percentages go up without charging. Today, it goes down 25% in 4 hours without hardly any use. I do not really trust it.

Same problem here. I have a black 3GS 32GB that I purchased in June. Phone was plugged in all night and it charged to 95% then gradually lost charge throughout a couple hours. Also, when I hit the wakeup button, it takes several seconds for it to wake up.

Update: The phone charged in a couple hours and since then, seems to be acting normal after turning off 3G and some other settings (no 3g tower in the area yet) (Left WiFi on). The settings were reset after a recent update. I'm happy with the battery life but I'm paying close attention to see if it dies when I'm not expecting it to again.

Message was edited by: Nick A Jones

Did you bring a laptop? I would try connecting to iTunes via the cable. And see what happens.