Level 1

0 points

3GS - incredibly poor battery life

I've had each generation of iPhone since they were launched in 2007, and upgraded from my 3G to the new 3GS a week ago on the day of its release. My experience with the battery life has been really, really poor. So bad that I sought out this forum yesterday and decided to run the battery down to zero just to see how poor its life was.

Here's what happened:

Yesterday I kept it plugged in and charged at 100% until 6 PM. I used it for ~2 hours of reading using the Kindle app and quick view of 1-2 web pages. This morning I woke up and read the news using a news reader app for ~1 hour before it turned itself off when it reached 1%.

Stats were 3 HOURS and 7 MINUTES of usage to drain the battery to ZERO. That was without calls, without video, without iPod use.

When I'm using it I can literally watch the power meter (which I've turned on the numeric percentage readout for) drain about 1% when I actually take any action on the device. I feel offended and mislead by Apple because the 3GS was supposed to have improved battery life. My netbook has better battery life (6 hours with extended battery while running its built in 3g mobile broadband service the whole time), and that's a full computer.

If you've had similar issues I'd like to hear about them and would certainly welcome any solutions that don't involve tweaking so many settings that the device doesn't work in it's default mode.

I'm recharging from the zero mark now. If the same cycle happens after another charge I feel like I'll have to return it to Apple after wasting a lot of time and simply move back to my 3G.

Given the amount of traffic on the forums about this issue, I think Apple had better speak up or they are going to experience a lot of damage to their brand.

iPhone 3GS, iPhone OS 3.0

Posted on Jun 27, 2009 6:49 AM

380 replies

Aug 4, 2009 5:46 PM in response to ahawkinson

????

allen099

Level 1

30 points

Aug 4, 2009 8:00 PM in response to iPhoneMac5

Relax my friend, life is good. People don't have time to sit on the forum 24x7.

I'd say that sounds normal. I'm probably getting similar to that. How long have you had your phone for?

Aug 4, 2009 8:21 PM in response to ahawkinson

since like july 15 or something like that
its week 21

FXX

Level 1

0 points

Aug 4, 2009 9:34 PM in response to ahawkinson

I am truly very disappointed with my new 3Gs and service provided by apple. On my brand new phone battery does not last more than 4 hours without using the phone. I have been waiting last 10 days for apple to replace the phone or fix the problem but so far its been a very disappointing service. I tried to call apple support many times each day but i can never reach anyone. Suggest stick with 3G. I was much happier.

allen099

Level 1

30 points

Aug 4, 2009 10:04 PM in response to FXX

FXX wrote:
I am truly very disappointed with my new 3Gs and service provided by apple. On my brand new phone battery does not last more than 4 hours without using the phone. I have been waiting last 10 days for apple to replace the phone or fix the problem but so far its been a very disappointing service. I tried to call apple support many times each day but i can never reach anyone. Suggest stick with 3G. I was much happier.

I'm not sure why you can't reach anyone. I called a few times already, and have gotten someone each time. AppleCare is open 9am-9pm Eastern time. Their phone number is 800-275-2273. If you have an Apple retail store near you, I'd recommend you make an appt. there to see a Genius ( http://apple.com/retail).

allen099

Level 1

30 points

Aug 4, 2009 10:11 PM in response to iPhoneMac5

iPhoneMac5 wrote:
since like july 15 or something like that
its week 21

How many times have you cycled your battery (charge to 100% then use it till it fully dies)? Now, of course everyone's usage differs here, not only in time, but how they use it. The phone part will take up alot of power. Edge should consume less power than 3G, but it also matters where you are in relation to the towers. If you're not getting a full Edge signal, your phone has to work harder to keep the connection alive, thus using more battery.

Try charging it to 100% the next day, and use it until it dies. After you plug it in to charge, have a look at the usage time. The iPhone remains off for about 5 mins after it dies, so whatever the usage is just subtract 5 mins. Keep track of what you roughly did and let us know.

Also, on page 23 (I think), someone linked to an audio test which you can do, and they even included their settings. On page 24, they posted their results. It involved looping a video with certain settings.

Also, it might be a bit extreme, but if you don't mind, perform a Restore on your iPhone through iTunes and afterwards, select the "Set up as new iPhone" option rather than "restore from previous backup." Keep in mind that any game settings/achievements that you had will be lost.

As a last thing to keep in mind, Apple designed this OS to NOT run background apps except for Mail, Phone, and iPod. With this being said, sometimes apps do get stuck and continue to function in the background. It's rare but it does happen. Be sure to fully restart your iPhone at least once a day. That will ensure that it's "clean" and nothing is running in the background that shouldn't be.

Aug 4, 2009 11:11 PM in response to ahawkinson

I am having the worst time with my iPhone 3g s in the past week. It seems my battery life has significantly decreased and the time it takes to completely charge is much longer. I always am plugging it into itunes to check for updates, backing up files, and just keeping it healthy. I have also let it completely run the battery down several times. still my battery is weak and phone is warm.
I've owned both iPhones and treated them the same, never a problem until now.
Is my phone just faulty? I don't want to turn off 3g or push, thats what this phone was made to do. Sure battery life might not be as good when you add more features to it but 3 hours of total data usage (mostly wi-fi) and about 50 min of talk time is way to small of battery life. I guess if I sat at a desk all day this would be fine, but couldnt my land line and computer just do what my iPhone does? I'm just frustrated. I still love apple!

SeamusCA

Level 1

10 points

Aug 5, 2009 10:40 AM in response to SacAttack

SacAttack, your experience it not unique. A number of us have started having power/battery issues in the past week. I'm beginning to think the 3.0.1 update introduced a new bug for some of us. Hopefully 3.1 will finally be a stable, solid update, and hopefully soon.

Jim

Aug 5, 2009 2:31 PM in response to ahawkinson

I'm a new 3GS owner, purchased just a week ago. Like many others, I'm too really really disappointed about its battery life: I think it's intolerable to have such a futuristic (and expensive!!!) device almost useless for a true professional usage (unless you live with your iphone tethered to the power cable, that is killing its mobile nature)...

Now I think twice before using the phone, it's a true pain to see the battery indicator just after a couple of minutes of work.

Someone told me that the forthcoming 3.1 firmware upgrade will solve this absurd issue. I do really hope so. I'll wait for this release, and see what will happen.

But now, I have a device as fantastic as a warp drive: both are astounding pieces of technology, both are light-years beyond any competitor, and both could be a dream if could only work in the real world.

I'm at work about 15 hours a day, I own a software house producing software for the scientific research. I need a device able to be at my side for the entire working day, and the iPhone is showing itself unable to do so.

Did any Apple engineer ever tested the 3GS in an actual working condition?

In the meantime, my old dusty $49.00 motorola phone is rolling on the floor, laughing...

Please, understand that _I do really love the iPhone_, its design and its project is absolutely fantastic, I just would like to use it with less pain.

Aug 6, 2009 7:08 PM in response to ahawkinson

My phone seems to have a normal battery drain with all functions even push bring on doesn't reduce it much. The iPod however seems to drain the battery quicker than it should. Also when viewing playlists or changing a song when playing a playlist there is a definite delay in loading. Should I try to restore the OS again?

amiramir

Level 1

0 points

Aug 8, 2009 12:09 PM in response to ahawkinson

I have owned the 1st gen a 3G iPhones. I picked up the 3GS about 10 days ago. The battery life is atrocious both in absolute terms and relative to my previous 2 iPhones. As I use it I see the battery charge percentage drop on a minute by minute basis. The worst experience I have had thus far is when I boarded a plane with 48% battery and put the phone into Airplane Mode fully expecting that charge to remain more or less constant as with previous iPhones. Upon alighting from a 5 hour flight I was shocked to find the phone was fully depleted and would not even start up. This left me stranded at an airport with no access to my phone and unable to contact my friends which causes as much distress in them as in me. Apple, please fix the battery issue. I can not recharge my phone multiple times a day just to get through a day that required no intra-day recharging on my old phones. I don't know if there is a bad batch of phones and I just happen to have one or whether all the 3GSes have this flaw. Either way, nothing tarnishes a brand like letting down loyal customers.

nachdenki

Level 3

649 points

Aug 9, 2009 8:07 AM in response to ahawkinson

Same very very very annoying issue here.
I've tried everything from switching off push to completly set up the phone as a new phone. Nothing helped.

I actually bought the 3GS because my old 2G had battery issues, which I thought were hardware issues. Now, my new 3GS has the exact same issues.
Without any usage I get about 12 hours of standby time (remember, 300 hours are advertised!). My 2G gets even less (about 8-10 hours).

It's a real shame as it makes the phone pretty unusable. If Apple does not fix this with 3.1 I will surely return my 3GS, this is absolutly horrible!

another thing I noticed on both phones (2G and 3GS): the phone seems to charge way too fast. My Phone charged from 0% to 100% in about an hour or something, before 3.0 my 2G took about 3-4 hours to completly charge. Also, the battery meter seems to be very inaccurate and jumps around a lot (I have numeric battery enabled).

Message was edited by: nachdenki

javaTN

Level 1

0 points

Aug 9, 2009 7:50 PM in response to ahawkinson

Hopefully this proof helps people out some sort...

I havent really been active here that much, because as you can all assume... my battery is working ALOT better than before. So here is my tip for all: Charge iphone completely and COMPLETELY drain the battery. Drain it till it wont power on after it even auto-shuts off! Wait about 10 mins after that, THEN charge up the phone... COMPLETELY to 100%.

On a side note, I do not use Push. My iPhone is also jailbroken so I can manually kill all applications after I open them (Safari, Mail, iPod).

Here are my latest results!
http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/6011/iphonebat.jpg

Does that do anyone justice? P.S. I also disable 3G whenever I am not using it (or it is not super-necessary).

Average use for me includes web browsing, posting twitter updates w/ Tweetie, checking my Google Voice account, reading email via Mail app, listening to iPod.

chOO.

Level 1

75 points

Aug 9, 2009 8:34 PM in response to ahawkinson

I've observed generally, the battery drops 20% every one hour according to what I think is a slightly above average usage pattern on a typical day, which is roughly about:

- 30 mins of web surfing / email checking
- 1 hr of iPod music
- 15 mins of maps/GPS use
- 15 mins of phone calls
- 5 SMSes

...with 3G ON, Wi-fi-OFF, Location Services ON, Push OFF.

20% per hour. That works out to be about 5 hour usage per full charge.

If I get through the day with the above usage MINUS web surfing and maps/GPS usage, I'm able to get 2 days plus of standby time till it hits 20% battery life. That's about the kind of battery life similar to a non-smartphone I use with no web-surfing and music listening.

Aug 9, 2009 9:14 PM in response to chOO.

It sounds like a pretty close average for decent battery life with mixed usage is about 5.5 hours. That's about what I'm getting with 2 to 3 days of standby time. I have to believe that's standard from what I've seen on this thread with all our testing. Obviously it's possible to get greater life with mainly iPod usage since music playback doesn't use the screen when playing in the background. Illumination is a constant in all usage and is a large battery drain. Turn brightness down to 50% or less to see some appreciable gains. 3G seems to be the primary battery drain, especially when using Maps and the GPS. But I don't see it coming into play when it's not in use - even if it's on. Push would seem to be the culprit when the phone is sleeping and you're experiencing charge loss.

Seem about right?

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3GS - incredibly poor battery life