Battery Issues with 3.0.1

My battery is having the same problems. Full charge in the morning, dead by 3pm with minimal usage. When I first got the phone over a month ago I never had these problems. Notifications are turned off too. It makes it really difficult to get through the day when my phone dies just after lunchtime.

Is Apple recognising that there is a problem yet?

Apple is probably aware of it, but it is not a major issue as the number of people with the problem is vanishingly small among the universe of 60 million+ phones. Of course it IS a major issue if you are one experiencing it! As it is almost certainly the result of corrupt data in a backup file doing a Restore as a new phone will fix it.

Keep in mind that with every release there have been a few people who have had problems. The number with this release is MUCH smaller than for any previous release of firmware.

So you can wait to see if Apple will fix it in a future release, which could be weeks or months away, or you can try one or more of the solutions posted in the boards. Because I can just about guarantee that when the next release comes out there will be owners who have problems after installing it.

im having the same problem. Never had a 2G but my 3G had excellent battery life. i took mine back to apple they gave me a new one, but the new one has just as bad battery life!

Would the battery be the problem for the iPhones that had exploded in France and UK? Apparently, they over heat and the screen crack and then all small pieces of the iphone come out. Does anybody know what's up with this NEW batteries?

I got my 3GS back last Monday, and I have to say so far I am pretty unhappy with the battery myself as well. I previously had a 2G which would almost always get me through the day (I accept I have to charge every night). If I don't dock it part way through the day the 3GS has typically been shutting down early evening with a flat battery.

I've tried a clean restore back to 3.0 (was previously running 3.0.1 with a restore backup from my 2G) but it's no better. For example, I took the phone off charge at 07:30am this morning, it's now 2pm and I'm already down to 28%. So far this morning I've used the iPod for about 2.5 hours, send a couple of emails and used the web for about 10-20 minutes total (mixture of 3G & WiFi).

None of this use is atypical for me, and on my old 2G I would expect it to be approaching about half charge at this stage.

Location services are off, brightness is at just under half, WiFi off, 3G on unless needed. Currently no 3G coverage, but have four bars of Edge.

I understand Apple's advice is to switch off features, if I wanted a phone without half the features the iPhone has I would have bought a Nokia!

I'm now going to try running to totally flat and charging back to 100% for a few days, see if the battery needs to be conditioned.

I had this problem. It got to the point that the phone was just cutting out, even when plugged in. I am on my second handset now and the same, 'jumping battery percentage' has started to happen again.
I do seem to recall the same thing happened on 3.0 but got worse with 3.0.1 but I couldnt be sure. I am now going to have to contact o2 again and have my 2nd handset replaced. does anyone know if Apple have commented on these faults?

One thing to check is usage. Go to Settings/General/Usage and look at the Usage value. If it is much higher than your actual usage this means there is a background or push application running when the phone is on standby. This is usually the result of either a buggy application or bad data in the application's working storage.

When I first upgraded my 2G to 3.0 I had a similar problem. I deleted my push email account, rebooted the phone, and added the account back. This fixed the problem for me. Apparently there was bad data in the mail app backup that I restored. I then upgraded to a 3GS and the problem did not recur.

While my fix has worked for a lot of users, it has not worked for all. What works for most of the rest is to do a restore to the current version (currently 3.0.1) and set up as a new phone. This eliminates the possibility that the corrupt backup was the cause.

After doing the restore as new first test before added back any applications. If the phone shows "reasonable" battery life then add back apps a few at a time.

I'm currently running with no apps, as that is exactly what I've done. Restored back to a clean phone with 3.0 (decline upgrading to 3.0.1 this time due to people theorising this was causing issues). My battery life experience seems to be no better running a clean phone than one restored from a backup off a 2G.

My usage is currently:

Usage: 4 hrs 14 Minutes
Standby: 7 Hrs 0 Minutes

Would iPod use with the screen locked count as usage?

I forgot to mention, I do have push email on, and I refuse to turn it off at the moment as it's mostly the reason I have the phone in the first place!

Here are my current stats...

IPHONE 3Gs
64%
Usage 1hr 47minutes
Standby 2 days 17 Hours

Usage has mainly been Facebook App, Twitterrific, App Store. 3g used minimally and wifi used minimally. Push off, location services off.

I am not sure I am getting the battery life I should be and have performed a new phone restore and let the battery drain all the way to 0 and then recharged. I want to get some thoughts before I set up a genius bar appointment.

I set my 2nd handset up as a new phone and it hasnt made a difference. Same jumping battery value and cutting out. Everything was set up as new, e-mail etc. only thing the same is the music and the apps.

argylenet wrote:
I'm currently running with no apps, as that is exactly what I've done. Restored back to a clean phone with 3.0 (decline upgrading to 3.0.1 this time due to people theorising this was causing issues). My battery life experience seems to be no better running a clean phone than one restored from a backup off a 2G.

My usage is currently:

Usage: 4 hrs 14 Minutes
Standby: 7 Hrs 0 Minutes

Would iPod use with the screen locked count as usage?

Yes, iPod counts as usage. But it drains the battery less than Internet or phone.

I forgot to mention, I do have push email on, and I refuse to turn it off at the moment as it's mostly the reason I have the phone in the first place!

I have push on all the time, 1 Exchange account, 2 POP3 and 1 IMAP. I also have everything else on: 3G, WiFi, BlueTooth, Location Services, Notifications. If I use the phone heavily I just make it through a day. If I use it lightly (no calls, email only with several dozen messages received and a few sent) I am at 50% by the end of the day. I charge every night regardless of the state of charge. For backup I carry a Kensington external battery pack to recharge the phone on the go. I use it about once a month. Note that my coverage is good to excellent; transmitting data or voice when the signal strength is low will significantly reduce battery life. Even leaving the phone on with low signal strength will reduce the standby time, as the phone periodically syncs with the network so the network knows where to find you.

It sounds like your phone has a real problem. If you ave 4 or 5 bars most of the time and restoring as new and calibrating the battery gauge doesn't give you better usage, then I suspect you have a hardware problem.

My first 3GS apparently had some charging problems. If I did something high-drain like streaming audio or keeping Google Maps up in the car, it would not charge enough over USB to keep the battery up. I didn't think anything of it, because my 3G was the same way.

Once my 3GS started to randomly reboot, the Genius Bar replaced it, and to my surprise the new one will charge and stay at 100% no matter how much power it's drawing.

Then again, it might be 3.0.1... I never had a chance to put 3.0.1 on the defective 3GS.

Thanks for the pointers, I'll give it another day or so of conditioning the battery I'll give Applecare a call.

Incidentally I've just come out of a one hour meeting, phone has been on my desk without me touching it. I had two missed calls and about five emails and the usage increased by 5 mins, the standy by 55 mins, and the charge by a further 4%.

5 minutes is not unreasonable; each missed call is 30 seconds, if they left vm that uses some time, and the emails could easily make up the difference.

My battery has been lasting about 4 to 5 hours and feeling hot at the back of the phone. I did a complete restore and set up phone as new put push on and the same:(

Then turned off push and location services and now phone only dropped 3% on standby in 5 hours. I expect it is something to do with the push on my phone and I will try turning it back on and see what happens.