iPhone 3g iOS4 Battery life

How can you know so fast? It went public just a few hours ago? Did you already had time to fully charge you phone a conduct same tests you did on previous version??? Come on!!!

Yes I did do the same test. I downloaded 4.1 as soon as it was available this morning and have been testing it the rest of the day, that's more then enough time to watch the battery go from 100 to nearly 0 while doing normal daily activity. Playing a game with no other apps running shouldn't drain a battery at 1% per minute, it never did that prior to IOS 4. That's why it's extremely obvious that there was a problem when I loaded 4 and now even worse with 4.1. BTW, I'm IT professional with over 20 years on the Information Tech business. I'm not some shmuck off the street that doesn't what he's talking about. I deal with this stuff day in and day out. So please don't talk down to me like you are smarter then everyone else here, it's not needed.

Message was edited by: smittyofdhs

Guess what, I also have more than 20 years on the industry, and only 10 hours does not seems very scientific to me. But I might be from a different school. If I get my iPhone 4 and spend 5 hours playing games I will completely kill the battery too.
Have you installed back iOS 3 to compare same activities and see if does really last much longer? I have not seen anyone testing that so far.

Does iOS 4 really give you any advantage on the 3G?

Anyway, not my intention to offend you. But I see a lot of people super obsessed with testing this and using their phones in a way that is not normal, you do not check our battery level once a minute on a regular basis. Said that, if your battery is going down at a rate of 1% per minute, in hour and a half your battery must be gone, sure there is something wrong, did the phone got to the point you can fry an egg on it? At that speed it must.

When I installed iOS4 on my 3G before get my new phone, I did not noticed any difference with my daily use, but I was not obsessed either checking every new feature, just continued with regular use, check email mag be every 30 minutes, a few calls, check FB... And battery was just fine.

Message was edited by: Victorwol

I hope they don't screw the iPad with iOS4, probably that is why is taking so long to be released. I imagine a iPad battery gate already....

no offense taken, all is good 🙂 I guess I was just hoping for the 4.1 "save all 3GS woes" update but I'm not seeing it although it has been a short amount of time. I've been doing "testing" since the release of 4 trying to find a cause of the battery drain, nothing can be found. Even with no data or apps, just default apps, same battery drain.

True, time will tell and I am hope I'm wrong and will gladly retract any prior posts but I'm sort of losing hope. A few weeks ago I opened a ticket with AppleCare for the issue while on 4 - 4.0.2. Confirmed with them that I ran all the required tech support tasks to remedy the situation. AppleCare is going with "faulty battery" since they couldn't find any other reason for the issue and are going to replace the unit (less then 12 month old unit but seen on other iphones in the family). I was hoping 4.1 was the saving grace as battery woes was my only issue with IOS4. From what I've read in the forums, users with replaced units have the same issue after upgrading to 4 or higher. I'll give 4.1 a few more days but after that it's time for the replacement attempt, I've got my appointment and ticket so I just got to take it in.

Here's some food for thought.... maybe it's related to the carrier signal and/or cellular hardware, ie: what towers you are attaching to?

I pose this question because during my many hours of testing of the original ios4 version I had a 48 hour period while I was out of my normal cell area and had normal pre-ios4 battery life. I was in Los Angeles and had no battery drain. Return back to my home location and within a few hours the battery drain returns. No change in apps or settings, only cellular turned on, no wifi, BT, nothing. Just a thought....

Message was edited by: smittyofdhs

I'm sure that is an issue, when I'm at home, where I have wifi, then phone battery can go for many more hours than when I'm at the pool where I have -5 bars, I can even feel the phone going hot after just a few minutes of use.

Yes, I also agree that it's something to do with the 3G/Edge data connection, but I don't think it's mast specific. When I was in France, the data roaming switch ensured that no data transfers could take place, and even though I was using wifi just like at home, my phone lasted around 48 hours between recharges.

Back home, or at work (different masts), something trips my phone into a "get warm mode" and then I only have 5 or 6 hours before 100% of the battery is drained.

When in LA, I assume that you had your data roaming switch set so that you didn't use any cellular data. That seems to override the bug that otherwise causes the data connection to go mad, get hot and drain all the power...

Actually no, LA is not roaming area for me so I didn't have data switched off. That's the weird part of this, nothing changed on the phone except the physical location of the phone. Once back to my primary city, battery issues come right back. Now I've had several trips to LA and although not as good as the one trip, the other trips had marginal battery performance. I don't know, it's a moving target and very hard to pin down why this is happening.

Even if you have data OFF, the phone is in constant contact with cell towers, because you must receive push notifications, and messages, which arevdata even if not billed as such. So if you are on an area where the phone must use 100% of the power to reach the cell tower, your battery will be dead sooner. Around my office where I have a tower just a few blocks away, I leave about 6pm with usually 90% of remaining battery, then at hone where I have -5 bars, and sometimes no service.... The battery evaporates, and it is an iPhone 4.... And it gets warm... Just sitting on my desk....

I hate to tempt fate here but since installing iOS4.1 a few days ago my battery life has gone back to pre-4.0 levels. I've been using it the same as usual but noticed this morning that it hadn't drained itself flat overnight like every other night. And it hasn't got warm (which is usually when the battery drains like mad).

So, something is better for me at least... Don't tell me that they've fixed the bug and are keeping it very, very quiet?

see blog for a good solution to battery drain http://blogs.adobe.com/adobeideas/

Yes - I upgraded to 4.0 with no problems.
Yesterday I upgraded to 4.1. Initial impressions were that it did make the user interface slightly more responsive (but still a right PITA from a usability PoV). But worst of all, GPS does not work at all. None of my GPS enabled apps (even the built-in Maps) can get a fix on where I am. Any ideas?

yes, since the update battery life is reduced, reception is reduced, and native and 3rd party app performance is significantly slower. Please wait for an upgrade to the software to fix this issue (or attempt to downgrade), or buy a new 4g.