Low battery life on iPod touch after installing iOS 4

I'm glad that my solution of turning off In-App Purchases is working for other people, please keep leaving your results!

My impression was that the battery life on my 1.5 year old 2nd gen. 16 GB iPod Touch had decreased significantly after updating to iOS 4. But I think that is more for wifi and games than with playing video. I made a video playlist that played 4.25 hours until the "20% remaining" warning stopped the video playing. When I turned it on this morning, a battery-level app said there was 30% remaining, so if you include that slight rebound in the calculations (ie. that it had used up 70%), 4.25/0.7 = 6 hours. Even if you count it as using up 80%, that is still 5.3 hours, which is not bad. I had set the brightness to 50% and the sound with headphones to 75%. But browsing or playing games? It doesn't last long at all!

Having the same problem but was not aware upgrading the operating system would drain the battery? Shame on you Apple....

I will turn off the WiFi and use airplane mood

Rob

I have had good success with the "Reset all settings" solution on my iPod Tough 2nd Gen in the past. A few days ago, I downloaded the "Cut the String" game, which I love. Unfortunately, this game connects to other players through Apple's "Gamecenter" app. Once Gamecenter has been accessed, the battery drain effect returns. I removed the game and did a reset, but now I can't play this game that I really do like. Too bad we can't dump Gamecenter.

I've been dealing with this issue since going to iOS4 on my iPod Touch 2Gen last Fall. From what I've seen, the problem is the Gamecenter app that comes with the OS. If I do a reset of the iPod, the battery life is as good as always. As soon as I download and start a game app that uses Gamecenter to connect to other players, the battery life problem comes back and doesn't stop until I reset again. Then, I'm fine until I turn on the game again. Gamecenter appears to not know how to go to sleep with the rest of the iPod, so it runs 24/7 until the battery dies. I do have to wonder why Apple hasn't fixed this.

Turning on Airplane mode and WiFi together doesn't work on older iPods, unfortunately. With Airplane mode on, WiFi is off.

Message was edited by: franzkaiser

I have 5 hours of usage and 2 days 18 hours of usage and have 20% percent battery. I think it improved a little. Have airplane mode, no push settings,location off. What I did is I disabled multitasking and wallpaper, and deleted gamecenter app.Turn on wifi when needed. Since the last charge Ive played mostly. I used Ifile to do all of this. If anyone wants to try ask me how.

Upgrade to 4.3?

"Battery Life
There have been some reports that iOS 4.3 may have be less efficient in terms of battery life on some devices, under some conditions. Apple has struggled with battery issues since the release of iOS 4.0—a problem exacerbated by the addition of Persistent Wi-Fi to iPod touch devices. Standby battery life appears to be particularly impacted by this, so users who do not charge their devices every night may wish to hold off on this update until there has been some time to see what the actual impact is on battery life. We’ll be taking a more detailed look at this over the next few days and will update this article with our findings once we’ve had time to test battery performance under iOS 4.3.

Performance
Performance under iOS 4.3 appears to be about the same as iOS 4.2, except for the specific areas we’ve already discussed earlier: Improved performance with JavaScript-heavy websites in Safari and sluggish performance with the new Home Sharing features. Beyond that, users shouldn’t expect a dramatic speed boost (or decrease) when updating to 4.3.

Update or Wait?
For the most part, iOS 4.3 seems like a relatively safe update in every regard except for the potential battery issues we’ve noted above, which may not impact all users. There is little here that would require a user to update their device to iOS 4.3 to fix any issues or provide support for any new devices, and most could safely remain on the prior iOS release. Many of the new features are compelling, but more cautious users may want to take a “wait-and-see” approach. It will take some time for features such as AirPlay video support to make it into updated third-party applications, and Home Sharing may not appeal to all users until some of the limitations we’ve noted are addressed, and Personal Hotspot is not necessarily available on all carriers and will require some users to sign up for an additional service. None of these are reasons not to update, however; only increased battery drain is currently on our radar as a possibly serious concern.

http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/instant-expert-secrets-featur es-of-ios-4.3/

I would recommend caution. Personally, since I moved to an Android phone with all of the capabilities of my iPod, the iPod has been sitting in a desk drawer and largely ignored. Apple's customer attitude clinched it for me.

I'm not sure if this will help, but I've had the battery life issue after installing iOS4 (now on 4.2.1) and the Apple Store rep said it's basically running constantly. I saw mention of the Gamecenter problem: under Settings > General > Restrictions way at the bottom is a place to turn off Game Center options of "Multiplayer Games" and "Adding Friends".
Perhaps this is one solution that might work so you can play "cut the rope" again perhaps!
Oddly enough, my battery life seems good again since just about a week ago. I did connect to a new computer without iTunes, installed iTunes but didn't actually 'sync' it... hmmmn.

Battery on ios 4.3 itouch 3rd gen is good! Better than 4.2.1 (which was significantly better than 4.1)

I am on 4.3 as well. While I have tuned everything down as discussed on prior pages, wi-fi is still persistent. I can see the ipod on my router and ping it all day long when it is in standby. Using airplane mode with wi-fi on does not appear to change this.

I want a setting that turns the radio off when the ipod is in standby so I don't have to flick the airplane mode setting any time I start or stop using network. I don't want to continue to charge daily.

ok iknow this is way off topic but does anyone know if theres anyway to track a stolen ipod?????this happened to me and its extremely angering

Only if you had the mobil me activated on it. I think that is correct

Despite the fact that I bought a 3g 8Gb iPod Touch, it is being treated as if it is a 2g 8Gb iPod Touch.. So I won't be able to check out the 4.3 iOS.. Maybe just as well though..

anzac1957 wrote:
Despite the fact that I bought a 3g 8Gb iPod Touch, it is being treated as if it is a 2g 8Gb iPod Touch.. So I won't be able to check out the 4.3 iOS.. Maybe just as well though..

Actually, there is no 3g 8Gb iPod Touch. The 8Gb model that was sold with the 3g iPod Touches is actually a 2g model. The 3g iPod Touch only came in 16Gb, 32Gb, and 64 Gb versions.