Low battery life on iPod touch after installing iOS 4

So with all the problems with battery life, is updating to OS 4 worth it? What's improved with this update?

I tried updating a couple of times and it was barely moved from the left after 2 hours, so I gave up. I can remove my music and see if that helps, just wondering if I really want to do the update, lol!

Thanks!

Message was edited by: twiseowl

For 2g 8gb users the update isn´t so dramatic. The advantages I benefit from are the combined mail addresses, improved title listing with duration shown, Wifi stays logged in if required despite going into standby mode (great if you need to log in to a 3rd party wifi net with user name and password everytime), slightly improved wifi performance even though the strength appears optically weaker sometimes it is in fact better in real terms (speed measured). The backup/restore/reload/sync will take longer if your iPod is full. Mine had around 7 gb and it took about 90 minutes.

Thanks for the quick response!

My iPod is actually a 16 gig, and 3/4 of the way full. I've looked at the updates, and the one I think I will like the most is the folders, as I have all 11 pages full and like things organized.

I only use the wifi once a week or less, but having it keep me logged in would be nice, plus better wifi would be nice as I don't always have a great speed (small town, few wifi locations).

Not sure what the combined mail addresses and improved title listing with duration is.

For now, I think I may wait until the next update, to see if they fix some of the issues. I have too many things stored on my iPod to lose all that info, and many have said they've lost info or their iPod won't even power up after the update.

Ahhh. Got 2 iPod Touch 2g's and iOS4 is trashing battery life completely. Tried a total restore. No dice. So now I have to downgrade. Thanx Apple! Good one.

Have you activated Push/Notifications/Alerts/ or have Apps permanently on in background? If so, try switching off, that worked fine for me although Wifi stayed on.

Deactivate push notifications and set your mail account's "Fetch new data" to manual, leave your wifi on and your battery life will be fine.
If you're running an iPod Touch 3G 8Gb or any 2G then you don't have to worry about multitasking running your battery down.

I had battery life problems for the last couple of days but switching Push off has sorted it in one go. iOS4 is not as big a problem as seems to be made out in the forums, there have been a few inevitable bumps in the road, but I'd guess that the majority of the millions of iPod/iPhone users are happy since they aren't all here complaining.

What a fiasco this has become. I previously reported that backing up manually, restoring to factory settings, and then doing and update and restore from last backup worked after the 2nd time. Well....it turns out that the battery meter is now not functioning correctly! It stayed on full (solid white bar on battery icon) all day long. It was full around noon (after 18 hours of standby), but when I turned it back after lunch (less than an hour later), the Touch was completely dead again!

So I'm trying the recommendation of turning Push off and Fetch to manual.

Geez Apple! Get with it! Something tells me this OS was released way too early and not ready for production but sales and marketing in Cupertino doesn't apparently care about the user experience -- only Wall Street. Keep this up and there won't be any users to sell new product to!

I agree with JediAndi. If it really were that bad we´d have every ipod touch user here complaining. Obviously leaving mail push on is going to use up the battery, how else is it going to get mails? Divine intervention? The same goes for any other alerts or notifications relying on wifi reconnecting. I don´t think that´s too much effort just to switch these functions off. No one´s perfect, including Apple but at least there is one company still supplying free updates and support for a product which appeared first in 2001 and is still going well. Compare that with others and you´ll see things in a different light. It´s the same old story, whatever you do, there´ll always be someone who won´t like it.

I would much rather pay for a usable update. The iPod loses much of its utility if we can't have it tell us when mail arrives. How can anyone defend battery life going from 48 to 18 hours (my case) with no added pertinent functionality? And removing the previous version so we can't go back? This feels like coercion to buy a new one.

I am having the same problem too. I just installed iOS 4 last night. I had my ipod charging all night, but unplugged it when I went to bed. So about 10 hours later, my battery is dead.

Don't defend this OS. Push notifications and Location services are part of the OS, but if utilizing them causes the battery to drop dead in 12 hours of non-use, that is a problem. It makes those services unusable! I was receiving new email notifications just fine before iOS4, now I have to turn all of those features off because they are decimating the battery life. (Btw, I was able to resolve the battery issue by turning off all Push notifications and Location services.)

Yes, the WiFi on your iTouch is persistent. It is to enable push messages from the apps and your mail accounts.

I have noticed that when I try to locate myself from maps(registered with skyhook wireless), it shows a wrong location. It used to work fine when i was using OS 3.1.3. And my battery life has also reduced drastically. Maybe cause of the WiFi.

Skyperbon wrote:
Yes, the WiFi on your iTouch is persistent. It is to enable push messages from the apps and your mail accounts.

I have noticed that when I try to locate myself from maps(registered with skyhook wireless), it shows a wrong location. It used to work fine when i was using OS 3.1.3. And my battery life has also reduced drastically. Maybe cause of the WiFi.

On my Maps app, it takes significantly longer to find my location, and I often get an error message ("Your location could not be determined."). None of this happened in the 3.1.3 days, but I could do; iOS 4 is, I think, much more efficient than any other iPhone OS. Persistent wifi and folders are a big improvement, especially for 2nd generation iPod touches.

But why did Apple claim here ( http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1058) that persistent wifi only works on later models instead of the 2G iPod touch? It still baffles me.

iPod Touch. 2 weeks old. 7 hrs on iOS 3.x now 4 hrs on iOS 4. I too tried to Restore. Called Apple and they say (_buried in the fine print_) we agreed to not being able to restore to a previous version when we updated. (They need to put this in a notification box Before we click the upgrade button)
Because it is on Applecare I am supposed to send it in to be looked at. Nothing was wrong.. no freezing.. everything worked right.. I did notice a slower refresh on the Maps program and one hesitation during a game.
FYI.. Apple, I bought this for work (all day)
I was pleased, now I am not.

I have a 2G iPod Touch and iOS 4 has killed my battery life. I am lucky to get 8-10 hours now. I have fetch data set to manual and push notifications off and it's still bad. iOS 4 is broken. My battery life was excellent before I upgraded! I'm angry. Fix this Apple!!