Ipod Touch 4g terrible standby battery life?

So what's the fix? Not using an 802.11g wireless router?

I've been having this problem too and looking for an answer. I've got an ipod touch 2nd Generation 32g with 4.1 loaded. I sincerely regret loading this update.

I am using a LinkSys b/g router and have no problem with battery life. I have not charged my 4G in days and never turn it off (I just let it sleep).

I have great battery life and I am using mine on a combination of routers G and N. I see no impact between the two. I use my iPod Touch 4 for hours and hours a day, rarely do I see the battery down beyond 50%. In fact I've had to force it to run the battery down on this thing.

I still can't help but wonder if this isn't related to software being installed or folks trying to use an old backup that is corrupt.

None the less I've had a great experience with mine, so I hope the rest of you figure it out!

The fix is to get a new 802.11n router. $30 fix.

Things you can try:
-change the channel on your wireless router (pick channel 1, 6, or 11)
-change the encryption
-change it from 802.11b/g mix to just 802.11b


Its been my personal experience that 802.11g has caused my battery drain. And the reason I noticed it was wifi is because it happens on my iphone 4 too. Its my luck that I have two wireless routers in my house. So I decided to try the 802.11n router on both iphone and ipod touch 4g. Problem fixed BOTH of their battery drain. Incidentally, one of the days I was monitoring it I did notice the drain...and after looking at the settings the touch 4g had switched back to the 802.11g router. I deleted the 802.11g AP from the touch 4g settings and have NOT charged it since I began the tests.

PS. If you want to know if its the battery or your wireless router do this simple test. Put your touch 4g in airplane mode (disables all wireless). You should see that after 24hrs your battery will still show as FULL.

PPS. All my tests were done WITHOUT any apps running the background and all notifications disabled.

Here is what I did to fix my iPod Touch 3G (I'm about to do this on my wife's new iPod Touch 4G as it's doing the same thing):

Do a complete reset/reinstall of the device through iTunes.

It's a bit of a pain and can take a while to re-sync all your stuff (especially if you have a 64GB model that's full) but it's worth it. When I upgraded my 3G to IOS 4 I had all the problems mentioned in this thread. I tried resetting network settings, turning off push and location services, nothing worked. Only way to keep the battery from draining was to turn off the wifi, and that was not an acceptable fix in my eyes. So I went and completely wiped it and started over. Now I can leave my 3G Touch on standby for a week (wifi is on and it's at home in great range of my router) and the battery will maybe lose 5-10%.

I'd encourage everyone that is having the battery drain issue to give this a shot. I'll be doing it to my wife's iPod this evening because I completely charged and sync'd it on Saturday afternoon to get it ready to give to her for her Birthday on Sunday. I gave it to her Sunday night, a little more than 24 hours later, and it wouldn't turn on, completely dead.

Apple definitely needs to fix IOS 4, people should not have to reinstall the OS on a brand new device to get it to work as expected.

What router do you have that fixed the problem? Also, I notice you are using DDWRT. Does your router support "repeader bridge"? I really need that in a ddwrt router.

Same here, I believe the problem is a combo of 802.11g and an overzealous app.

I have been using my iPod touch 4g for 2 weeks now, no problems at all (eg. battery drain), but yesterday I was using the MSN messenger app (a generally buggy app) before going to bed, and this morning the battery was dead.

I also noticed that the battery display said the battery was half full after about 30 seconds of charging oddly enough.

I left home for the office with the ipod touch 4g at least half-full, did not use it at all and by mid day when i tried to enter an important appointment the battery was completely dead, i couldnt use it. I never ever turn wifi off and always use standby instead of turn off and this never occured before. This never occured (and hasnt occured) on my previous ipod touch (2g?) which cant "multitask" (a feature i cant disable and find 10 times more annoying than useful btw) and it stays iddle for very long periods. If it was simply wifi related i imagine i would have had the problem earlier and quite often?

interesting to read your messages:
I have problem with light leakage .. 2x so far and need to drive to store monday.

But I have noticed this:
when I
->play a game + have wifi on, + skype running on push the battery life is just 2 hours. (Brightness 1/2)

->leave over night ipod on standby (fully charged) in the morning it is dead.

-> watching movie, brightness 1/2 wifi off, gives me only 3 hours, how do I get 7 hours? pitch black screen?

Is the iphone better?

After this- I'm having trouble trying to figure why the **** anyone would ever buy another Apple product...
This was my first Apple purchase- they have shown me that they don't give a ****** about me- they still actually have my money- 7 days after I returned this piece of crap they call teh iPod Touch 4g 64... $430.92- I pay them cash they tell me- "It is our policy not to refund returns over $250.00...".... Well it is their policy to take my goddamned cash but not give it back- how sweet is that Apple?
Scumbaggiest company I have ever done business with- and I'm 45 years old.

I just purchased a new 64GB iPod Touch 4g to replace my 32GB iPod Touch 2g. Steve Jobs said that the battery life is supposed to be longer on the 4g. This is NOT what I am experiencing. I use my 2g to notify me twice a day to take medicine, to take the trash out, etc, and the wifi (802.11g) is always on. The 2g can last up to a week without a charge. For some reason, my new iPod Touch 4g won't make it a DAY using the same settings! Also, it seems to charge in half the time as the 2g. Shouldn't it take longer to charge than the 2g if it has a higher battery capacity?

For some reason this discussion is listed as "Solved" and "Answered". I'd say it is far from that status.

I charged my iPod touch 4th gen in full last night, wifi is turned on and push settings is on, Location service is off. I'm having a battery drain issue. I woke up in the morning and my battery life is down to 60%. Then few hours in standby mode, down to 30% now it's down 15% time to charge it again. It didn't even last for 12 hrs. What is wrong with the software? Wifi issue?

could it be multitasking bar ? and having too many apps opened at the same time?

if you doubleclick home you will see a set of apps appear from the bottom . hold them and delete them. it is just opened apps. They wont go away till you turn them off. hopefully that helps with your battery

Let me know because I just learned that from the forum. I had though my ipod touch was defective. I had wifi off before bed. It was 80% full. morning it was dead. Then doubleclicking shows all the apps that were active....

I have concluded that Skype & Multitasking to are 100% blame for the poor power consumption of my new iPod Touch 4g vs. my older iPod Touch 2g which did not have this problem. The problem is NOT related to wifi!

On the 2g iPod Touch, the moment you leave Skype (or any other application), that application will automatically quit. Thanks to the multitasking provided on the new iPod Touch 4g, Skype and other applications stay OPEN, even after you leave the application.

The advantage of this is that I can now receive Skype calls on my iPod Touch 4g, even when I am not in the Skype app, and even if my iPod Touch 4g is 'sleeping'. This is very handy when I am on a trip, and am expecting call (and don't want to leave my iPod Touch in the Skype app all the time). The BIG disadvantage of this is that Skype will suck up the entire battery in less than a day.

Thankfully, there is a way to quit Skype and any other open applications when you don't need them. If you double-click the home button, a "tool bar" will appear at the bottom of the screen, which shows icons for all of the applications you recently opened, that may or may not still be open. If you press and hold any of the app icons for a few seconds, a small white "Minus symbol" will appear in a small red circle on the upper left corner of each of the app icons, and the icons will start to 'jiggle'. Clicking on the minus sign of any app icon will close (force quit) that app.

Now that I don't leave Skype running in the background all the time, my iPod Touch 4g lasts through several days of moderate use without requiring a charge, even with wifi and push notifications turned on. (I have my mail preferences set to check my gmail every hour)

Problem solved! Skype should give users the option in the preferences of always of running in the background (multi-tasking), or automatically quitting when you leave the application, but in the meantime, this is an effective (if clumsy) way to quit Skype when it is not needed. It would be nice to be able to leave it running all the time, but it just uses too much power.

TO APPLE: Please put a MUCH larger battery in the iPod Touch 5g so we can effectively utilize features like multitasking with Skype and other applications! (Also a 5MP rear-facing camera WITH an LED flash would be nice too!) I am willing to sacrifice a little bit of 'thinness' for functionality.