New iPhone 4 Battery Issues....

Lawrence,

I am very inclined to agree with you about it not being the update version but the update process.

But here is the problem as I see it. Apple is never going to admit they have a problem (long standing) in their update engine. That leaves some piece of code looping in the background.

Wish we had something like a CPU usage gage i.e. task manager with a performance indicator. CPU usage and memory usage. I am inclined to believe some piece of code is left looping using massive amounts of CPU resources and sucking the battery into oblivion.

There must be some way after an update to reset the phone and clear any and all task running in the background. I hear a lot of people that do a reset as a new phone have have good luck but sometimes it take two or three shots at it.

We need something a little more reliable until Apple decides to fix this update problem. Actually I know they will never admit to the problem and one day updates will just MAGICALLY start doing what they should. But in the interim this really *****. I sat at 4.0.1 for a week or two fearful of going to 4.1 for this very reason. I finally did and was apparently luck and mine is not having the battery drain issue.

By the way this is my second iP4 the first one I did a buyers remorse return for two reasons; one because I was upset about antenna-gate, and the second because the batter life was about 6 to 8 hours almost regardless of usage.

Like I said in another post none of this would upset me quite as much if Apple would just own up to it - but when Apple pulls this stuff of "Duh, there is now problem you are just using it too much" really *****.

PS - this one written prior to my first cup of coffee so I hope it makes sense. LOL

Hi, Michael - I suggest a measured approach. FIRST see if you really have a problem, or if your expectations exceed the capabilities of the phone. For me the test is if I can get through a full day of normal use without having to recharge. I charge overnight every night, so my phone is at 100% when I wake up.

If you start at 100% and don't use the phone it should drop very little over the course of a day. Go to Settings/General/Usage after the phone has been off the charger for several hours. If the Usage at the top is much higher than your memory of how much you have used the phone you need to do further diagnostics. If it is about what you remember in usage your phone is working as designed. It may be disappointing, but it isn't broken. If you use Internet or make a call you should lose roughly 1% for every 4 minutes of use.

If the displayed usage is much higher than your actual usage there are several things to check:

1. Push email. If you use Push and get a lot of email or you use Fetch and get a lot this can account for some of the usage difference, as mail runs in background. As a test, set email to Manual and see if your usage then comes into line. If it does there are remedies.

2. Streaming apps. Pandora, Wunderadio, NPR, etc. can run in the background using data. These all are responsible for heavy battery drain. Nothing you can do about it except not use them, or terminate them from the Recently Used ribbon.

3. Social networking apps. Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo Messenger, etc monitor for messages. This will result in background usage.

4. Notifications. Many apps can receive notifications, like news apps. Notifications, if properly implemented by the app developer, should not use a lot of power, bout will use some.

If after you've checked out all of these if battery life is still an issue then you should restore to the current version (4.1) and set up as a new phone. But that should be a last resort.

Yes, I think we are in violent agreement 😉

Apple needs to address the problem, but they haven't yet in 3 years. Possibly they feel that it affects a small enough number of phones so they will deal with it on a case-by-case basis. I think this is the wrong approach, because even if it is a small number of users we can be very loud and the PR is not good. Or maybe they are just mystified, and don't have a clue how to fix it. As I mentioned in another thread, it isn't one problem - different phones exhibit the problem differently and have different solutions - when the solutions work. Which isn't always. The SYMPTOM is the same - rapid battery drain - but there are several different things that can cause it.

I can even see it as a hardware problem. With 100 million phones, not all of the parts come from the same supplier, and in some cases it is likely that a new release of software is incompatible with one or more of the many different internal hardware configurations. I believe that Apple thinks this is likely, because they will replace the phone if restoring as new does not fix the problem.

Lawrence,

Sound advice - my first phone I didn't do anything to attempt a fix, I was just P. O. and returned it.

My second phone came with 4.0.1 and I did do a restore as new but not by design. I screwed up and got the **** thin hung up and did a restore as new out of desperation. I can't swear that is what made my update go well and leave me with a phone that doesn't turn batteries inside out - but that is the only thing I did different.

It should be easy to clear out ill-function code snippets but at the moment whatever is being suggested even restore as new seems to be hit and miss. I am not totally unfamiliar with code and firmware but this issue is real pain in the butt.

komakino3,

PLEASE - tell me what this 4.2 beta is and where one can get some information on it is located or where I can get it legal or other wise (watch them pull this post).

I just want to know that apple is working on the Battery problem and at the moment I don't care what I have to do to get an answer, short of something that will put me in jail.

HolmanGT !
4.2 beta is available only for developers on the apple site, unfortunately I'm not able to download it because I don't want to pay 100 bucks for developer status...
otherwise somebody tried it and (this really annoying issue) is not solved in the beta version. so I think the only solution if we send it back our expensive brick (I'm trying to fix it since 2-3 weeks now I'm really tired w. iphone4 I want my good old 3gs back)

komakino3,

Thanks for the reply. Well if you have heard that it doesn't fix the Battery problem I am not so anxious to try it.

As I said I am fortunate in that my second iPhone 4 has not had the battery problem even after updating from 4.0.1 (factory install) to 4.1

I had a lot of self inflicted problems when I updates to 4.1 requiring me to do a restore as new. I don't know if that had any effect on my update working or not. I have read several people say they had to do the restore as new about three times in a row and Eureka their batter drain problem disappeared.

I still think is is some resident code that get hung-up in a loop and just burn battery power in the background. The irony is this should be easy to fix but for some reason it is alluding even the best of Hacker/Geeks. I would have expected some of the JailBreak masters or someone of that caliber to come up with a fix, but alas they seem to jail break everything that Apple comes out with but never make any mention of this battery problem.

Does anyone know if a Jailbroken iP4 exhibits the battery drain problem? I don't really care about J.B.ing my phone but if it fixes factory problems I sure would be willing to give it a try because I have heard there are apps like a real "Task Manager" available on J.B.ed phones.

HolmanGT,
At the moment for 4.1 there is no jb! And it's impossible to downgrade.
But yeah it's true that exists a lot of good stuff on jb'd phones but I was so stupid that I've upgraded my 4.0.1 to this ...

And what's really sad is that I've sent my powerlog from my iphone4 to apple and they don't have any answer for this issue!!! I guess they also read the forums and try to find out a solution from unlucky users...

komakino3,

Thanks for the information and don't feel alone I can't seem to pass-up and update either.

It is like dope, just offer it and I can usually hold out for a day or two but then my curiosity get the best of me.

And we all know what curiosity did to the cat. Ouch!

Also if you look at the list that "Lawrence" posted, this ignoring the problem or inability to fix it has been going on for some time now.

I really hate Apples Gestapo tactics that never let the end users (us) to know what they are doing to help fix a problem much less admit there might be a problem. How there stock price have managed to climb back up to around $275 in the last few weeks is beyond me.

Even M$'s FAQs and support will state yup we know about it and are working on a fix but at the moment there is no solution or known work-around.

Comments like that from M$ while they don't make me real happy they at least give me the tolerance to wait know that they at least acknowledge the problem and that I am not just having bad dreams.