Turn off FaceTime and get way better battery life

USA user here and turning off FT had no noticeable effect on my battery life.

I have noticed longer battery life on my iPhone 4 than on my iPhone 3G. The iPhone 4 specs even specify longer battery life compared to both the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G. This is accomplished without disabling features which would if done reduce the user experience. My suggestion of buying an external battery for long excursions is a valid one and related to the thread. The external battery case is an alternative for users who wish to enjoy the full functionality of the iPhone 4 with out disabling features when they are away from charging outlets for a long period of time.

Personally I get a little better than two day of standby with 6 to 8 hours of usage. I don't use push or fetch but pretty much have everything turned on. Sometimes I turn WiFi off if I'm not going to be using it for a while but it's usually on and doesn't seem to have a serious effect either way.

If they aren't going to use certain features they may as well turn then off if it improves battery life.

I'm US. going to try turning it off and see what happens and report back.

Dupont 24 wrote:
Why do people want to turn off certain features, by having one the best phones around, if not the best. People you paid good money and for the service. Use what you paid for.

I turn off these features when I am not using them. If I am going to use FaceTime I will turn it on, use it, then turn it off. I turn off location services when not in use also. I love the map and GPS, but when I am in my office or at home I do not need those features sucking battery life.

Yeah, but having facetime off means people can't call you using it at any time so a lot of functionality is lost.

jzv82 wrote:
Yeah, but having facetime off means people can't call you using it at any time so a lot of functionality is lost.

Well then they can simply text them to turn on facetime so that they can do facetime.

I dont know if this has been asked already...does facetime work calling other phones wiyh front cameras or just iPhones? Cause its realy kinda dumb that facetime only works on WiFi...where as other phones csn do it in 3G...my friends Nokia N95 that he got6 years ago can do video calls on 3G network...and hes using AT&t too...

What's the point of playing devil's advocate? I though this was a user forum.

Having to send a sms, email or whatever to initiate a facetime call is clearly not on Apple advertising and shouldn't be part of the normal usage of a native iphone feature such as facetime.

0Jojo0 wrote:
I dont know if this has been asked already...does facetime work calling other phones wiyh front cameras or just iPhones? Cause its realy kinda dumb that facetime only works on WiFi...where as other phones csn do it in 3G...my friends Nokia N95 that he got6 years ago can do video calls on 3G network...and hes using AT&t too...

yes the FaceTime only works via wi-fi, iphone 4 to iphone 4, and iphone 4 to ipod touch (4th Gen.). However, there is an app called Tango, which you can do video calling cross platform, where you can video call with whoever has android phone, and they also have to have tango installed. surprisingly this also works on 3G and 3G S, but you'll probably need to use the mirror.

Yahoo just released their messenger for the iphone update where you can do video calls on the yahoo messenger. (iphone 4 to PC/Mac, iphone 4 to iphone 4, iphone 4 to android (that has the front camera))

forgot to mention as for both tango and yahoo messenger, it works on 3G as well, but if you have a data cap, not recommended.

Message was edited by: Kwopau

I tried it and having Facetime on or off seems to have no effect on battery life in the Chicago area.

Thank you for your input. What is the battery drain speed you see in standby? Sadly, for me it definitely makes a difference having facetime on or off. Actually I noted the the battery drain of facetime is about the same that having a push email account activated.

same here, having it off has no effect on my battery life. So therefore facetime doesn't do anything, the only time it does drain is when you are actually using it.

Thank you Kwopau. Still, Facetime must do something while not in use because it has to let the "facetime main server" know how to find you (i.e. know your private and public ip). My guess is that the only way to accomplish this is to send data once in a while and that is why phantom cell data transfers disappear having facetime disabled.

So... maybe the excessive battery drain some experience with facetime enabled has to do with your carrier configuration and/or network and that is why apparently this is only reported from people outside the US.