You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

💡 Did you know?

⏺ If you can't accept iCloud Terms and Conditions... Learn more >

⏺ If you don't see your iCloud notes in the Notes app... Learn more >

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

IOS 4.2.1 battery drain

Anyone noticed any battery drain so far on IOS 4.2.1?

iPhone 4, iOS 4

Posted on Nov 23, 2010 10:19 PM

Reply
526 replies

Dec 21, 2010 12:31 AM in response to Calgarystar

Calgarystar wrote:
My guess here is that many of you do not run email or use what your saying and that the prospect of it last a full day on average usage does not actually occur like i said Lawarence lets see screen shots? then I will start to believe you

W#hat impertinence! I don't give a **** whether you believe me or not. Do you want screen shots from the 20 phones in my office also, or the 70+ million phones that work just fine?

Dec 21, 2010 1:30 AM in response to Calgarystar

Reading advice and after phoning my Phone provider, the answer to the battery life problem on the iPhone 4 seems to be:

Switch off 3G, Wi-fi, Push, turn down the brightness so the screen is black, turn off everything else you can find. Not necessarily in that order. Don't use any Apps, surf the web or anything else and above all, don't make or receive any Phone Calls.

That's answered my question. But hang on a minute, I could do that with a blank sheet of paper or, if I concentrate hard, nothing at all.

Dec 21, 2010 8:38 AM in response to Igor_G5

Igor_G5 wrote:
If it's the update why don't me and my kid have the problem?

If you're losing 2% per minute that means that your fully charged battery goes completely dead in 50 minutes. You've got bigger problems then the update.


It's a combination of both software and hardware issues. Apparently there is something inherently wrong with some handsets, and the new updated iOS 4.2.1 and modem firmware is exposing it. That's why you have some people with no issues, and some with. There are some with no issues at my work, but the majority of iPhone users here have been having issues since upgrading to 4.2.1. I'm still betting it's a sensor issue. Phones seem to be working extra hard with the new iOS, and causing batteries to overheat, which would trip the sensor to shutdown the phone. This explains both rapid battery consumption and shutdown/rebooting.

My first 3GS under 3.1.2 ran amazing for the 8 months I had it, then I updated to 4.0 and I started having the same issues as everyone else. Went through 3 3GS with no fix. Finally got upgraded to iP4 running 4.1, and all issues have been resolved. I'm in love with my iP again. After reading all these issues with 4.2.1, I'm extremely wary of upgrading to 4.2.1. Until Apple announces/acknowledges these issues, and is working on a fix, I won't be upgrading anytime soon. I can totally live without Airport and extra ringtones. I just care to have a phone that actually makes calls. And last as long as it's advertised to.

Dec 21, 2010 10:13 AM in response to Eric Shawn2

Hello,

fyi I had the same battery drain problems and the only thing that
changed the situation for me was to enable the "Airplane mode" for 15 minutes.
After disabling it and for 20 minutes nothing changed, still had the battery problem. Suddenly
and without doing any further action everything came back to normal!
Go figure ...

Message was edited by: tpep

Dec 21, 2010 10:25 AM in response to tpep

Hard to understand how could the airplane mode change the situation, but I'll give it a try and post the result. It's the first new suggestion after many days of discussions where some people try to say the problem doesn't exist or it's hardware related...This is one of the most viewed topics on the forum, so it really makes me believe it's an update problem and not something that happened only to me..Best

Dec 21, 2010 10:30 AM in response to Convertiva Mobile Marketing

As far as I remember the "Airplane mode" trick was suggested by someone in this thread.
Not really convinced myself that the problem has to do with this specific mode. What I believe
is that by going to this mode forces the iOS to trigger actions that eventually lead to killing hang processes that eat the battery. Ok maybe I am going too far with this nevertheless you can give it a try ...

Dec 21, 2010 10:54 AM in response to Mindblowerz

I hope there is a solution soon that makes sense. I went from 100% to 80% in 47 minutes trying to find an answer. Switched off all push, location services, removed skyp, canceled all email accounts.

Apple needs to step up soon. Have not found anything from them out here.

My work puts me out of charging range most of the day and phone us needed.

What really shocked me was that it drained the juicepack too.

Now down to 78% while typing this.

Apple HELP!!!!!
Tell us your fixing this. All was fine before 4.2.1

Dec 21, 2010 11:10 AM in response to Convertiva Mobile Marketing

If the battery drain is due to processes that are attempting to connect to servers and failing or timing out, then switching on Airplane mode will eventually cause those processes to give up (if they are written correctly). So there is a logical explanation of why it works. You probably need to leave it in airplane mode for a while, because the socket code is designed to retry and time out after several failures; unfortunately, there's no way to know how long to wait. Several hours is probably sufficient, but a much shorter wait may work also.

Dec 21, 2010 12:25 PM in response to Lawrence Finch

Mine is much better now, I tried everything in various orders. I got a brand new phone from Apple, put it into recovery mode and restored it as a new phone, then added 2.4.1 but still had same problems.

Tried draining battery and recharging to 100%, tried rebooting, holding down home and off buttons until the apple logo came up, tried resetting network and all settings. Had wifi, 3g, push, etc. all switched off, games sharing never activated and still switched off. Still ridiculous battery drain.

The key for me seemed to be switching off all teh emails (3 gmail and 2 accounts for my company website) then rebooting the phone (holding down the two buttons until the apple logo appears) and leaving them deactivated for a few hours.

Since then I have only just gone down to 99% after 3 hours 20 mins stand by and 35 minutes usage, which is phenomenal compared to what i had been getting.

Reconnecting the company emails seems to be good so far, will add the gmail ones later and see what they do.

Either way I finally found a way forward thanks to Lawrence's continued posts and to the suggestions of some of the other users here. I hope it's a lasting solution.

I have to add that although Apple should have acknowledged and sorted this problem they haven't and we are all here together trying to sort it out. The suggested fixes seemed to have worked for many people and I was one of the angry ones it didn't work for until this morning. So have patience.

Thanks to those who have persevered on here and shared their answers with us.

Dec 21, 2010 2:49 PM in response to Gingahippy

Hello,

I was very happy; I had great battery life on my iPhone 4 -- before the upgrade to 4.2.1. I used to only have to charge my phone a couple of times per week. After the update I now have to charge my phone every day -- I get about 30 hours of combined standby and usage time out of one complete charge. My usage patterns have not changed a bit after the update -- the only difference is 4.2.1.

Now, I obviously don't have it as bad as some of the other that have posted here, but I'm still not happy with the change.

I have tried Lawrence's suggestions in the exact order as shown (including setting up as new phone) with no change in my battery life.

I'm posting here mainly just to add one more name to list to show Apple that there is definitely a problem here that needs a fix. My iPhone 4 was a great tool before the update -- I can't say the same now. It deserves a fix from Apple!

I am going to try the Airplane Mode trick this afternoon for a few hours. If that doesn't work, I will try turning off the email accounts, re-booting and then leaving the emails deactivated overnight (as suggested by Gingahippy). Hopefully one of these two things works.

I will try and post my results tomorrow.


Z

IOS 4.2.1 battery drain

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.