IOS 4.3.3 battery life has been significantly reduced

The genius wasn't telling you anything new! 😝

hard reset didn't work; i have an iphone 3GS

What worked for me was to delete the Microsoft Exchange account on my iPhone 3GS and then re-establish on the phone. Now battery usage is back to normal. As seen in other threads, it probably had something to do with the Microsoft Exchange Calendar.

Well, I'm at a loss. This is the first time since getting the iPhone 4 that I'm complaining about battery life (got it on launch day). But iOS 4.3.3 has drastically impacted my battery life. I am at a loss to explain it. I've tried restoring to factory and running it like that for a few days; same problems. My latest test was to look at apps as the cause. So I restarted my iPhone, deleted all my email accounts and re-added them. Restarted again for good measure. After that:

1) Didn't run any apps, didn't take phone off standby.

2) From 11:02 AM to 11:28 AM (24 minutes), received 3 emails.

3) Battery dropped from 84% to 80%.

So, 4% drop in 24 minutes while not using the phone. At that rate, my battery would be gone in 10 hours (from 100%), without ever unlocking it. Is that right? Does push email = 10 hours of Internet use, according to the Apple battery specs?

And now, in the 24 minutes since I tested that, my battery hasn't moved from 80%. 2 emails in that time period. How does that make any **** sense?

I have Push email through MS Exchange. My battery life is highly dependent on the number of messages I receive in a day. As it's a work account I get very few emails on weekends. I get a lot on weekdays (~100/day). On a weeked I start at 100% every morning (I charge overnight, every night) and I'm still between 70% and 80% by midnight. On a weekday I'm at 20% by midnight, lower if I've used the phone a lot during the day.

I have an iPhone 3Gs purchased Nov 2009 and battery drain was normal (2-3 days standby) until 4.3.3 immediately after which drain was down to 5-6 hours. Hadn't modified settings or installed new apps for a least 6 months so for me all the talk about the things you can do to minimize battery drain was a lot of irrelevant cr*p. Took the phone to an apple store and they hooked it up to the diagnostic software which reported the chemical state of the battery was fine as were all the other indicators. The genius bar dude then went on to say the battery is designed for 300 re-charges only (just after telling me the chemical state was fine) and then went on to say that the process of upgrading firmware is very taxing on the circuits and if the phone is getting a bit old then some circuits can be damaged (at this point I looked down to check that I wasn't wearing a tee shirt that had IDIOT - I'LL BELIEVE ANYTHING on the front). Anyhow he then went on to say that a new battery was the go but since the battery is integral with the phone that for AU$105 they would swap over my phone for an identical refurbished one. I did that because for AU$105 it wasn't worth arguing with the space cadet at the genius bar. Look I work in software development and I don't have a major problem if the latest firmware has issues with my phone because **** happens sometimes, my problem with Apple is that I do not have any legitimate way of downloading and installing an earlier firmware that my iPhone is happy with. PS the replacement iPhone that was given to me had 4.3.1 and any attempt to upgrade it to 4.3.3 (out of curiosity) is knocked back by iTunes with a message that the device is not eligible for the upgrade !!! So Apple know something is up with some of their iPhones and 4.3.3 and just won't come clean with their customers.

iPhone 4 with 4.3.3 purchased last summer.

Mail accounts:

• Mobile Me (push)
• Yahoo Mail (push)
• 2 work exchange mail (push)
• Number of POP accounts

Battery drain extremely noticeable. I am on a rotational call for tech support and must on those weeks leave my phone on overnight. In less than 9 hours of standby the phone was shutting off. On Standby the battery was being consumed at a rate of 10% + per hour. After a week of trolling the forum for answers I

• Reset the network settings
• disabled all but exchange accounts
• removed most of my apps
• uninstalled/reinstalled iTunes
• Completely drained battery and charged 100% to "prime" the battery

and nothing resolved my issue.

Went to the Genius bar and did diagnostics on the battery and said it was ok. They DFU'd the phone (to 4.3.3) and told to sync it with iTunes as a new phone and put little on it and add things one by one that this MUST be a software issue.

I followed their instructions and only put back the Exchange accounts and a few apps. Still same problem.

Went back and they gave me a new Refurb. I have since:

• Not synced with my PC at all
• added mail accounts back
• downloaded only the apps i couldn't live without

and had been running it this way for 5 days. Each day I tried something different.

• Disabling the Exchange calendars as suggested by one participant here only made a slight difference in battery drain.
• Deleting and Readding the Exchange accounts did not work either. (wish it had)

I finally resorted to setting Push to Fetch at 15 min intervals. Push worked fine prior to 4.3.3

Last night I went to bed with 100% charge. With the phone on 9 hours standby overnight it was still 96% this morning when I awoke. This is the first time in weeks that the phone has not shut off from low battery levels.

Needless to say, I am not happy that I had to resort to changing the PUSH setting. Why would FETCHing at 15 min increments be any different (in battery consumption) than PUSHing at that same time interval especially since I have a number of POP accounts that were set to manually FETCH prior to the 4.3.3 to prevent battery drain.

Come on APPLE. Own up to the issue and release a fix ASAP. I have owned every iPhone model. I have never had such problems as I have had with this 4.3.3 release.

Couldn't edit my last response.

Just did a sync with my PC for the first time with the refurb phone. I selected a restore point from last year. I am setting PUSH back on to verify prior to 4.3.3 that this is NOT an issue. I am not going to download the update until I see a new version number. Will report back if going back resolves the issue (which I think it will).

While it happened to you with 4.3.3, EXACTLY THE SAME PROBLEM HAS BEEN REPORTED FOR EVERY RELEASE THAT HAS EVER COME OUT. The problem is not 4.3.3. It did not cause me or many other users any problems. But 3.1.3 DID cause this problem for me. As did 2.0. After every upgrade there are posts "Version x.x.x killed my battery". If you don't believe me just do a search for "battery problems" and don't time-limit it. So don't count on a new release fixing it, except by coincudence. And don't expect going back to a previous version to fix it, except by coincidence. There are also plenty of reports in the forum that demonstrate these statements.

What this means is that you have to look for a solution that is independent of version, because the problem is not the version. It is something in the update process that caused it. There are many, many threads on things that people have done to fix it. For me it has always been removing and adding back my Exchange account (rebooting after removing it). Others say that turning off Ping, or App Store, or Game Center fixed it for them. Some have fixed it be Reset Network Settings, others by Reset all settings. Or Erase all content and settings, then restoring.

The next obvious conclusion is that it is not one problem, because there are at least a dozen different solutions, and no one solution works for everyone.

Lucky you! I have done all those "fixes" and nothing has worked. Same issue on a refurb exchange with 4.3.3 on it and to test the 4.3.3 theory and I did nothing with it except add mail accounts. No syncing to iTunes...NADA.

I have read all of the threads regarding battery drain. I feel you are insulting my intellience and are very condescending. You have reminded me why I usually do not participate in forum discussions.

You are not making sense in the statement: "So don't count on a new release fixing it, except by coincudence. And don't expect going back to a previous version to fix it, except by coincidence."

Why wouldn't going back to a previous iOS (4.3.2) when I DIDN'T have the problem FIX it and might I add NOT BY COINCIDENCE?

In response to: "

The next obvious conclusion is that it is not one problem, because there are at least a dozen different solutions, and no one solution works for everyone."

I am trying to contribute to people who have tried everything else and communicate what is WORKING FOR ME. I am not going to argue with you any further.

jomale wrote:

Why wouldn't going back to a previous iOS (4.3.2) when I DIDN'T have the problem FIX it and might I add NOT BY COINCIDENCE?

Because many people had the problem with the previous release that you want to go back to. I suspect you didn't actually read my message.

I did read your comment correctly.

Many co-workers have iPhone 4's and have updated to 4.3.3. They have the same apps, the same exchange server and settings. They do not have the issue either. The only difference between them and me is that I purchased my hardware last June. They waited until the end of 2010. My thought process is leaning toward a hardware issue. Since this is not an issue of version, then it must not be a software issue but a hardware issue. Possibly a bad batch of older hardware that just doesn't fare well with the 4.x.x update. If that is the case, I would need to exchange my phone until I find one that is not influenced by 4.x.x updates. Instead, I will test going back to 4.3.2 and see if that works for me. When 4.3.4 is released, I will see if that works for me. If anyone else is interested I will let them know if that is what works for ME.

I recently upgraded to 4.3.3. So I tried restoring and that didnt work. Also tried turning on restricitions and turning off push which both didnt work. Finally, when I restored in DFU mode it fixed everything! Im at 97% battery with 25 minutes usage and 5 hours standby.

g1xXx3r 's solution worked wonders! I followed his instruction to the dots and now my phone only drains around 5 percent / hour during moderate-heavy use browsing downloading using wifi as opposed to 10% drain before.. Cheers!