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IOS-5 battery power drain issue

Did somebody notice a major power drain issue after iOS5 upgrade on iPhone4? Last night at midnight, it was ~90% charged. In the morning, it was 37% charged. By noon, it was dead. I didn't make even 1 call during this time. Connected to Wi-Fi at home and strong 3G signal. Bluetooth is off, location services are off, all that stuff. The same phone's battery would last for 40 hours with my normal usage with IOS 4.3.5. Anybody knows if any specific feature of iOS5 is causing this battery drain?

iPhone 4, iOS 5

Posted on Oct 14, 2011 1:16 PM

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225 replies

Oct 19, 2011 10:04 AM in response to jbshortmd

i also found that turning off iCloud was a major factor in extending battery life, i only turn it on when i add stuff that i need to back-up, i don't need it running constantly.


Also when you go into iCloud, manage storage, and look at all the data from each App thats being baked-up, you have the option to turn Apps off or on.

Oct 19, 2011 12:45 PM in response to RakeshPDX

The main issue is that the Location Services icon isn’t enabled so you do not know when the iPhone is using the GPS.


First of all, turn it on:


Settings > Location Services > System Services > Status Bar Icon


Now you can tweak other System Services also. I have disabled the following ones:


  • Compass Calibration
  • Diagnostics
  • Location-Based iAds
  • Time Zone


I also disabled Location Services for the following apps:


  • Reminder
  • Weather


These 2 tend to enable the GPS all the time, which I figured out once I had the Icon back up.


My iPhone 4 now has the same battery life as it had before.


Hope this helps!

Oct 20, 2011 6:34 AM in response to HayriC

HayriC wrote:


Here we go. The solution is below. Hope it will work for you too!


1- Delete your email account(s) in Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Your Account > Delete Account

2- Reset Network Settings in Settings > Reset > Reset Network Settings

3- Reboot your phone by holding the sleep/wake (top) button then sliding to off.

4- Re-add the email account Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Add Account…

5- Turn push back on


This worked for me. Prior to doing this was going from 100% to 0% in less than 15 hours without using the phone. Now I am back to normal use, phone has gone from 100% to 99% in 30 mintes much more normal. A lot of the people saying they've tried everything don't actually list removing the email account from the trouble shooting. Clearly the new OS is struggling with the old email connections so try this please.

Oct 20, 2011 6:42 PM in response to justin133

I fell in the same boat -- iPhone4 would drain literally 50% in one evening. I read each and every post here and tried various remedies. None returned my phone to the original pre-IOS5 battery life except cold botting the phone. I recommend you do the same -- I have all the details here:


http://michael.olivero.com/post/2011/10/20/iOS5-battery-issue-with-iPhone4.aspx


I even jogged for 20 minutes with GPS tracking me and streaming pod casts + a few hours of rest time only draining a small percentage. I definitely have pre-iOS5 battery life again! You don't have to sacrifice all the new features to get the same batery life -- I surely didn't want to turn off iCoud although I would if I had to.

Oct 20, 2011 9:45 PM in response to Mike95

Another thing I forgot to mention and became coincidentally obvious to me was wireless-n vs. wireless-g. Prior to the ios5 update, I bought a new wireless-n router and configuring it as an access point to my existing router. When connection to the N-wireless the battery would drain visibly faster ( I would guess 20-30% faster ) and I j my came to realize that because I was still able to switch it back to be G-wireless to confirm. So now doing great on ios5 battery and even better while connected to the G.


I'm goin to start activating additional iCloud features and will post if I find something which triggers the fast discharge.


I started day with 90% jogged in afternoon with gla tracking and podcast streaming plus misc emails in evening. I'm writing this post via iPhone safari past midnight and I still have 54% showing so don't give up on fixing the battery issue.

Oct 21, 2011 12:40 AM in response to timothy_

A few comments and finding from me so far:


In a sense I have been in a position where it has been easy for me to try to track down the issue as ever since ios5 on my iphone 4 my usage time has equalled my standby time (In Genreal, Usage, at the bottom). Thus the battery would drain within 5 hours say (totally). So i knew the phone was constantly active doing something. So turning things off and checking the difference between usage and idle time would show me what it was that was running.


Yesterday I turned off iMessage and for about an hour that did the trick. Standby time ticked along while usage remained stationary. Horray, issue found! Well, no as when I got home about an hour later the usage started to move along again at a 1 for 1 rate with standby.


Then I read the above re removing email accounts and again for a while that seemed to do the trick. I had 25% battery left when going to bed but unfortunately my phone was off and dead this morning when i woke up and an inspection of the usage time again shows that it spent most of its time being 'used' whilst on standby over night.


So for me so far it seems some of the suggestions here solve the issue they seem to only temporarily solve the issue. I'm just fully charging it again now and will do some more testing today. But it seems to be a process that my phone gets in to doing constantly in the back ground. I guess that could be related to my icloud account where it gets stuck in a loop sync'ing something (mail / contacts etc) and that might be account related (on the server) which is why this is not an issue everyone has. But so far I think its a fix Apple need to come up with. But I'll keep searching and trying.


Before my battery would last the day but now its dead by around 2pm. I have a screen shot of my battery on 2% with Usage at about 4.5 hours and Standby or 4.5 hours. ie I tookit off charge and for the following 4.5 hours it constantly did something even though 4 of them it would have been in standby mode, and then died 4.5 hours later! I think some people are on here saying my battery is worse and are relating to differences of 10-20% and that turning x,y and z off helps this but there is a bigger issue going on here for some of phones dying in 5 hours.

Oct 22, 2011 10:38 PM in response to RakeshPDX

My phone is a 3Gs.


I let the battery run completely down and then the charger thinks the battery if full and won't let it charge. When I plug it into the usb port, it won't recognize the phone and put power to it. I am stuck. I would like to turn it on long enough to be able to adjust the settings recommended, but all it does is reboot in a continus cycle. I was dumb enough to try restore from iTunes and really screwed it up. Anyone have any suggestions?


I would like to be able to turn the clock back 24 hours and not do the update at all until I read the forums.

But I have gotten so use to Apple stuff "just working", well not anymore. This sure isn't the same company that I bought my first computer from or that made my G4.


That Motorola Atrix is looking better and better. Come on, Apple, lets get it together.

IOS-5 battery power drain issue

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