Q: IOS-5 battery power drain issue

OK, you made 2 changes and your battery life improved. A lot of people have reported that Reset Network Settings along fixed their problem, and a lot have reported that deleting and adding their Push email account back fixed it. So the question is would just one of the two changes you made fixed it?

I cannot answer 100%.  What I can tell you is that 1st I Reset Network Settings.  My battery was still hot.  Approximately 30 minutes later I changed my push to Fetch and the battery IMMEDIATELY went cool.  My assumption would be that the Push to Fetch was the problem, but with only a 30 minute delta I don't want to say this is the answer 100%.  I did not delete my email account and reset, I only changed the setting.

It sounds more like the email account if it didn't cool off immediately. If you switch it back to Push it may still be OK; there's a problem with Push accounts (especially Exchange) where the account attempts to use a "stale" connection even though there is a new connection that is working.

I don't think it is hardware.  My iPad battery is suddenly draining very quickly since upgrading to iOS 5 and switching to iCloud from mobile me.

My phone (4) seems to be fine!  It is very strange.

I have been closing out as many apps as possible and limited notifications to try to preserve battery but the iPad is a real problem.  Could it be Safari?  There are tabs now instead of pages.  Is this somehow sucking up battery?

Reading all the complaints from those who have upgraded to 5.1, it doesn't look like Apple has solved the problem.  Not going to upgrade.

on iphone 3gs i have no problems, on iphone 4 i have the battery  discharged in 5-6 hrs. they're both on 5.0 and with THE SAME settings. both dfu->updated, and fresh installed, no backups.

I said I would report back in after a few days, so here I am.

I must say that it looks a bit more stable now. Standby time is not that bad anymore. Using the Iphone is still consuming a lot of power and everything is shut down.

I still have problems with my bluetooth being distorted and all. will give it another few days after the full cycle today to see how long it takes.

I had they same problem like most of you. Howeve, I think that most of us have upgraded to 5.0.1 with the patch file, which made us all have a worse battery drainage. I WILL TELL YOU HOW TO FIX IT

RESTORE THE WHOLE 5.0.1  firmware TOGETHER  the 700+ MB.  You will notice the major battery improvement.

Remember to mark me with the correct answer... :)

What do you mean by DOA?  As far as I know, DOA means Dead On Arrival.  Now, how can the battery of an iPhone 3GS be DOA if it's an old phone?  It has certainly not "arrived" from anywhere right?

Neither push nor fetch should ever be turned on.  These shouldn't even be features.  The phone is destined to get stuck in a loop and drain your battery quickly if you do, as connectivity to the server is lost and mail spins the battery down.  This is true of any mobile device.  Manual loads mail quickly and also gives you the opportunity to stop a loop when server access is unavailable for whatever reason.  Nothing kills a battery more quickly than a mail loop.  You'll feel the phone begin to heat in your pocket and you know it's in a loop that is killing your battery quickly.  If you need battery reliability, never fetch or push mail, and keep location services to a minimum, turning them on and off again as needed.  

Richard Caughlan wrote:

 

Neither push nor fetch should ever be turned on.  

You mean I've been doing it wrong for 4 YEARS with PUSH on all the time? And still getting acceptable battery life? I had no idea! And I've also had Location Services, Bluetooth, WiFi and 3G on all the time for those 4 years! Who knew!

Suit yourself.  I learned the hard way. Live in SF, drop connectivity frequently, and found a hot potato in my pocket.  Am on my third iPhone and never have complained about poor battery life.  If you, as a level 6, are recommending people leave push or fetch, or Location Service on all the time and at the same time spend your days in poor battery life discussions, what?  At the end of the day, with normal use and two mail accounts including Exchange I have 75-80% battery day in and day out for these same 4 years.  I only charge the phone at night.  If you disagree that a loop will kill the battery while fetching mail from a downed server then I can't tell you anything.  All of our IT staff with these phones have experienced this and we are all in agreement. 

A new concern with IOS5 is iMessage pushing, which I've also learned the hard way.   It too loops till it kills the battery when the Wifi connection is dropped.  Spun my battery down in no time continuing attempts to send the text. 

If I bought a phone with lots of features and turned off the most useful there would be no point in owning the phone. As you do I charge the phone overnight, and get through the day on the charge. That's all I need.

If my email DOES get into a loop I fix it. This has happened a half dozen times in 4 years.

Well, we live in different cities, perhaps that matters or perhaps my server is faulty.  I know Gmail IMAP service drops frequently on my computer and on the phone.  SF has had a difficult time with the city not allowing towers due to environmentalist complaints.  It takes years to get a new tower approved and there are neighborhoods (most of Hayes Valley for one) which have no AT&T service at all to this day  I repeat.  If reliable battery life is a concern, turn off mail push and fetch and only use location services as needed turning them off when not in use (that's why they each have a switch).  Watch for loops in iMessage as well and delete the failed message before you wind up with a dead battery. 

I have been having the same issues.  I charge it during the night, unplug it in the morning, and without using it, by the time i get to work its lost 10-15% of battery.   Please fix.

Who are you saying "please fix" to? Certainly not Apple, because this is a user-to-user forum, not read by Apple. It might be you want other users to fix your phone, but that's not likely to happen. The only one who can fix it is YOU, by reading posts from other users about how they fixed it. Some even in the thread you posted to, probably without reading it.

You could also post enough information to allow someone to help you, line what model phone, what version of iOS, what problem specifically you have, and what you have tried to resolve it.