Q: How do I turn off 3G on the iPhone 4S?

I'd be interested in seeing if this improves anyone's battery issues.

http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/iphone-4s-poor-battery-caused-by-ios5-location-serv ices-bug-31-10-2011/

Apparently, there is a theory out there that there is a bug in the location services portion of the time zone setting.  I turned this off last night and will see if my battery is any better.  While I realize having a phone in a poor signal area will rapidly drain the battery and that having the ability to switch off 3G is needed, perhaps there are two issues draining people's batteries.  Anyway, just thought I'd pass this along in case it helped anyone.

I have found turning automatic time  off has helped a fraction, but I have always found my battery life is pretty good anyway. On the iPhone 4s unfortunately you cannot turn 3G off unlike with previous models you can. for some reason they have taken this off. not sure why.

Apple has intentionally removed this and updated support documentation; i wouldn't expect it to return it. They have changed the modem inside no doubt so that the option to turn 3G off has gone as a result of the independant modem being gone. As a result; polling for a 3G signal should use less battery than it used to...

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4203

Either it's a software issue or a hardware issue. Yes, Apple has disabled the ability to toggle 3G on and off for GSM users of the iPhone 4S. The question is why? Some in the tech world speculate that it is because of the use of the Qualcomm chip instead of the Infineon chip. That maybe the Qualcomm chip has no provision for that ability to toggle 3G on or off.

The article you linked to only confirms that it's Apple's decision to remove the toggle feature completely from the iPhone 4S and doesn't explain why. The CDMA iPhone 4 never had the toggle and neither the 4S, CDMA 3G doesn't work the same as GSM 3G.

Sadly, a new record for Apple, industries shortest talks time. I wonder why they talk about 2G talk time, it doesn’t exist anymore...

http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html

"Sadly, a new record for Apple, industries shortest talks time. I wonder why they talk about 2G talk time, it doesn’t exist anymore..."

You are incorrect. The iPhone does not have the industry's shortest talk time. The iPhone 4S and 4 talk time on 2G is listed as 14 hours. The 2G talk time on the Motorola Atrix is listed as 9.4 hours.

The ability to manually toggle off 3G and use 2G does exist for GSM iPhone 3GS and 4 users with iOS 5, depending on the carrier. The iPhone 4S auto toggles itself depending on the availability of 3G signal service with your location.

Since the 4S will only stay on 3G if it finds a signal, it will have 8 hrs of talk time according to spec. 8 hrs is still less that 9.4 hrs, correct?

The 4s might be the smartest of the smartphones but it still can't work out that full signal 2G is more useful than 1 bar of 3G, as in, with 1bar of 3G you can't make calls or use the the Internet. I would suggest that the reason behind apple removing the 3G toggle is that SIRI needs 3G to make it a usefull tool. Think on this:-

The main selling point of the 4s over the 4 is that it has SIRI, most people, including me, assume that SIRI is restricted to the 4s because it requires the processing power of the dual core chip. Well I believe that all the voice recognition is done remotely, hence when you have no Internet connectivity, SIRI doesn't work. Have you tried using voice dial with SIRI enabled on a 2G signal? It is very slow, much much slower than the 4, which doesn't have SIRI. This is because it is having to send data slowly over the 2G network to get it recognised.

Therefore, to justify the hype of the new 4s with the fantastic SIRI, they have to ensure you are using a fast connection. Or it is simply too slow. I used voice dialling all the time whilst driving on my old iphone4, it was a great help, now with SIRI, in 2G areas it is significantly slower ( 3or4 times slower) than the old phone.

Apple, please, please, please give us back our 3G toggle switch or we will give you back our iphone4s. To anyone thinking of buying a 4s, if you don't live in an urban area with good 3G coverage, don't!!!!!

Your original post was about 2G talk time, not 3G. In that respect you are incorrect.

With the iPhone 4 and 4S used on CDMA, one can't disable 3G. One would loose voice too, since there is only one radio -CDMA 2000, which handles voice and data on the same frequency. With GSM there are two radios, GSM and HSPA. Turning off 3G affects voice on UMTS and switches to EDGE -voice and data on same frequency. Turning off 3G is impossible for CDMA with the iPhone. One can switch off cellular data. The drawback is for GSM users, in that toggling off cellular data doesn't affect voice on UMTS.

The iPhone 4S is both CDMA and GSM with an agnostic OS in iOS 5. Remember, with iOS 4, there were two different iterations of iOS 4 depending on the radio technology CDMA or GSM. Issues like the 3G toggle were addressed effectively for UMTS and HSPA to EDGE.

if you turn off cellular data on your iPhone (settings>general>network>cellular data), does it mean that the phone is now on 2G network instead of 3G?

i tried switching off the cellular data and was still able to make phone calls and send messages; however i had no access to data unless i am connected to Wi-Fi.

misswen wrote:

 

if you turn off cellular data on your iPhone (settings>general>network>cellular data), does it mean that the phone is now on 2G network instead of 3G?

No.  It simply means you've turned off cellular data.

3G is NOT data, it is a flavor or version of cellular networks.

Without a "Enable 3G" option, there is no way to force the device off of the 3G network.

That's not true for all phone users.  The  CDMA network is not compatible with a "3G Enable" toggle.  This only applies to GSM networks and not all GSM carriers allow for it.

Ok we need to start a petition or something to get the 4GS to have an option to turn off 3G coverage. I am not in an area that has 3G coverage when I am at work but was able to switch over to Edge and have my phone work perfectly. It makes no sense for me to have this phone if I can't use it where I spend the majority of my day.

It i doing a crappy job of finding the Edge network and just saying that I have no service. The reception was fine here on my 4G when I turned off the 3G coverage. I am SUPER frustrated right now....

http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

For the record, the iPhone 4S in the United States (and the world) for ALL carriers is the SAME PHONE. The option for CDMA vs GSM is with the enclosed SIM Card, and software. This is probably why on the GSM model, you cannot turn off 3G.

I just bought my iPhone 4S today, after having my iPhone 4 stolen. I have owned all 5 versions of the iPhone with ATT. I am quite irritated that the 4S doesn't allow me to turn off 3G.

For the record, look up the specs for the iPhone 4. With the GSM version, it lists 5 hours talk time with 3G, 12 hours without.

If you know what you are doing, and you have Wi-Fi at home and work, you almost never need 3G. Emails were fine on Edge, maybe taking a second or two longer.

Many people don't realize that when you make calls, you either use a 3G tower or the Edge towers. On the iPhone 4S, 4, 3Gs, or 3G, if you have 3G on, the iPhone can automatically switch between the two towers, however, sometimes it will hang on to a weak 3G tower. My experience is I had fewer dropped calls on Edge.

If you are on Verizon or Sprint (CDMA), the option to turn 3G off was never there, even on the iPhone 4 (Sprint of course only has the 4S).

Personally, it would seem that Apple could put in a software switch for the GSM model of the 4S to turn off 3G, but I suspect that the hardware won't allow it, as others have alluded to.