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iPhone 4s Battery Life?

My iPhone 4s battery seems terrible! Almost equivalent to my 3GS and it's terrible battery life. When I got my iPhone yesterday and restored from backup I noticed nothing really changed with minimal usage and standby! Is this normal or should I consider setting it up as a new phone because maybe something is running in the background that's causing it to drop a percentage every few minutes under light usage? Input would be great!

Posted on Oct 15, 2011 7:14 AM

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12,787 replies

Oct 19, 2011 4:14 PM in response to BoomStreet

That's a fair and valid point.


I currently have the 4s running on a clean install, new SIM card (which affects things for me), locations services are all enabled, Siri is on, mobile data and WiFi are both on and it's only using 1% an hour at the moment if that.


I've just set up an exchange account, syncing mail, contacts, calendars and reminders every 30 minutes on fetch.


Let's see what happens.

Oct 19, 2011 4:21 PM in response to Scarface.

I just had an instance that my iPhone 4s all of sudden getting hot in my shirt pocket while idle (no app was runnig at all). The only thing I noticed was it switched from wi-fi to 3G when I took it out from my pocket to check. Maybe it was caused by switching back-and-ford between 3G and wi-fi due to the weak 3G and Wi-fi signals where I am at. Does anyone have the same issue?

Oct 19, 2011 4:50 PM in response to Scarface.

the theory on sim cards only really would apply to those who have a carrier that uses them. my wifes iphone 4 does not have a sim card because sprint does not use them. only option we havent tried is a full restore. myy wife would rather wait for a proper update though but right now im not feeling very confidenti bout that even happening as apple has yet to even acknowledge there is an issue.

Oct 19, 2011 4:51 PM in response to Chris Mearing

This is my very last post today I'm afraid. It's 12:50 am and I off to bed.


I added the exchange account and the battery didn't even use 1% in an hour. The only thing I have left to add to the iPhone to get it back up and running is the iCloud accounts. Surely it can't be that though ;-)


I'm going to put the original SIM back in over night and monitor drainage.


Night all.

Oct 19, 2011 5:04 PM in response to Scarface.

I am having the same problem on my white 64GB 4s.


I am not sure how it's possible to leave out 4G LTE and still have such horrible battery life. Last year it was the antenna, this year its the battery. I swear, they bill these flaws in so people will be hungry for the next upgrade.


Edit: Also, how are you supposed to obtain 40 hours of music time without turning everything off? If that is required then I consider it to be false advertising.

Oct 19, 2011 6:59 PM in response to xXx69

The battery could actually be stronger. That would reinforce the point that the battery drains we have been documenting are software based rather than the new battery type. Now it's just a matter of figuring out if it's the individual iPhone's settings, the configuration of the phone (new setup v. backup), or something in iOS 5 that is causing the drain.

Oct 19, 2011 7:13 PM in response to Scarface.

Verizon 16 gb black iphone 4s


I have been noticing that my battery is draining approximately 20 percent every hour after a full charge for the past 5 days. I have done calibrated my battery twice and it hasnt changed much.

All the settings that people say to turn off on forums i have done and the battery life still drops 20 percent every hour. Im not a heavy app user i just text frequently. Location is off, notifications are on manual, bluetooth is off, wifi is off, brightness is on auto and lower than 50 %, icloud is all turned off, fetch data for mail is off,.. etc.


I dont understand why i have to turn all these features off when thats what a phone is used for but yet the battery life is crap. Apple needs to fix this problem before my two weeks is up to return my phone

Oct 19, 2011 7:44 PM in response to Scarface.

Hi guys i'm new here and like many of you have have been troubled quite a bit by the poor battery life of my new iPhone 4s. Last night I decided to find out just how much power my new (Verizon black 16gb) iPhone 4s was using up while on standby. I fully discharged and charged my iPhone for the 3rd time, since I've had it, last night. It was done charging a few minutes after 12am and I decided to not use my phone until after work the next day. I carried it with me all day without using it once, which was so hard to do. I received one call all day and since it wasn't important I let it go to voicemail. I received no texts, emails, nothing. If you want to count the phone call I didn't answer then I guess you could say I had 1 minute of usage all day. Before I post my results let me just list my current settings.


Wifi:On

Notifications: Weather, Phone, Messages, Reminders, Calendar, Mail (the ones I'm listing are set to on)

Location Services: Camera, Maps, Safari, Settings, Siri, Weather, Find my iPhone

System Services:Cell Network Search, Compass Calibration, Traffic

(Note: After my test I checked settings and none of these services have used my location within the last 24 hours)

Brightness: Auto-Brightness is on but I turned it down a little from default

General: About: Diagnostics & Usage: Don't Send (I thought doing this would help a little but it doesn't seem like it has. Should I turn this back on?)

Bluetooth: Off

iCloud: Contacts, Calendars, Photo Stream, Documents & Data, Find My iPhone

Mail: Fetch every 30 min, two yahoo accounts


And everything else remains unchanged. Also, I made sure to close all my running apps which I've always done since first getting my Blackberry Storm 2 which I'd like to add would give me 1 1/2 - 2 days battery with light use. This is my first iPhone so the thing about restoring from old iPhone doesn't apply to me. I've also mentioned that I'm with Verizon so there is no sim I could be changing out. Here's what my phone reports.


User uploaded file


As mentioned earlier I have not used my phone this whole time and yet somehow I'm up to almost 1 1/2 hours of usage time. I have no clue why its saying that.. any ideas?

iPhone 4s Battery Life?

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