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

Nov 14, 2011 1:42 PM in response to Scarface.

I switched to an iPhone 4S from a Blackberry this weekend. People have been telling me for two years how impressed I would be if I switched. Less than impressed with the battery life. I never had to charge my Blackberry midday, no matter how much I used it.

I have to say, it's not the iPhone I thought it would be. The features that are so impressive on this phone aren't that valuable if the phone is sitting dead on my desk. I've turnd off a lot of the features that made me want an iPhone just so I can make sure it has enough juice for me to get any important emails.

Nov 14, 2011 1:51 PM in response to rogerfromfrance

rogerfromfrance wrote:


i explain on page 348 how by chance, i solved the

problem for me.

Nobody seems interested but They should...

problem with 3G has really something to do with your

ISP and SIM card.


I had told you. You see, finally Apple should have hired me lolllll 😉


Have fun with that. Hope your phone remains as it is thoughout!


Tc

---------------


Because many people are lazy and won't go to page 348, Roger solved his problems - and he had tried every thing in the forum, including reset and such, BY ACTIVATING HIS PHONE WITH A NEW SIM CARD.


Good luck!

Nov 14, 2011 1:54 PM in response to Scarface.

I have had my Iphone 4s since day 1 that they came out and my battery seemed fine. This weekend when I plugged my phone into my MacBook Pro the software updated and now my battery is draining at a rate of 1% per few minutes which is terrible. I barely used my phone at all today and it was 100% dead by 3pm. This update is not good and I do not recommend allowing it. My wife has not updated her 4s and the battery still works fine.

Nov 14, 2011 2:05 PM in response to gsuzanne1

gsuzanne1 wrote:


Hi,

You had mentioned something about the ISP and battery drain? I am having issues with my battery. I redid my phone as new and didn't activate my email. The phone lasted over 24 hours! Then I did the whole email thing and of course it is draining my battery. What are your thoughts about this?

what are my thoughts ?

First i want to say that i did a lot of tests these 2 last weeks.

The best results i obtain doing the same things as you did

are the same as you mention. . 24 hours doing nothing, no mail

no phone talk that means 3 to 4 % lost every hour and if you

check at usage time/standby time you can notice that usage time

is always growing up and is a least the half of standy time.


Since this morning when i start to use my recently delivered

SIM card (still from same isp yet) the 100% has remain for 2

hours unusing the phone.Then now, 7 hours later i got still 94%

with moderate usage 2 phone calls and checking mails and news

2 or 3 times /hour.

statstisc are : standby time: 7 hours 22 minutes and

usage : 22 minutes.ONLY

NEVER BEFORE i got such results.. That was more like

7 hours standby and 4 hours usage.

Probably this is incredible for most users reading this post

but never mind.

Now , to answer your question, i think that Apple has not taken

into account that depending from IS¨P, their 3G protocol

could have problem and consuming to much power in loops or

else, i don't know.

Anyway ,i am now fully satisfied with my IP4S and unless problem

will be back, i have no longer to do with reading hundreds of posts

in this forum and wasting my time to try to improve with

settings or reinstalls.

Nov 14, 2011 2:09 PM in response to KJefferies

I absolutely aggree with you KJefferies. I switched from Blackberry to iPhone 4s and am very disappointed. Both my daughters have iPhones. I am not a "heavy" phone user. Every call I make/receive drops several times, even on speakerphone. The battery life is aweful and the IOS update made it slightly worse. I have done all the recommended things, turned just about everything off. What's the point in having a smartphone if you can't use it? I am still within my 30 days to return and replace the phone. Unless these issues get resolved soon I will be doing just that.

Nov 14, 2011 2:30 PM in response to Scarface.

There were so many vectors already in terms of issues and now 5.0.1 seems to have made it even more complicated. From my perusing of the threads, vectors are:


  • Restore process (because it carries contacts and mail settings over which may be culprits)
  • Mail and contacts(removing/re-adding may help), pull/push settings
  • Charge from usb instead of adapter/full charge-discharge (some people have more power with one or the other... weird)
  • Time zone setting (choose your ****** city and that's it, off with this)
  • Location settings (well, like notification features, this creates 3G polling)
  • Background apps (kill as much as you can, especially before going into standby)
  • Twitter (an ACMT identified this as a bandwidth culprit)
  • Low coverage (drains the battery, cellular data off/airplane mode may help during standby)
  • Activation and sim card (Roger's miracle)
  • SIM PIN (people reporting improvements with this off)
  • Hardware defect (the yellow screens, what else??)
  • 5.0.1 itself (worst, just read here https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3482379?start=645&tstart=0 that on the same phone, 5.0.1 yields different results if it's installed again!!!! - so some randomness as the cherry on top)
  • Difference in carriers 3G technology (AT&T vs. Sprint - drain variation according to carriers point to the 3G resilience etc.)
  • Not doing a hard reset after the update (implementing low level changes needs time to sink in, battery recalibration may be required, full discharge and charge)


And others I can't remember. This is a mind ****.


Honestly, it's time Apple finally makes a knowledge base article documenting the best practices and also a procedure to exclude as many of those variables as possible instead of expecting people go through 400 pages of half baked solutions. Otherwise I think they'll end up with a mountain of returned phones.

Nov 14, 2011 2:17 PM in response to Scarface.

I just got my iPhone 4S last month and updated the software to 5.0.1 when Apple released it. I don't have any issue with battery life - at least doesn't seem like it. I have charged the phone to 100% last night before going to bed and woke up about 7 hours later to find the battery only drained 2%, which to me seems pretty reasonable.


I'm not sure what services other users have turned on -- but this is what I have ON - everything else is OFF:


Notifications

Phone, Messages, Facebook, Calendar, Reminders, Mail, Messanger (facebook)


Location Services:

Camera, Compass, Fandango, Maps, Reminders, Siri, Weather


Siri: ON (with default settings)


System Services:

Call Network Search, Compass Callibration, Traffic


Fetch Data: Push is OFF; checking mail every 15 mins


Under Date & Time: "Set Automatically" is turned off. I set the time zone to NY and since I don't jump around the time zones that much, I didn't see any reason for me to set this automatically.


Auto-Lock: 1 Minute


Passcode Lock: On


Bluetooth: OFF


WiFi: I only turn it on if and when I am near by a hotspot that I use, otherwise I keep it off. I don't know if there is any way to turn this off automatically without thinking about it constantly, but if I remember I def turn it off when I am not using a WiFi.


Brightness: My brightness is set to default settings, but if played with it I could probably get a little bit more out of the battery -- but I'm not currently too worried about it since the battery life that I am getting is PRETTY DARN good.


Not sure if this will help the users, but that's what I have setup and battery life seems to be excellent. Of course depending on what other services you turn on, you may end up using the battery life a little bit more. I have also noticed that since the night when I charged my phone, right now (which is about 5:15 PM EST) -- about 16 hours later battery life is at 57%. This is also including talking with a few people for about 10 mins on an average and running an interview session where I had to use the display light for the entire time of 30 mins.


So I'd honestly think that the battery life is just fine -- some of the users may be setting everything on or not changing their settings to what they actually need and that may create a little bit of issue with the battery life.


Anyway, over all my verdict: Battery life on iPhone 4S is GOOD.

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iPhone 4s Battery Life?

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