iPhone 4s Battery Life?

@Jameson!

Jameson! wrote:

This is exactly the root of the battery drain problem. I have seen exactly the same things happening, right from release day one and through the 5.01 update. I have no doubts that IF Apple can address this 3G data management issue, the battery drain issues will be solved.

kj789 wrote:

Ok so after a couple of recharge cycles and spending time with my iPhone 4S this is what I've concluded (firmly):

• The battery life with WiFi is fine. It will easily last a day and a half, maybe even two, with normal usage and constant connection to WiFi WITH email push notifications turned on.
• As soon as cellular data is turned on, the battery starts dropping 1% every 2-3 mins even in standby
• Basically, the battery life ***** with cellular data turned on

Being frustrated with not being able to use cellular data (I travel around a lot and don't have WiFi access all the time) I borrowed my friend's factory unlocked iPhone 4 running on iOS 5.0.1. What I saw shocked me.

The iPhone 4 with iOS 5.0.1 has the 3G data toggle switch in addition to the mobile data switch!!

In fact after borrowing my friend's iPhone 4 I actually borrowed another friend's iPhone 4 (who just upgraded her phone software to iOS 5.0.1 from 4.3.3) just to check whether I wasn't hallucinating. And voila, the 3G data toggle switch was present there as well!

So my question to Apple is this: Why on earth can't you give us poor souls who bought the iPhone 4S the 3G toggle switch as well? Please? I'm sure simply turning off the 3G radio is going to ensure I can stay connected to the internet for longer periods of time.

I fully agree that the root of the battery drain is related to 3G! :-) The 3G stuff is managed in iPhone 4S by the Qualcomm MDM6610 chipset.

On the other hand there is another Apple forum about the 3G issue here:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3385464?start=345&tstart=0

This is what Deggie from Texas wrote about the 3G issue:

==========================================

Here is the thing, Qualcomm radio chips in the past which were mainly CDMA in the past have never included access for an app programmer to manually flip the service or adjust threshholds. As this is a hybrid chip it is probable that Qualcomm did not provide any means for a programmer to access the chip to make any manual changes to the state of the chip and it is hard-coded in firmware within the chip as to when the threshhold is reached to make that change. In other words it is a closed system and the programmer has no access to it.

==========================================

which is copy and pasted from here:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3385464?start=330&tstart=0

Also it looks likethe 3G chipset is the one producing the static noise in iPhone 4s:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3393647?start=780&tstart=0

Shortly , it looks like the 3G chipset which does the 3G stuff is on autopilot mode and the key to the autopilot-mode boxhas been thrown into the sea!!! In other words it looks like the 3G issue can be addressed thru changing the chipset and cannot be fixed thru software or firmware updates!!!!

Also Bennice wrote on 3G forum https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3385464?start=330&tstart=0 this:

=============================

As has been said several times throughout this thread, it would be a non-issue if 3G was reliable and there was adequate bandwidth.

There are regular occurrences in which there is 3G signal, but not enough bandwidth to make or receive calls, or send/receive data. In this situation, the ability to toggle between EDGE and 3G is the only way the device is usable for communication. The radio will not automatically switch to EDGE when there is a 3G signal even if communication is not possible over 3G.

This happens often in the Denver/Boulder/Colorado Springs areas, and I have personally had the same experiences in other metro areas throughout the country with multiple generations of iPhones.

It may be a non-issue with users in other areas with less network saturation, but it is a very big deal for customers in some areas.

============================

I fully agree that the root of the battery drain is related to 3G! :-) The 3G stuff is managed in iPhone 4S by the Qualcomm MDM6610 chipset.

On the other hand there is another Apple forum about the 3G issue here:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3385464?start=345&tstart=0

This is what Deggie from Texas wrote about the 3G issue:

=============================================

Here is the thing, Qualcomm radio chips in the past which were mainly CDMA in the past have never included access for an app programmer to manually flip the service or adjust threshholds. As this is a hybrid chip it is probable that Qualcomm did not provide any means for a programmer to access the chip to make any manual changes to the state of the chip and it is hard-coded in firmware within the chip as to when the threshhold is reached to make that change. In other words it is a closed system and the programmer has no access to it.

===================================================

which is copy and pasted from here:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3385464?start=330&tstart=0

Also it looks likethe 3G chipset is the one producing the static noise in iPhone 4s:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3393647?start=780&tstart=0

Shortly , it looks like the 3G chipset which does the 3G stuff is on autopilot mode and the key to the autopilot mode has been thrown in to the see!!! In other words it looks like the 3G issue can be addressed thru changing the chipset and cannot be fixed thru software or firmware!!!!

If this is true then are we screwed? Because I'm not in the US and I don't have any way of getting this phone back to the States for a refund in the next one week before my refund period expires completely.

Btw, I don't have the static noise issue.

And enx23 how's your refund claim coming along? Is Apple considering refunding your phone or not?

@marc-man: I disabled the Setting Time Zone setting and an hour later, during which the phone was 100% on standby, the battery went from 43 % to 36 %. So that setting apparently has nothing to do with the problem, at least not for me. I'm not in the UK, by the way, I'm in Germany on T-Mobile. I got a new SIM card when I got the 4S.

@rphunte42: I can't seem to find that "cpu activity" app you mentioned...

@Tom-Bo-Mac: Another user reported problems with T-Mobile SIMs in Germany: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3491623?start=0&tstart=0

Get an App called 'System Status'. That should help you out. I don't know how good the free version is, I just bought the paid version and it's helped me quite a lot.

I got the full version of System Status (the free doesn't do much) and so far nothing looks fishy. CPU load is low (< 1 % on average), will see how that stat changes over time.

The problem is that the app doesn't show how much CPU time processes are using (iOS probably doesn't provide that metric), just how long they've been running. The other thing is that battery drain doesn't necessarily happen due to high CPU load, it could also be constant activity on one or more of the radios and that wouldn't show up in the app.

During the time I've been writing this the average CPU load according to System Status has been around 1% and the battery has gone from 29 % to 25%. So I think it's probably safe to say it's not some rogue app that's hogging the CPU, it's most likely related to one of the radios.

Edit: Another thing that's strange is that all this only started about 3 days ago. I've had my 4S since November or so and battery life was normal during that time. And all of the sudden something has to have changed and it's not a recent iOS update (5.0.1 came out early December). I'm suspecting it's something outside the phone, like on the network or baseband. I'm not on iCloud, by the way, as others have reported their problems started after moving to iCloud.

So I did a test yesterday. Starting off from 100% yesterday, I did NOTHING on 3G yesterday, except for texting and calling. I did NOT use 3G data. I was on Wifi the entire time all day. I did regular usage, and to my surprise, I got through the day from 10AM to 7PM WITHOUT putting my phone on charge. My battery was still at 69% at the end of the day. I was shocked. The after 7PM, I intentionally turned off Wifi and started to use 3G data and the battery started to drain like CRAZY again. So I can conclude that this is a Chipset issue and Radios issue. Perhaps the new Hybrid chip is performing very poorly, more than what Apple would have anticipated.

What I don't understand is that did Apple decide to release this phone with this chip without doing any sort of pre-testing on it? Obviously a company this big should have gone through various situations, various tests and what not before releasing a phone that is very heavy on the wallet. Having the problem that this phone has, this just tells me how careless Apple was with going through careful testing with the iPhone 4S. This is truly unbelievable. To me, releasing the iPhone 4S was just a point by apple where they are just wanting to make 'extra' money on the side, while working on their main upcoming products, iPad 3/4 and iPhone 5. I'm really disappointed with Apple. I am a hardcore Apple fan, owning Apple products from a very early age of my life, and now I'm really disappointed with Apple. Having ALL of the iPhones, I'm really disappointed with the 4S. I'm willing to give Apple another chance, but they MUST fix this issue ASAP.

My 4 iPhone 4's are outperforming the iPhone 4S in battery life. I have iPhone 4S's on three different networks. Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T, all performing VERY poorly. This i struly disappointing and I am disguisted at Apple for releasing a product that has a very big problem.

I just called T-Mobile and without any hesitation they told me to go to one of their shops and get a replacement iPhone 4S. The rep didn't even ask for specific details or anything, I just told her that the phone had started draining the battery over night and had been working fine until a couple of days ago. My guess is that they're getting plenty of calls about this problem and potentially know it's a hardware problem so they don't fuss around and tell you to get a replacment.

If I can get a replacement tomorrow I'll report back if the issues are gone or not.

Wrong conclusion! Since the battery problem follows iOS 5, even on iPhone 3G and 4 models, I conclude it's a firmware problem. NOW, that being said, the iOS firmware is written to manage the dual antenna setup and new chipset of the 4s, so making firmware mods that ficx the problem may not be simple. A fix may cause other problems.......

Androgen wrote:

So I did a test yesterday. Starting off from 100% yesterday, I did NOTHING on 3G yesterday, except for texting and calling. I did NOT use 3G data. I was on Wifi the entire time all day. I did regular usage, and to my surprise, I got through the day from 10AM to 7PM WITHOUT putting my phone on charge. My battery was still at 69% at the end of the day. I was shocked. The after 7PM, I intentionally turned off Wifi and started to use 3G data and the battery started to drain like CRAZY again. So I can conclude that this is a Chipset issue and Radios issue. Perhaps the new Hybrid chip is performing very poorly, more than what Apple would have anticipated.

What I don't understand is that did Apple decide to release this phone with this chip without doing any sort of pre-testing on it? Obviously a company this big should have gone through various situations, various tests and what not before releasing a phone that is very heavy on the wallet. Having the problem that this phone has, this just tells me how careless Apple was with going through careful testing with the iPhone 4S. This is truly unbelievable. To me, releasing the iPhone 4S was just a point by apple where they are just wanting to make 'extra' money on the side, while working on their main upcoming products, iPad 3/4 and iPhone 5. I'm really disappointed with Apple. I am a hardcore Apple fan, owning Apple products from a very early age of my life, and now I'm really disappointed with Apple. Having ALL of the iPhones, I'm really disappointed with the 4S. I'm willing to give Apple another chance, but they MUST fix this issue ASAP.

My 4 iPhone 4's are outperforming the iPhone 4S in battery life. I have iPhone 4S's on three different networks. Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T, all performing VERY poorly. This i struly disappointing and I am disguisted at Apple for releasing a product that has a very big problem.

Firmware problems? Perhaps PARTIALLY true. Although my iPhone 4 is functioning perfectly fine on iOS 5. NO problem at all. My 3GS is the same way. I can confirm this because I have three of each iPhones. One model of each is more than 1 year old and were bought when they were first released. iOS 5 seems to be fine on all of them, with the exception of my 4S. Now iOS 5 did act up a little bit at first one my older devices, but but 5.0.1 fixed the issues.

I just had my iPhone 4S replaced at Apple. Previously, my phone would last a MAXIMUM of 12 hours. Use or no use. It could be on airplane mode and easily go down 46% in 8 hours overnight. From my experience and many hours of reseaching what the problem might actually be, I have to a conclusion that there are a number of iPhone 4S's that are simply defective. No matter how many times the phone is restored, optimized, etc. the battery will drain at a steady, ridiculous rate whether you like it or not. Unfortunetly, there seems to be an extremely large number of defective phones. I think that if you have a 4S and you're experiencing absolutely disguisting battery life, forget optimizing, closing running apps, and what not. Just take it in to an Apple Store, speak with someone at the Genius Bar and they will more then likely replace your brand new 4S with a non-defective one. That was my experience with the 4S that I've received directly from Apple few months back.

Do we have a consensus yet as to what constitutes a "working" 4S as far as battery life is concerned? I mean, my unit can squeak by on around 7.5-8hrs of usage with a blend of Wifi, 3G data, browsing, texting and phone calls - I toggle 3G on/off as location requires.

Are there 4S' that are realizing, say, 12hrs of reasonable blended use?

Okay so I received my iPhone 4S from work three days ago. I spent a lot of time on the iPhone 4, 3GS, and 3G so I can say I've got enough experience to know what battery life SHOULD be like.

Day 1: I authenticate the phone and start putting all my apps on it. I keep the phone busy until it dies and kept it on a charger for roughly 24 hours.

Day 2: I bring the phone to work, and use it as normal. The battery dies before I leave work. From the time I leave home to the time I leave work is usually 9 hours. The battery died in roughly 7 hours of light to moderate use. I was aggrovated by this, but like anything, I do my research before I start complaining. I found this post and took in to consideration a lot of the advice given. I got home, and did a full backup of my phone, then a full factory reset. I left it on the charger for the remainder of the night.

Day 3: I get up and go through my normal routine. I used the phone to text a few people, and also installed WhatsApp to be able to text my ex-wife. The battery drains to 70% before 2 hours passes. I compared my phone to a co-workers phone who runs about the same time schedule as I do. He is still at 100% battery on his iPhone4. I noticed also that with the phones side by side, he gets a 3G signal and I don't. In fact, my phone struggles to keep a 3G signal where his phone keeps connected all the time. I figure since the phone is bone stock except for WhatsApp, that WhatsApp is the problem. I did a little more research and saw some people with the same problem relating it to WhatsApp, so I removed it. Back to bone stock again, I notice the battery is still dropping tramendously fast. At 64% I again pull up this thread and check for further updates on this issue. I saw several posts saying that we can't disable 3G and use EDGE. This is true. I read further seeing people say that if you turn off the data usage all together, the battery life improves tramendously. I've got WIFI at work, so I gave that a shot. 2 hours in to having a WIFI only data connection, my battery life is now 63%. That is a HUGE difference in power consumption and there is CLEARLY a problem with the new radio chips.

If you ask me, we need to start a petition to get Apple to focus on fixing this issue. If a recall or repair for every phone sold is the only solution, big deal. They sold us bad product. I'd much rather go back to an iPhone4 or 3GS than continue to use this.

My iPhone 4S battery life collapsed after the latest (December) fix went out. I am on O2.

Something is generating a huge amount of network traffic. Battery life is fine if I switch off cellular data AND wifi (or just do the former and stay out of wifi signal). Otherwise the phone drains within a few hours and in the process becomes (on 3G) hot to the touch.

I have not installed any different apps or configuration to the phone, other than "upgrade" the OS.

Travelled from UK to Poland in December. The phone was roaming and used up 100% of its roaming allowance in 1 day.

I'm not sure if there's a tool to report network activity on particular ports, maybe that would help with tracking down the culprit.

Apple doesn't seem to be taking the issue seriously. I'd suggest that, if a software defect is causing a significant upsurge in subscriber data bills, the regulators might hold them liable, so they might want to take it very seriously indeed.

@LutherLassiter: for me a working 4S is the one that I had until Tuesday afternoon. For about 4 weks it had the same battery usage as my iPhone 4. Then I moved from MobileMe to iCloud and all of a sudden my battery drain was around 15 times higher than the weeks before.