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

Reply
12,787 replies

Jan 6, 2012 7:36 PM in response to Scarface.

I don't fully understand some of you guys. I mean, Apple has acknowledged the issue after the 4S and 5.0 was released. It was all over the tech news. Then they made a patch, 5.0.1 and it fixed some of it and they acknowledged they were investigating issues with some users for whom the patch didn't really cut it. Then they quietly released a new build of 5.0.1 for the sim card issues or whatever, and are working on 5.1 which is at whatever beta or was it released, I can't remember.


What, do you expect they'll release a statement every time someone comes here and complains about his battery life? Apple users are spoiled in my opinion lollll.

Jan 6, 2012 8:30 PM in response to Ashouekani

LOL!!!!! It's thier site! They can do whatever they want. We have no "rights" on a private site....... sheeeesh....


Ashouekani wrote:


Also, apple can delete these posts, but if you are subscribed for email you get a copy straight to your inbox. They can hide the posts unless the unsubscribe everyone from email updates. It would be easier to just close this thread, but then another one would open. It seems like them deleting posts is also infringing upon a right? I could be wrong, but it is a bit oppressive. The mods are the secret police, this may be my last post.

Jan 6, 2012 8:36 PM in response to zSkeptic

Exactly my point Z.

enx23 keeps quoting a Korean news paper article that polled 10 people and 8 of them said they had static. So that turns into "80% of all iPhone 4s have problems." I was making a point with my 10 acquaintances stating it could say 100% of all iPhones 4s are completely fine which is also a false statement. In your words, its utter nonsense.

Jan 6, 2012 11:25 PM in response to sbailey4

I'm having strange battery drain issues with my 4s. With basically everything off, at times with no activity, the usage climbs rapidly while the battery drains accordingly. Then if I check an hour later, there is no further usage or battery drain. I know a few here have reported incorrect usage time stats and others use the same stats to judge the battery performance. I'm a light user and at the moment my reading is: USAGE 1hr 25 mins and STANDBY 19 hrs 15 mins and the battery is at 80%. I don't think I've used it for more than 15 minutes. I think we are being cheated into believing our phones are achieving the amount of usage Apple claim they produce.

Jan 7, 2012 12:56 AM in response to Scarface.

Gentlemen, this is 100% related to Cellular Data being enabled or not. Yesterday my phone barely lasted 8 hours standby with 2 hours usage, mostly music.


Last night I switched cellular data off , wifi of, had it on the charger till this morning and now it's 3 hours standby with 10 minutes of calling with 100% on the battery, not even 1% dropped.


I think that speaks enough. It's mobile data usage that kills the thing.

Jan 7, 2012 1:22 AM in response to tutin12

Yeah I noticed. When cellular data is on, it drains the battery, even when not in use. When using it, about 1% drains every 2 minutes. That's a lot. I previously had a BlackBerry 9700 and I NEVER turned off 3G. It stayed on 24/7. The battery used to stay for at least a day on a single charge, with constant usage (about 6 hours). The iPhone 4S can barely stay on for 5 hours with 3G on and on moderate usage. This is bullsh*t.

Jan 7, 2012 2:00 AM in response to Tom-Bo-Mac

OK, so I changed two things yesterday and my 4S is at 97% after a full charge last night before I went to bed and letting it sit there over night. Usage stats are also in line with that (10 minutes usage an 11 1/2 hours of standby). It has stayed at 97% for the last hour or so where before it would have gone down at least 5-7% and usage data would have shown much higher values.


The two things I changed:


- Disabled WiFi syncing in iTunes (connect phone, uncheck option on first tab)

- Per the instructions in this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mwpRotYS78) set the DNS for my WiFi connection to 8.8.8.8 (Google DNS).


I don't know which of these changes made the difference, or if it's the combination of both. But I'm assuming WiFi sync at least something to do with it since I only turned on that option a week or so ago and the battery problems began shortly after that.


As always, YMMV. But for me this seems to have solved the battery drain issue.


Edit: Another thing I just noticed is that with WiFi sync disabled, it takes a couple of seconds after waking the phone for the 3G icon in the titlebar to change to the WiFi icon whereas with WiFi sync switched on the icon immediately changes to WiFi upon waking. I'm assuming this means that the phone is permanently on WiFi with WiFi sync turned on and also prevents the phone from sleeping. This could be either by design or a bug.

Jan 7, 2012 2:42 AM in response to russell2012

Turning all the wonderful features of ios 5 off is NOT a solution, perhaps a temporary one at best, the real problem is with the OS and it needs to be fixed. You can't sell people the most expensive phone on the market and tell them to turn everything off. It's a known issue and Apple is reported to be working on ios 5.0.2 I just hope they get it right this time.

Jan 7, 2012 3:08 AM in response to tutin12

tutin12 wrote:


Gentlemen, this is 100% related to Cellular Data being enabled or not. Yesterday my phone barely lasted 8 hours standby with 2 hours usage, mostly music.


Last night I switched cellular data off , wifi of, had it on the charger till this morning and now it's 3 hours standby with 10 minutes of calling with 100% on the battery, not even 1% dropped.


I think that speaks enough. It's mobile data usage that kills the thing.


5h+ standby with 20 minutes talk time, just turned down to 99% a few seconds ago. Cellular data is disabled.


Any doubts left?

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

iPhone 4s Battery Life?

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.