iPhone 4s Battery Life?

Don't worry, those guys make the same mistake as you do aka having a clear cut vision as to what helps or not. As there are many problem vectors, so there are many solution vectors. Fenil claims closing "background apps" does not fix the issue and he's right but also wrong. He links this interesting article which contains:

"I said earlier that "the user never has to manage Background tasks on iOS". The only exception to this is when one of these Background-running apps goes berserk and will not terminate properly. That, however, is an exceptional situation and not a normal part of being an iOS user."

This scenario is then possible and you might have had that. He also forgets the scenario of such an app behaving properly after having claimed background status yet being intense on network polling and the user not really being aware of that. It may just be for most users they simply don't have such apps that claim background running. It is not even certain than "closing" it through the taskbar will work. Usually a soft reset of the device will terminate such a rogue process. Which explains in part why some users have successful results after resetting and discharging/recharging. Contrary to what the guy in the article wrote, with iOS 5+ an iOS user often has to do more to further extend his battery life and maintain sanity of the phone - and of his own mind.

To make a long story short, as I had said before, poor development of some apps is a contributing factor to some issues some users have been experiencing. Which is why a user should make the effort of perusing forums to see if such and such an app he uses behaves properly under the new OS and if not it should be removed and the device should be reset (and by the way this must account at least in part as to why restoring from a pre-iOS5 backup can wreak havok and hence why restoring to new has helped many) - this is akin to what happens with desktop OSes. A further example which I will not get into is related to notifications i.e. how you can set the notifications for an app in such a way and yet that app will poll the network in a completely different way. iOS has to be more forceful with apps in the future and its settings should supersede any app setting. Anyways.

Good luck.

Overall I believe the STANDBY drainage issue has been resolved. But there still is a serious issue when the phone is BEING USED.

I see. Well, I haven't been tracking your issue so I wouldn't know what to advise. A target should be 5-7hrs mixed use with 22hrs standby but if your standby drain is under control then most likely there's not much else you can do.

Common stuff is mail (fetch method, delay, types and number of accounts - ultimately malformed data in contacts) - apps of course (unfortunately adding one app at a time and checking individual app settings and analyzing usage is tedious but it's the only way to identify a culprit) and all the stuff apple talk about in their battery page (brigthness, bluetooth, airplane mode during non use, and all that stuff). I guess if I had usage time issues I'd start with a restore to new (preferably with full OS reinstall) with no apps/no mail and browse the web to see if I can hit the 6hrs mark with only that and lower brightness and trim location and the rest and build up the device from there, also trying to gauge if I can differentiate performance between wifi and 3G. I guess you've tried all that... It's about method - and periodical soft reset for device sanity purposes. If you can't hit the spec barebone, then it's time for support/exchange/refund.

Anyways, good luck!

@ 1AppleADayNoWay and Everyone else!!!!!

From http://www.apple.com/iphone/battery.html

Standby Time

Testing conducted by Apple in September 2011 using preproduction iPhone 4S units and software, on both GSM and CDMA carrier networks. All settings were default except: Wi-Fi was associated with a network; the Wi-Fi feature Ask to Join Networks was turned off. Battery life depends on the cellular network, location, signal strength, feature configuration, usage, and many other factors. Battery tests are conducted using specific iPhone units; actual results may vary.

As far as I know, it says all settings are default, when I inserted a SIM into my brand new iPhone 4S, it found the carrier and the 3G symbol was up at the top by DEFAULT. This also happens when you setup the phone as a new iPhone.

So you and everyone who has said the following is wrong: "Even with cellular data off, the overhead for the phone is basically 0.5% per hour."

As far as I am concerned, the iPhone 4S should be getting Standby life equal to the iPhone 4, which is 300 hours!!!

So something is certainly happening when the phone is in Standby mode.

Also, it should be getting more than 200 or 300 hours (depending on how you look at it) if WiFi and 3G data are switched off.

Hope I'm correct...

I had the same trouble until someone told me what to do.

Open the phone;

Double press the bottom button;

All open apps will appear;

Hold one of them down until they all have a RED minus sign;

Touch each one to close them.

The battery lasts much longer that way.

Gerri

There has to be some overhead. It's debatable whether it's based on network access or just the device "being on" but in many ways it's irrelevant. Electronics do consume energy. Apple lists the spec for the device as 200 standby hours. I have never seen anyone reach that - 8 days. I guess it's possible to reach it in airplane mode without touching the device at all from the moment it's disconnected from the charger - but who cares, it's purely theoritical. I actually don't understand the point you're making.

Good luck anyways!!

I'm trying to say that you are and whoever else is incorrect in saying that we should be getting 0.5%/hour drain in Standby with WiFi, 3G, Mail and whatnot off when it clearly states on Apples iPhone battery page that we should be getting 200 hours on one charge. Yes, I do agree that is theoretical and with what I have learned from Electronic Engineering, everything has a +- 10% (sometimes less than 10%, sometimes more than 10%) success rate on what is actually stated. So you could shave off 20 hours of the total Standby and get 180 hours, lets say 50% is used for standby, that's 90 hours or almost 4 days of standby with maybe around 4-6 hours of usage WITH WiFi and 3G ON as it states on the website.

Yet nobody has gotten close, except maybe one guy from Scotland on this post who had WiFi and 3G off on his screenshots!!!!

Yes, but you seem to forget that "background processing such as autochecking of email" - amongst other things we'll never know - counts towards usage, which in turn reduces standby potential. Standby can only exist as a leftover from usage... and with such a device, because of location, app polling, mail, and what not, it's extremely hard to reach a "pure standby" scenario. Often guys with extremely long usage scenarios have no mail, barely any app, don't do social networking and use wifi and play games while connected to AC or just listen to local music. But I may be wrong... and more power to you!!

Good luck!

Edit: I want to make it clear, aside from standby considerations that if you use the device for 6hrs browsing the internet - a full continuous 6hrs of 3G internet use - then you will have 0 hour of standby. 3G internet use drains 16% per hour. What part of that is the network polling, what other part is the graphic rendering, what other part is the cpu processing is beyond my knowledge. Anyways.

True. But these are not listed on the battery info page. So we should assume that this is off.

And either way, if mail was on to fetch every 15 minutes, I'm pretty sure it takes maybe no more than 30 seconds to download mail and then the phone enters the sleep mode again. This occurs 4 times an hour, to be liberal, let's say this drains 10% of total battery life if it was on for 2 days. That's still a lot left for standby time!!!

I'm just saying that I have all these settings off and yet I still can't get 3 days with wifi and 3G on!!!

Yes I am completely aware that the usage and standby times are not AND, they are OR!!

Apple achieved there stand by hours by using a new iPhone, no apps, airplane mode, nothing running in the background, location services off, diagnostics off, back light on the lowist settings. They test the phones really steril.

So usage and stand by will NEVER be what that say. It's the same with all device manufactures.

Oh and .5% drop an hour is 200 hour stand by time. Mine drops 1.25% an hour. Lasts 2 days.

But standby time is with the phone screen off so brightness won't matter. And neither do apps, they state WITH WiFi AND 3G ON the battery life in standby is 200 hours, so surely it must before with these two features off!!!

Could be. But if you want those hours set your iPhone to there test settings, charge the phone, disconnect it and DON'T touch it. If you phone drops 1% -1.5% an hour that's great battery life for any apple iPhone being used. Again people use the processor differently.

I just did and I'm not getting anywhere near those stats!!!

I'll see what happens overnight here in UK in terms of battery percentage loss...