You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

💡 Did you know?

⏺ If you can't accept iCloud Terms and Conditions... Learn more >

⏺ If you don't see your iCloud notes in the Notes app... Learn more >

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

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

Oct 18, 2011 1:55 PM in response to Scarface.

When my iPhone 4S 32GB pre-order arrived the battery was completely dead, I got all excited about setting it up and had to wait an additional 30 minutes to get enough charge to boot it. This is unusual as all the iPhones I've ever setup for myself or for users in my company have all come pre-charged.


I had battery issues for the first whole day, lost 50% in just 4 or 5 hours of mostly standby use. The second day (after a full charge cycle) was much better. I lost 10% in 5 hours. On subsequent days it seems that my battery drainage has gone back up slightly, but not terrible. I lose about 16% in 4.5 hours. It still seems high to me considering my phone is in my pocket or at my desk, connected to wifi, no apps running.


I've had issues in the past starting with 4.3 where restoring backups from previous phones causes bad battery performance and a host of other issues. I don't want to setup my phone as a new device and lose my game progress and other data, so I don't know if that would help but I suspect it would. Maybe when I can jailbreak again and backup my apps on my own I'll be able to try this. I've gone through most of the suggestions for improving battery life on the iPhone and I'm still consistently losing 16% in 4.5 hours.

Oct 18, 2011 2:18 PM in response to Scarface.

Seems like alot of threads out there about this, would be nice if Mods could merge them all!


It does seem like the new iPhone 4S is suffering like its predecessors with battery management and hopefully there will be a patch soon.


With any new devices, we're too eager to get it up and running, little realising that there are so many things running in the background of the device, draining the battery and half expecting it to last for days on end!


Conditioning of the battery is key here, it'll take several (if not many) charges to get the battery at its peak, also very importantly the use of what is running in the background.


On day one I got hardly half a days use out of it, after a 2nd charge and some fine tuning it's improving. I charged mine pretty much for 5 to 6 hours, left for work at 9am at 100%, finished work at left at 7.30pm at 79%. Now bearing in mind, I did use my device on my lunch break for 1/2hr using WiFi doing some browsing and a few rounds of good old Infinity Blade.


Here's what I've turned OFF

  • SIRI - Great innovative idea, but not for me
  • PUSH emails to FETCH hourly, next test is MANUAL
  • Notifications, only the essentials, calls and texts, all else OFF. Not really in need of weather or stocks.
  • Sounds, everything on 50%, no keyboard clicks or lock screen sounds.
  • Vibrate OFF
  • Locations Services ON for KEY applications, such as MAPS. Not really bothered about Angry Birds knowing my location
  • Brightness down to 50%
  • Auto Brightness OFF, keep the brightness to one level, the auto up and down is draining additional power.
  • iCloud OFF (actually I press delete, now it asks for my Apple ID password again)
  • Time Zone Support OFF in Mail, Contacts, Calendars
  • Facetime OFF
  • iMessenger OFF, have unlimited texts anyways
  • Music EQ to OFF
  • Spotlight Search to key categories, names, emails, notes, etc
  • System Services to ALL OFF (found in Location Services)
  • No iTunes WiFi sync
  • Ping OFF (disabled APP in Restrictions)
  • Date & Time set manually
  • Traditional Closing of Apps when no longer needing them.
  • Don't Send for Diagnostics & Usage


Seems a bit extreme you might say, however I've turned OFF the non-essentials for me, it's now 10pm and still running at 70%! I've turned anything location based OFF.

Feel free to tweak it around to meet your needs, some things you need on and let everyone know your outcome. It'll be interesting to see what people have ON/OFF and what type of battery usages they can get out.

Oct 18, 2011 2:25 PM in response to Scarface.

All add to the complaint list, because this is pretty ridiculous. And this is Apple's claim about the 4s' battery performance when advertising the product:


"Two cores in the A5 chip deliver up to two times more power and up to seven times faster graphics.2 And you’ll feel the effects. Fast. iPhone 4S is quick and responsive, which makes all the difference when you’re launching apps, browsing the web, gaming, and doing just about everything. And no matter what you’re doing, you can keep on doing it. Because the A5 chip is so power-efficient, iPhone 4S has outstanding battery life. The power-efficient A5 chip and iOS 5 deliver outstanding battery life. So you can keep making calls, checking email, playing video, and browsing the web." -http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/#gallery-performance-battery



Battery life is pretty horrible. Mine drops down from 100% to 92% overnight, waking up 6 hrs later, with no use, everything is turned off except the AT&T network for calls and texts. And of course as many and all have complained here on this discussion board, the battery life continues to drop throughout the course of the day.


Hopefully this complaint has already caught Apple's attention and they're in the process of a fix. This is a similar case with the launch of the iPhone 3G if anyone remembers. Battery life was bad, and fortunately Apple provided a software update that seemed to fix the problem. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this will be resolved in the same manner.

Oct 18, 2011 4:10 PM in response to JonGoldman

We have MUCH less with an the 4s. I NEVER had to turn off all of the features on my 3g or 4! What is the purpose of it if we have to disable everything! I am working from a home a great deal of the time so the WiFi connection is important to me. And, I would like to have mail notifications! What a nightmare! All of the new features and those we had before are now pretty much non-existent!


APPLE: Are you listening???

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.