Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

Soon, if the iPhone 5 is to be an LTE equipped phone, Apple will have to address the battery size issue.  Seems that 4GLTE service is rather a battery hog.  I was talking with a lady who was charging her 4G phone at the auto shop, and she said she has to carry a charger in her purse because she only gets 5 or 6 hours on a charge.  Her son has an iPhone 4S, and he doesn't have any trouble making it a full day. 

Of course, Apple could take the Motorola approach, and just put a huge battery in the iPhone 5 and make it a bit fatter, wider, and longer.  Then it could have a bigger screen, too.

1AppleADayNoWay wrote:

 

rphunte42 wrote:

 

1AppleADayNoWay wrote:

[blabla]

I suspect that many of those users rush home, connect the phone to iTunes, and restore, thus perpetuating whatever problem might have been hidden in settings, or incompatible apps, from the old phone to the new one.

Indeed, but you have to agree that not expecting a user to do this is unrealistic and goes against what the Apple experience should be. So it's "picking up where amazing left off, minus the restore"...

Well, I am put in mind of the bible reference about 'not putting new wine into old wineskins'.  So, I just did a sync to get my apps on the new phone, minus my music, and ebooks.  Then, when I had some time, I synced the 4 GB of music onto the phone.  Maybe they should put a sticker on the new phones warning people not to restore, but to sync only....

Couldn't hurt.

There was an update that fixed this.

Can't see the update which fixed www.apple.com/iphone - still says "picking up where amazing left off".

1AppleADayNoWay wrote:

 

Don't make a big deal out of this - NO ONE is getting 1% drain on 8 hours standby and such. One may get a battery indicator showing 1% drop in 8 hours, which is quite different. There is no magic. The point is he doesn't have any unusual drain at the moment. Your standby drain is on specs, like his. It's not going to get any better.

I also get 1-2% overnight, If my battery charged 100% before I sleep and the next morning my battery is in 99% - 98%

1M+ hits!!! Something is bound to happen...

ramon27 wrote:

 

I also get 1-2% overnight, If my battery charged 100% before I sleep and the next morning my battery is in 99% - 98%

So? Some people believe in fairy tales, some people do not... But if you sleep for 2-4 hours a night, then you're spot on!!

Update 5.0.1 should have done the trick for most 4S users, however some are still reporting that their battery is still not good.

Folks, I have been noticing these weeks a dramatic price reduction  Iphone 4s on the market. I am quite sure its related to the battery/other defective issues.

1AppleADayNoWay wrote:

 

ramon27 wrote:

 

I also get 1-2% overnight, If my battery charged 100% before I sleep and the next morning my battery is in 99% - 98%

So? Some people believe in fairy tales, some people do not... But if you sleep for 2-4 hours a night, then you're spot on!!

8-9hours of sleep hours. Just saying what my battery does. If you're not satisfied in your battery life.. Buy other brand of smartphone. Dont waste your life trolling in this thread. LMFAO.

Just to report back on my status. My iPhone was gone for "repairs" for 14 days. That did not help much because the only thing the repair shop did was to see that I had 16 different apps with location services on, and they ment that was the cause of my battery drain. They didn't bother to check the static noise, which they said is supposed to be there, or to check my bad connection. So my heart sank, knowing that I had to take the same iPhone home.

I used the same SIM card(via an adapter) from my iPhone during the repair time, it was used in my SE K750i, and during this time I noticed alot of strange behaviour from the k750i, it dropped out of the network, showing no service, bad quality while speaking on the phone. I told them this at the shop where I bought the iPhone, and I got a new SIM card(U-simcard), they ment I had the right one in the first place but they wanted to exchange it anyway.

After I got the new SIM card my phone has been much better, it doesn't drain that fast, and my connection to the cell network is much better too. I have mostly 5 bars on 3G, it goes between 5 and 4. On the previous SIM card it rarely went over 3 bars. The 3G coverage in my area is very good so this is more in line with what it should be.

My iPhone still has the static noice issue, which I will go to a premium apple reseller to check, since they do repair for Apple, and I hope they take it more serious than my mobile carrier does. I just don't believe it is supposed to be there, and it makes me feel I have a phone that could fail anytime. It really sounds like there is a hardrive inside, writing data all the time.

The latest available firmware for iPhone 4S is 5.0.1(9A406). If your device shows 5.0.1(9A405) then the only way to update is via iTunes Restore. You may use the opportunity to get rid of old cruft in the phone (but make sure you save your photos/movies etc).

rphunte42 wrote:

 

DKay wrote:

 

I've been following this thread since October and it appears to be largely an exercise in futility with thousands upon thousands of recommendations that don't ultimately work for most complainers. Apple aught to bite the bullet financially, admit they have a problem they don't have a work around or solution to, and offer a free upgrade from this model to the 5 when it comes available. I'd recommend sticking to earlier models and getting refunds where possible

Actually, a lot of users have been helped.  Most of them seem to just leave, and not report that something helped.

I just wanted to say, I did leave, but my problem hasn't. This forum has probably helped users with very little iPhone knowledge how to turn off excess features (ie. location services, push notifications, bluetooth etc) or do a fresh install without copying across problems from their old back-ups. It may have also helped a very very small percentage that had that very weird issue with the Siri sensor getting stuck on.

But for the majority of users I'd say it has done nothing else but provide a place to vent and to feel better thanks to reading that we are not alone. I, like most users have just learnt to live with poor battery performance and a phone that heats up so much that it makes palms sweat.

What about 5.01?

This seemingly did very little for me, although it possibly stopped the battery draining as much when in standby. It did nothing to affect the way my iPhone absolutely chews through battery if being used on 3G for tasks as simple as browsing and WOW does it get hot!

I'm just very disappointed and annoyed at the lack of response to the issue by Apple. After 5.01 was released it was "there I fixed it" and nothing more to add. This also went a long way to selling more iPhone 4s units, when the customer says "I heard there were issues with battery life" the sales person can reply "oh, there was an update to fix that".

But I must say I'm not surprised. Apple certainly aren't going to do anything mental like recall it or anything else that costs them money.

So get used the issues surrounding your iPhone 4s, the problems will only get worse as software and operating system upgrades require more processing power, which in turn will drain the battery faster which will in turn will heat the phone up and eventually it will turn into the sluggish 3G or 3GS beast that you upgraded from. These are the the iphone 4s GLORY DAYS!

If you want things to change and want Apple to notice that you are unhappy speak with your money and get a Samsung for your next purchase or upgrade! Because God knows they arn't losing any sleep (or money) from our moaning on this forum.

MattyEss wrote:

 

 

What about 5.01?

 

This seemingly did very little for me, although it possibly stopped the battery draining as much when in standby. It did nothing to affect the way my iPhone absolutely chews through battery if being used on 3G for tasks as simple as browsing and WOW does it get hot!

 

This is quite apparent: if the device gets hot, then it is doing somehting!

The real issue with iPhone 4S and iOS 5.0 was that the phone would consume lots of power while 'idle'. This is both because of poorly designed applications (made to run while in the background) and because the OS didn't properly shutdown everything not in use. The later is apparently fixed in 5.0.1.

The badly designed applications are significant issue. You can tell if you have such if when leaving the phone not doing anything, it show Usage as being almost as high as Standby. Your only sane recourse is to either remove such applications from your iPhone or demand that their authors improve the behavior. Or just read instructions, as some such applications can be configured differently.

I believe the Apple attitude is correct -- you do not want mass hysteria, because as much as users have the right to have good product, those products have become increasingly complex and difficult to optimize. It takes time to collect enough statistics to have some basis for optimization.

Of course, all this is software. What Apple might do is (for example) downclock the CPU when in Standby so any such ill-behaved applications do not waste much battery.

New software does not neccesarily require more resources. On the contrary, new software is written with the better knowledge of the platform and with a lot of experience. So new software typically runs better on an old platform --- of course it brings about new features that might require more processing power -- but if you not use that new features (remember, your old software didn't have them) the new version will actually work much better.

Going out and buying Samsung won't help your iPhone 4S any way. It will only support one copycat company to do it's things longer.

ramon27 wrote:

 

8-9hours of sleep hours. Just saying what my battery does. If you're not satisfied in your battery life.. Buy other brand of smartphone. Dont waste your life trolling in this thread. LMFAO.

I think my battery is bigger and (lasts) longer than yours buddy.  But my point was really that after 8-9 hours of sleep you should wake up from your dream. The phone is listed as a 200hrs standby device - under the best of the best circumstances, which means 0.5% per hour. If your battery used 2% during 8 hours, you would have 400 standby hours... that's 16 days. Who cares what your battery does during the night. Maths always defeats enthusiasm. What's important is the usage stats you get when your phone shuts down. And that's when you'll hear the wake up call...