Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

Duckgirl722: your problem is software-related, you will not solve it exchanging units. Restore the phone to its factory settings, then see if that has helped. It is due to applications and services, such as iCloud, that the phone consumes battery when it is supposed to use very little. There is no hardware defect. And only a small percentage of users might be affected by such misfortune.

It is irrelevant if the cause is hardware or software - what matters is if it works or not for you. There is only so much one can and should do to solve the issue. Our friend Yuri here really doesn't know - he's the type who's worried by benchmarks made by serious people - the 4S has to work for everyone because otherwise it upsets his notion that the 4S is the best phone in the world - he wants to be at peace because he wants to buy the perfect phone of his dream. There are a bunch of problems a product can have and one cannot rule out the possibility of your seller having a batch of less than stellar 4S. You have to go with common sense... if you restored to new and have no apps and the phone drains and the sim has been checked, then it is a bad phone, and if you have such an experience 3 times in a row, then you're due for a different experience...

Good luck!

 

My phone stayed at 100% for 45 mins! and it was NOT in use that whole time, the phone actually went into sleep mode when I wasn't using it!

 

I am a bit worried because my batt has gone down to 96% in the last 15 mins but I am DLing an app on wifi and also turned on my bluetooth keyboard so hopefully that explains the 4% loss in 15 mins. 

I've been seeing similar behavior. After a full charge, it stays at 100% for a long time, and then drains much more quickly after that. It seems to drain very erratically and does so independent of whatever tasks I'm performing (or not performing) on the iPhone. NB: I've done a full restore and a calibration of the battery, and this still happens.

Yes I am at that point where I want to ask for a refund and go Android actually... But unfortunately here in my country it's not as easy to get a refund, I will have to strongarm my way to the store manager and throw a fit in their store before they give me my money back. If only I could turn back time and not have bought it in the first place...

Modern technology is co complex that is is hard to test fully in all the situation, with every kind of software installed, before its release to the public. I suggest re-reading last 10 screens of this discussion, where this 'battery drain problem' was successfully solved.

This also happens to me. If I leave it plugged in for about half an hour after it indicates full battery, it stays in 100% for a longer while than usual. Making me feel all excited that maybe my battery drain woes have finally ended. But alas, once it drops to 99%, it's downhill from there. Does that mean the indication of 100% full charge might be wrong, and I have not fully charged after all?

Another irregularity that I've never noticed with my past iPhones (have had every generation since 3G):

When charging the iPhone, it will say it has reached 100% but the battery icon will still be the lightning bolt for another 15 minutes or so before turning to the plug icon. I imagine these things are related.

Duckgirl: go to some iPhone repairsman and ask to solve this problem for a fee (like $30 would be more than enough). I do such things when I can't figure something about technology myself, did so last time when I turned my iPhone into a silent usless brick by installing wrong version of unsupported hacked software.

Why return a great phone in order to settle with a copycat when you could get the settings right.

ClayG: no, its unrelated.

The battery meter is not always behaving in a linear way and may not always be accurate either - many users have witnessed that, especially with new devices that were reset or when battery calibration seems incomplete or when a device hasn't gone through a full charge cycle - it's not entirely clear. Furthermore, usage stats be also me unreliable insofar as calling time is concerned. Which is why calculations must be made from 100% to shutoff. The flipside of this is the device staying at 1% for an extended period of time in some cases...

As a consumer, you deserve value. Do whatever it takes to make it happen. Complexity of such devices is no excuse for making these work as advertised - the burden rests on the manufacturer to make it work and if he can't, tough luck. Whether it's hardware, software, OS or app based is irrelevant. It's a system. It's certainly not the user's fault if he uses apps or features. Lastly, Apple makes tons of money with apps - then they should straighten up the developers in the app store if their apps disturb the performance of the phone.

Good luck!

What sort of advice is that? A phone under warranty should work as advertised and the user shouldn't have to extend a single penny to make it work. It's called merchantability. You're one of the most ridiculous fanboys I have ever seen in this forum in the last 600 pages.

Yuri, please don't suggest that someone pay to troubleshoot a device that is under warranty, as every iPhone 4S currently is. Furthermore, you have no basis to say that the two issues I was speaking of are unrelated (irregularities in the charging indicator when charging and when discharging sure seem related to me).

@Gyuri Moscow Russia

The battery life of iPhone 4s is miserable compared to iPhone 4.

The vast majority of iPhone 4s are affected by the battery life issue and static noise issue which are hardware issues!!!!!

The proofs that the battery life issue is not a sodtware issue and cannot be fixed by software updates are:

- iPhone 4s was released last year and even this year is not yet available a fix,

- this forum about iPhone 4s is the largest forum ever on Apple site and it has already ovet one million views,

- already has been 8 updates/releases/betas of iOS 5 and neither have fixed the battery life issue of iPhone 4s,

- stores which have boxes full of returned iPhones 4s,

- the iPads and iPods with iOS 5 are not affected by the battery life issue.

If a company thinks that "software is complex and the customers have to understand that" then that company should not be allowed to produce and sell anything complex.

I strongly suggest that anyone who has or thinks that has the battery lufe issue with his or her iPhone 4s to adk immediatelly for a replacement or a refund. It is Apple's fault that iPhone 4s has battery life issue and therefore Apple needs to deal with it.

I have to say, though, that my iPhone 4 (which was replaced just like week with a 4S) did take a big hit in battery life when it was updated to iOS 5.

If it is under warranty, troubleshoot the worried free. We in our country do not have such things as proper under warranty repairs, so its easier for me to go the electronics market and troubleshoot the device by iPhone gurus for a modest fee. Besides, I can party cheaply and by some music and DVDs there, there is huge selection of movies and music I like.

There is no point in exchanging the device however, as the problem is with settings and apps, not the device.

Besides, this is the best phone available on the market. I have one friend with Android, but he is frankly a fool. He doesn't use the phone, its features, but boasts he can copy filed directly to the phone in Windows. I have an app for than, be he was lazy to look for solutions for his desire to copy files. I am sorry for him, but he deserves exactly Android.