Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

Yuri, without proper diagnostics, you cannot know whether battery issues are related to hardware or software. You're correct that battery drain is often related to software, settings, apps, etc, but it is possible also to have a hardware issue with the battery.

ClayG: in the US, there is a policy in place to replace or refund with no questions asked. But it consumes one's time to demand refunds and replaces, so I suggest to get the situation right and replace the settings and apps instead. There is no defect in the units, I've read enough of this discussion to confirm this.

I had 3 iphones until now ( 3G, 3GS, 4S), I bought used ones, about 2 months old each, and I experienced the same thing with their batteries: All of them had bad battery lives when I started to use them. After a while (a month or more) the batteries seemed last much longer than when I bought them. I regulary discharged them nearly to 4-5% batt level, and let them charge for a whole night. My 4S will be 3 months old in 2 weeks, I got it 3 weeks ago, in the first days I couldn't reach more than 26 hours of standby even if I didn't touch it. Now it seems I will get nearly 2 days. So I think the battery needs to be used for a while to reach its optimal performance.

I have to mention, that my two years old 3GS had been running in standby for 7(!!!) days with iOS 5.0.1 on it, I would be happy reaching 4 days with my 4S, but while my 3GS runs 7 dys in standby, its usage time is only 2 hours, my 4S has been running for 28 hours and its usage is 16(!!!) hours, what I simply don't understand, because I didn't even touch it. It must be the mail, or the icloud in the background, but the 3GS was configured the same!

Another interesting thing, that I never experienced before: after a whole-night charge my 4S stucks on 97-98% batt level, and it wont grow any further until I unplug it and put back on charge. It's a bit strange, but I can live with it...

Just consider a situation: you get Androids free whereas I pay a thousand bucks for an iPhone. Am I dumb? Besides, Androids can be had here for about half of that price (except the latest and greatest which I consider funny as there must be people who paid the same money for an Android and could be owning an iPhone - but the salesperson knows better it seems, I witnessed the android guy sales piches once, they could be really convincing sometimes) :-)

Pay some expert to troubleshoot your iPhone and use it happily ever after, stop complaining. Or join the camp of cheapos and fools by getting a refund and buying an Android.

Just stop complaining.

Yuri Moscow Russia wrote:

 

There is no defect in the units, I've read enough of this discussion to confirm this.

No, you haven't. It may be true that there is no widespread defect, but that does not preclude a hardware problem with any individual person's specific iPhone. They should simply take their iPhone to an Apple Store or other authorized service provider and have some diagnostics done on the device, leading to possible repair or replacement.

ClayG: do you think some Apple repairsman knows how to troubleshoot an iPhone? He will just replace the unit. It happened several times to some. Its their problem, not Apple's. I have given advice already.

If it's 700 bucks - sell it to me. I will save $300. Must be unlocked however, not locked to Verizon or AT&T.

I will troubleshoot it for battery issues for $30 and $270 is left for celebrating.

$270 buys you one of the best nightclubs, with alcohol and food.

And you still have the world's best iPhone.

Only to wait for one week for international delivery. Great deal, it seems. Adjust the settings, stop complaining. Apple can't do the job for you. Out of box, the phone should work OK.

gerbaudcorp wrote:

 

(...) my 4S has been running for 28 hours and its usage is 16(!!!) hours, what I simply don't understand, because I didn't even touch it. It must be the mail, or the icloud in the background, but the 3GS was configured the same!

Exactly what happens to me. Always have high usage time that just isn't real!

Also, when I use the log option of Battery Doctor Pro, the mail app appears very often without me even started it (and if I tap twice the Home Button, it doesn't shows up!).

Some comments on battery technology, as it relates to the "charge percentage".

Lithium-ion batteries have one feature, that the manufacturer should take care of: if you charge the battery fully (100% -- not according to the indicator, but in reality) while the battery is cool and then the battery is warmed up, it's charge increases (yes, over 100%) and that destroys the battery chemistry. The battery will be either immediately dead, or will hold much less charge. This is the reason why you are advised to never charge the battery while hot and never put your device in excessively hot place (like in a closed car under the sun).

Another issue with lithium-ion batteries is that they get damaged when deeply discharged, too. For this reason, any modern lithium-ion battery has internal electronics that will shut down the power when the battery goes below say 10% of charge.

Even if you do not use a lithium-ion battery, that is do nor charge/discharge it's chemistry slowly degrades. So there is absolutely no point in buying a spare battery and keeping it somewhere for a year or two. After that time, it will be almost as 'dead' as the one that you use. (ok, a little bit better, but definitely far from 'new')

This is the price we pay for light, high-capacity battery technology.

Lithium-ion however has one great benefit: while other battery technologies count each charging as separate cycle, with lithium-ion batteries the cycle is when you consume and fill up the battery's nominal capacity. Today's batteries survive 500-1000 cycles. Apple guarantees that your battery will hold 80% of it's capacity after 400 cycles. (which is one or two years according to the current iPhone 4S battery life)

From all this, it follows, that in order to provide greater life for your battery, Apple has to let you cycle only part of it's capacity. It is apparent, that when you charge the battery at "100%" it is not really charged that much. The typical charging technology for a lithium-ion battery is to charge the battery 'normally' up to 80-90% (I believe this is when your iPhone displays 100%) and then if you keep it plugged, continue to 'trickle charge' it further, at very slow pace. I believe it never charges more than 90-95% in order to provide for sudden warming of your phone when fully charged. Remember: less warming when the battery is 100% full == much longer battery lifetime.

There are lot's of 'battery utilities' in the App Store, that in my opinion do not do anything to improve your battery charge - the only provide more graphical indication of the process -- all charging is done by a charging circuit within your iPhone and that I believe is not programmable by any application, perhaps the only useful function is to notify you when your phone has finished 'trickle charging'.

EdiMC:

If you have very high usage times, compared with Standby time and you know you haven't been using the phone all the time, then by all means this is because you have some software running in the background. Or, you might have some inappropriate "invisible" setting.

The easiest way is to reset your network configuration Settings -> General -> Reset -> Reset Network Settings

Note that any remembered WiFi passwords you have will be lost.

If this does not help, you may have some application installed that is not ok. You may wish to reset all settings (this will not erase your applications and data). Or try removing applications that you don't use.

If your phone runs iOS 5.0.1(9A405), you may wish to upgrade to 5.0.1(9A406). You are not offered automatic update to this build, because it is the same version, but Apple has rebuilt 5.0.1 in order to resolve some issues. For all I know, it has new modem firmware (that controls the cellular chip) -- at least this is visible.

You can get build 9A406 by doing Restore in iTunes.

This procedure will make your phone 'as new' so you will have to restore all setting and applications.

It is advisable that you do not restore anything from backup I only restored contacts etc via iCloud.

Everything else you can sync via iTunes. Or perhaps, if you keep it in iCloud. But better to not restore settings as you may have something wrong in there.

This procedure or parts of it has helped a lot of people here.

Otherwise, just wait for iOS 5.1 -- it reportedly fixes a lot of background apps issues.

Note that an app will not appear in the multitasking bar (when you tap twice) if it is currently open on the screen. You have to close it first by tapping Home, and then double tap, and you'll see it there.

Interesting.

I just had my 4s replaced at the Apple store because the sleep/wake button stopped working.

I had previously had a problem on the old phone with the outgoing calls being muted but a complete restore took care of that.

When I updated the new phone to 5.0.1 the dreaded battery drain problem appeared. Fully charged last night and drained to 21% battery life by 12:00 pm today with no usage by me. Same thing yesterday.

Browsing through the forum I found a post on resetting the network settings.

Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings

That seems to have done the trick. Whew.

good, to hear that!

just go to Settings --> Location Services --> System Services --> turn off Setting Time Zone. Done. Let me know if it works (battery drain decrease 40-50%). If the answer is yes, spread it. Next software update for ios5 maybe on March.

Ahhhhh..... Same problem here, whenever I charge my iphone, the battery stay longs on 100% (about more than 1 hour of standby) but after 99%, its drains dramatically......... I don't know what's the problem ......