Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

Yes apparently the remaining issue is with that particular issue and a few other items are being addressed with 5.1. firstly a 3G toggle was added back. Secondly whatever was causing the "hang" thus requiring network settings reset to fix it has been resolved. I am not dev or do not have 5.1 so this is simply what I have read elsewhere. I posted more detail about this way back from what several developers were saying about it and what they have observed.

aetherians wrote:

 

Hi guys I didin't mean to add some fuel to this discussion, just want to share something. My iPhone 4S also suffer from the battery drain (about 5% per hour on good signal strength and about 10% per hour in area with bad signal strength, in this case where I live, totalling to about 20 hours of standby time and 3-6 hours of usage (mainly for browsing with 3G data connection)) and have tried everything suggested in this discussion to no avail. Today I tried to disable my cellular data usage from Settings menu after I fully charged my phone. Guess what.... it reduces my battery drain significantly  to 1%  per 2 hour. I guess the battery drain have something to do with the phone trying to actively mantain cellular data connection to the network (those who've been using Nokia phone are sure to remember that there is an option to use data connection when needed or when available and how it does affect the battery life by about 20% (my estimate, pay no mind to the calculation)). During my usage I notice that the iPhone tends to cling to 3G network aggressively despite the signal quality. I saw the signal indicator changed from full bar of 2G signal to 1 or 2 bar of 3G signal.

 

Just for info I'm using iOS5.0.1(9046) with WiFi & Bluetooth OFF, Siri OFF, no push email, iMessages disabled, weather widget active, location services enabled for map, compass, and weather only.

OK well 18/200= 9%  4/7.5= 53%  so 100%- (9+53) = 38% remaining  You are at 21% so a little off of MAX spec. If you take a look at a few settings you can probably make that up. Also I suspect you had some minutes on these specs and you just posted the hrs so that will change it a bit as well so this is a rough estimate at best. Also games will add a whole new level since its taxing the CPU and GPU etc.

Turn off settings>location>system and turn off all there (unless you travel and need the auto time zone) These are all unneeded services that simply send data back to Apple. Display brightness down to 50% or so and auto turned on should help some.

Also check any other apps for notifications and locations that you dont really need and turn those off. Have you performed the battery calibration (drain til turns off, then charge fully undisturbed even longer than when reached 100%)? Do that as well if you haven't.  It may take a few cycles to achieve max results there. Here is a little info if interested: http://technodedigest.wordpress.com/2012/01/16/performance-and-battery-tweaking- ios-5/  Although for iCloud I keep find my phone on just in case. All other iCloud is off as I dont need it. So if you dont need or use iCloud maybe turn all those items off other than perhaps find my phone.

Nancylm wrote:

 

My phone is working better now that I restored it. But I am wondering if it is appropriate for a new phone...  I have 18 hours standby and 4 hours of usage (no calls - just some Internet on wifi and a bigfish game for a bit). I have 21% batt left. I am wondering if that is good or not? It says that it should have up to 200 hours standby and up to 8 hours of talk time. It seems that talk time would take up a lot more batt life than just Internet and app usage.

 

Also in the last couple mins I went down to 17 % since I started typing.

I have a potentially stupid question - does iTunes WiFi sync suck up battery even with WiFi off? Because the checkbox that turns it on/off on iTunes is already unchecked on mine, but my phone still says it will sync when the PC is available. I reset the settings on the phone and now it says it's off, but I'm sure if I plug it into iTunes again it will come on again even if I don't touch the checkbox, and then it will be **** to make it turn off again

Do you have Wifi disabled ON THE IPHONE?   If not, it will poll looking for the PC to be turned on for syncing.   You need to configure the phone not to sync via wifi, not iTunes on your PC.

Duckgirl722 wrote:

 

I have a potentially stupid question - does iTunes WiFi sync suck up battery even with WiFi off? Because the checkbox that turns it on/off on iTunes is already unchecked on mine, but my phone still says it will sync when the PC is available. I reset the settings on the phone and now it says it's off, but I'm sure if I plug it into iTunes again it will come on again even if I don't touch the checkbox, and then it will be **** to make it turn off again

The iTunes WiFi sync only works when you have wifi enabled and you run iTunes on your computer and they are both in the same wifi network and you have enabled WiFi sync in iTunes (while the phone is connected by cable, in the Summary page).

Syncing iPhone when connected via USB to the computer is not WiFi sync. Besides, while connected to USB the phone is actually charging, filling the battery, not emptying it.

Apple says it will sync when connected to the WiFi network and charging. I see it connects to iTunes whenever iTunes is running. You can then sync manually. Or, charge it and it will sync automatically.

I believe there is no way WiFi sync can work, when you have WiFi disabled (thus, no way to consume battery power). But it seems, that the messages are somewhat misleading. Perhaps when WiFi is disabled, it should display on the iTunes WiFi sync page something like "WiFi is disabled"...

Various omments and advice from Apple suggests, that you may expect dinificant battery drain during WiFi sync if: you are not charging (obviously, if you are charging during the sync, that does not drain the battery, but the charger), you have large number of unsynched songs etc. They sometimes talk about 'incomplete transferes' that you need to fix or it will presumably continue trying to sync those. But in any case, as long as the sync is only initiated when you are chargng, it should not depete your battery.

Having said all this, I have WiFi sync enabled, WiFi enabled at all time and I don't find these consume noticeably more battery.

Okay thanks It's weird because there's no toggle for this option, wouldn't life be so much simpler if it was just there. lol

Yes, it is -- the toggle is actually in iTunes on the computer.

But won't the iPhone keep polling for the computer to sync with, even though the PC is toggled off?   Waiting for it to be ttoggled back on?    I would think that you would have to disable wifi sync ON THE PHONE.......   No?

dkalchev wrote:

 

Yes, it is -- the toggle is actually in iTunes on the computer.

There is no WiFi sync switch on the iPhone. There is a menu entry, but all it does is let you sync 'now', presumably without connecting your iPhone to power source (when it would initiate the sync by itself).

In order to disable iTunes WiFi sync on iPhone, you need to connect it to it's iTunes and remove the checkmark from there. It will then know it is not supposed to sync via WiFi.

Well, by golly, you are right!   My bad........   Should have looked first.

dkalchev wrote:

 

There is no WiFi sync switch on the iPhone. There is a menu entry, but all it does is let you sync 'now', presumably without connecting your iPhone to power source (when it would initiate the sync by itself).

 

In order to disable iTunes WiFi sync on iPhone, you need to connect it to it's iTunes and remove the checkmark from there. It will then know it is not supposed to sync via WiFi.

Now you're entering the world of crazy talk. I say I'm getting similar usage time from my iP4S compared to my old iP4 and you asked me to prove it. I post a comment from Anandtech, the site you keep quoting, and you decide to change the subject and focus only on 3D usage time and standby time. Anandtech stated that depending on you usage, battery life may be better, the same, or worse. Do you care to argue that?

To reach the advertised standby time I would to not use my phone for days. I'd guess that everyone here that actually owns and uses a smartphone, unlike you, will actually use the phone and will never be able to reach the advertised standby time. We can only extrapolate our standby battery drain from a short period of time. My battery decreased from 100% to 98% in more than 7 hours last night. Do some simple math, probably difficult for you, and compute how much my standby time would be.

1AppleADayNoWay wrote:

 

<yawn> If you need my approval to confirm your undisclosed iP4S usage "resembles" your iP4 usage, well you were constructing an elaborate fantasy about what our discussion was about - and congratulations for proving something to yourself without disclosing your usage or settings to no one while preserving your sanity - bravo. I don't care about you or your usage or your ego. I was merely stating that "picking up where amazing left off" certainly doesn't apply to battery life in terms of standby time or to 3D gaming time on the 4S. You lost sight of what this was about really. So feel free to move on.

This thread has officially transitioned from semi-informational to entertainment-only.......  

I have heard reports that it does. I was using it for a while but I have to fire up iTunes on laptop before it can sync so I figured I may as well plug it in to sync. So I have that turned off since not a real huge benefit from it. I guess if you leave iTunes up and runninig all the time on a pc somewhere other than where you are hanging out there may be some benefit as you can sync whenever you want by pressing the sync button on the device. One thing I have noticed is when phone is in sleep mode and you get to the lock screen, with wi-fi sync turned off, you will see 3G briefly then wifi will connect. Also watching the wireless router you will see the phone disconnect after a few min  when it go to sleep mode. With wi-fi sync on, it appears to always be connected and you wont see this behavior. Lock screen will be wifi immediatly and the router seems to maintain the connection. Sooooo is summary I believe it does help since wifi is not on constantly but may not be a huge difference. I would recommend you try it both ways and see how it works for you. In my case it does seem to help some by being off.

Duckgirl722 wrote:

 

I have a potentially stupid question - does iTunes WiFi sync suck up battery even with WiFi off? Because the checkbox that turns it on/off on iTunes is already unchecked on mine, but my phone still says it will sync when the PC is available. I reset the settings on the phone and now it says it's off, but I'm sure if I plug it into iTunes again it will come on again even if I don't touch the checkbox, and then it will be **** to make it turn off again

You again comment on something, in this case engineers, that you probably have little knowledge. Speaking as a engineer that maintains a firmware update utility for a company supporting many large OEMs, customer service IS a big part of my job. I am the support engineer AND developer.

I interact with end-users (rarely) and OEM support and test engineers (most of the time). Oh but, engineers and devs have always been poor at support. Please continue with knowledgeable experiences.

1AppleADayNoWay wrote:

 

You don't alienate me at all, and I'm nowhere near buying such a gadget to join the likes of you, Ricky or Yuri.

 

You entirely demonstrate why engineers and devs have always been poor at support. The main reason is that you take for granted your prior knowledge. It is entirely normal for the average user the restore his settings from a prior phone. He cannot know in advance that this may cause some problems - why would he? And if it does, he's stuck wasting precious time coming here to figure it out or going to the store and what not. This is not what was intended. If Apple had figured out how to sanitize their restore process, none of those types of issues would have happened in the first place. But there are other issues as well, which don't exist because you don't have them. But somehow you fail to grasp this or that. The more time the user spends on troubleshooting his device, and this is further compounded by the weak support structure such a forum offers and uneven Apple store support, the more the value is lowered because time is money. It should be troublefree - this is the nature of the Apple experience. For some it has become a less than stellar one.

Apple still has not came out publicly and admitted this 4s problem nor offered any solution. This is very remarkable we are seeing the true color of the big Worm riddled Apple. You have 2 or 3 apple trolls on here want everything turned off and expect everyone to go around with a $400 phone that is no better than a paper weight that can take a call. Was not this phone designed to have its functions turned on? Those on here that think charging the battery so much will not hurt it in the long run need to look at some other forums concerning this problems and other Iphones that had to be charged so much have a battery life of only around 1 year. Apple owes EVERY 4s owner new phones or money back no matter how long you have had it. They knew it was faulty when they sold it to you.   The Apple trolls need to get a life