Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

Well, you're welcome to your opinion,. I agree there are a lot of whiny posts that add little to the conversation.

I don't really care.

I care that a phone that advertises 200 hours of standby time gets, for me, a lttle over 24.

I care that Apple swapped out the battery on my first iPhone 4s, and gave me a new 4S (3 batteries total, now) and still the problem persists. Presumably, because it's not the battery that's the problem.

I care that Usage and Standby times are always 100% the same. Always. And that's not supposed to happen.

The phone, my phone, is not operating as advertised. How many hours of my life am I supposed to give up trying to get it to work? How many trips to the Apple store?

Perhaps Apple should sell it with an extension cord.

well yes, you are right, you have gone insane and nuts. go get some sleep

I agree that our smartphones do a lot more than regular phones and that warrants such heavy battery drain, but in my case and the cases of many others, it was just sitting there doing absolutely nothing with everything off, and it dies within 10 hours. Also I have had three replacements.

For the record, I've given up and returned it.

j_brahma wrote:

 

yes you are correct, the app does not do something extraordinary to improve battery life. I do not recommend this app for people whose battery is draining rapidly, its no use, because their rapid battery drain is due to software related problems. I have suggested this app only for people with acceptable battery life, to calibrate their battery in a better way and gain better battery life.

 

now look, for example take an iphone whose battery is at 60%, now this phone needs charging. so what we do is connect the phone to a wall charger and let the phone charge to 100%. Now normally what we all do is, we unplug the phone as soon as it show 100% charged in the phone's status bar with no more lightning symbol (charging symbol) by around say 1 hour. But the phone is not completely charged. The phone has completed only "FAST CHARGING". For longer battery life you need to do trickle charging, which takes around 3 hour or sometimes more.

 

see this, straight from apple's website :

 

 

" Standard Charging :

Most lithium-ion polymer batteries use a fast charge to charge your device to 80% battery capacity, then switch to trickle charging. That’s         about two hours of charge time to power an iPod to 80% capacity, then another two hours to fully charge it, if you are not using the iPod while charging. You can charge all lithium-ion batteries a large but finite number of times, as defined by charge cycle. "

 

 

 

 

 

NOTE : This applies to ipod and iphone batteries. For full details click here      :        http://www.apple.com/batteries/

 

so what this app does is, it shows us at what stage we are charging and how much time left for total charge to complete. this app is also usefull for keeping track of charging records.

 

 

Don't worry trickle charging won't harm your battery, i do it every day.

 

I have even read in many forums about people keeping their iphones plug to charger all night long till the morning and no harm at all. Which i do not recommend though.

My iPhone 4S stays on the charger every night while I am asleep.  My wife has been doing the same with here 3GS for about 18 months.  Both work fine.  I have no problem with battery power, and most things, except for location services and bluetooth are on.

EdiMC wrote:

 

I partially agree with you. Some of the problems reported here are in fact related with unrealistic expectations about the battery lifetime.

But many aren't!

Look at my case: I get 1 day from 100% to 0% with no use at all and with EVERYTHING turned Off. Isn't that pathetic?! I think it is!

Yes, that IS pathetic.  You should insist that you get a new phone until that stops.  That is, unless you just turn on the GPS and keep it on all the time, or do nothing with the phone but play 3D games until it goes dead.

This is my first time posting on the apple discussion site, and to be honest, I am new to the iPhone world.  I used to have an HTC Android phone, and decided that I wanted to try out the iPhone 4S.  I'm not really sure what to think of it just yet, because the battery doesn't seem as great as I hoped, but it is not horrible either. 

The phone lasts me from about 6.30am (when I unplug it), until I got to bed and charge it again (around 11pm) - I would say that is pretty good considering I check my email, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and misc. sites, make calls, texts, and listen to Spotify throughout the day. 

I have it set up to where only some of the locations are on, and have made a few adjustments.  Other than that, I have not restricted myself to using the phone the way anyone should use their phones.

This is a screen shot of the usage at 2pm today (I am at work, so I have not used it as much this morning, but everything i have listed in the above usage is blocked at my work, so I use my phone to check everything).

Please let me know what you think, and if I just need to stop worrying because the battery is INDEED OK! 

rphunte42 wrote:

 

EdiMC wrote:

 

I partially agree with you. Some of the problems reported here are in fact related with unrealistic expectations about the battery lifetime.

But many aren't!

Look at my case: I get 1 day from 100% to 0% with no use at all and with EVERYTHING turned Off. Isn't that pathetic?! I think it is!

 

Yes, that IS pathetic.  You should insist that you get a new phone until that stops.  That is, unless you just turn on the GPS and keep it on all the time, or do nothing with the phone but play 3D games until it goes dead.

I will try this one more time. Let's hope someone really takes notice and understands:

fact: any brand new lithium-ion battery needs to go trough several (at least 10) full recharge cycles, before it holds it's rated capacity;

fact: when you get a replacement phone, you are getting a phone with brand new battery (read the previous fact again);

From this follows, that before retrning your phone, you need to make sure your battery is excercised enough. If you don't, you get a NEW phone with a batter that has initially even smaller capacity to hold charge. Then you complain again and get a new phone with NEW battery and so until you either 'hit' a 'good' one, or just give up or have your battery exercised enough.

It is Apple's policy, that any refurbished mobile device gets a new battery.

Also, make sure, by all means that as soon as you get a new phone, you do full software reset. Many phones are weirdly provisioned by the carriers and may exibit all sorts of strangeness.

It seems to be a fact that you're ignoring some fo what we're staying, as well.

It's also a fact that my brand new iPhone held a charge for four days while it's Usage and Standby numbers were similar to what Julymel displays above (i.e., minutes of Usage time compared to hours of Standby time, an accurate reprsentation of how much I'd used the phone), but that after the Usage and Standby times were in lock-step, the battery started to drain in 24 hours.

Come on. I had my first phone for six weeks. It hard gone through MANY more than ten charges, and actually worked fine when I first got it.

We're (at least some of us) not talking about battery life that's somewhat below rated usage. We're talking about batteery life that is 10-20% of what was advertised. That doesn't get better, no matter how many times we've charged  the phone.

I'm currently using my iphone 3g and was going to buy an iphone 4s tomorrow......then i found this post :s

Is this ios update likely to make the battery much better? Or do you think i should stay away from the 4s and wait for the iphone 5 to come out later this year?

Given the reported issues, I would wait. Once the 5 comes out you can get a 4s for really cheap and it should be all working fine by then with the software updates addressing the remaining issues. However not everyone is having battery issues but there are other items such as muted audio (out going or incoming), contacts being shared with app vendors (security bug being addressed), photos potentially being shared if camera location is on, etc etc.   The belief is iOS 5.1 will address all these issues but no one knows for certain. So really if you can wait either the iPhone 5 or a cheap 4s with bugs all worked out as soon as the 5 is released may be a better option at this point.

BTW I have a 4s and battery is fine as is everyone I know who has one. We are all Verizon so CDMA instead of GSM.  I have experienced the muted audio a few times though when using bluetooth. It appears most users with issues are on GSM network. Also restoring from an older device backup seems to hose it up as well. So overall the majority of 4s are ok other than the few issues I mentioned which should be corrected with iOS 5.1

DogSoIdier wrote:

 

I'm currently using my iphone 3g and was going to buy an iphone 4s tomorrow......then i found this post :s

 

Is this ios update likely to make the battery much better? Or do you think i should stay away from the 4s and wait for the iphone 5 to come out later this year?

Another dissappointing moment for me. After installing new firmware from itunes and I didnt install a single thing. Everything is off. 1 hour later. 29 minutes of usage. I don't get it. I'll never do... Will report back again in the morning. I don't even wanna look at the phone neither touch it anymore.

Btw I've realized some long posts by some members. It's true some batteries might be bad but this is about the fact that nobody is touching my phone with literally nothing installed and everything is switched off is being used by something is I'm sorry to say it but b***it. Even the world's best performing battery wouldn't live up to any expactation with this kind (quite possibly software related) problem...

Reset your network settings. I bet that will stop the phantom usage. Otherwise select "reset all settings" and setup as new. That will not erase your apps and data. Run through the wizard when it reboots and you should be set other than a few system options you need to reconfigure.

arslanelver wrote:

 

Another dissappointing moment for me. After installing new firmware from itunes and I didnt install a single thing. Everything is off. 1 hour later. 29 minutes of usage. I don't get it. I'll never do... Will report back again in the morning. I don't even wanna look at the phone neither touch it anymore.

 

Btw I've realized some long posts by some members. It's true some batteries might be bad but this is about the fact that nobody is touching my phone with literally nothing installed and everything is switched off is being used by something is I'm sorry to say it but b***it. Even the world's best performing battery wouldn't live up to any expactation with this kind (quite possibly software related) problem...

DogSoIdier wrote:

Is this ios update likely to make the battery much better?

No one here knows. There's no definite release of any future update - Apple don't make their plans public.

A few beta versions have been released to the Developer community, with no acknowledgement of a battery problem existing - or being fixed. Some reports I've seen for devs using the betas say there's no improvement.

A couple of hundred pages back people were adamant iOS 5.1 would be released then got angry when it wasn't - the problem with rumours.

DogSoIdier wrote:

Or do you think i should stay away from the 4s and wait for the iphone 5 to come out later this year?

Again, you're into assumptions that there will be an iPhone 5 and that it will be released this year. I see loads of reports that say it will be Apple's "usual release cycle". They make me laugh - it's not like they've been doing it for 10 years, there's hardly a "usual" pattern. It would seem likely they'll be an iPhone 5 though. Personally, I'll never have another iPhone - they're not all they're made out to be and the handling of this battery issue was the final nail in the coffin.

rphunte42 wrote:

 

Yes, that IS pathetic.  You should insist that you get a new phone until that stops.  That is, unless you just turn on the GPS and keep it on all the time, or do nothing with the phone but play 3D games until it goes dead.

I will! As soon as I can try out 5.1! If that doesn't solve my battery problems (and the phantom usage which I thinks drains the battery like crazy), I'll send it to Apple.

dkalchev wrote:

I will try this one more time. Let's hope someone really takes notice and understands:

 

fact: any brand new lithium-ion battery needs to go trough several (at least 10) full recharge cycles, before it holds it's rated capacity;

 

fact: when you get a replacement phone, you are getting a phone with brand new battery (read the previous fact again);

 

From this follows, that before retrning your phone, you need to make sure your battery is excercised enough. If you don't, you get a NEW phone with a batter that has initially even smaller capacity to hold charge. Then you complain again and get a new phone with NEW battery and so until you either 'hit' a 'good' one, or just give up or have your battery exercised enough.

 

It is Apple's policy, that any refurbished mobile device gets a new battery.

 

Also, make sure, by all means that as soon as you get a new phone, you do full software reset. Many phones are weirdly provisioned by the carriers and may exibit all sorts of strangeness.

Fact: my phone was bought November 2011, so the cycle charges have long gone completed and the battery is more than exercised. So that isn't the problem. AND, I've set the phone "As New" in the three dozens of restores I already performed...so, that isn't the problem either...Got it?

sbailey4 wrote:

 

Reset your network settings. I bet that will stop the phantom usage. Otherwise select "reset all settings" and setup as new. That will not erase your apps and data. Run through the wizard when it reboots and you should be set other than a few system options you need to reconfigure.

It depends. I've done that a trillion times and I always get the same result: no fix!! lol so, be carefull how you bet your money, you may end up loosing it

DouginCMH wrote:

It seems to be a fact that you're ignoring some fo what we're staying, as well.

 

It's also a fact that my brand new iPhone held a charge for four days while it's Usage and Standby numbers were similar to what Julymel displays above (i.e., minutes of Usage time compared to hours of Standby time, an accurate reprsentation of how much I'd used the phone), but that after the Usage and Standby times were in lock-step, the battery started to drain in 24 hours.

 

Come on. I had my first phone for six weeks. It hard gone through MANY more than ten charges, and actually worked fine when I first got it.

 

We're (at least some of us) not talking about battery life that's somewhat below rated usage. We're talking about batteery life that is 10-20% of what was advertised. That doesn't get better, no matter how many times we've charged  the phone.

I rest my case...

Hey guys - I just wanted to follow-up on my earlier message. I've used my phone throughout the day, and even went the the gym where I used Spotify for over an hour.  made a few calls tonight, text messages, and chectked my usual apps. 

This is how it looks tonight: woke up and unplugged the phone around 6.30am, and it is now 9.40pm: again, not amazing, but the fact that my phone is lasting through the day and allowing me to use the way I like is all that matters I guess.  I even have wi-fi on because I was using facetime earlier.