Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

Jameson! wrote:

 

This is where your particular situation has you blinded to additional realities......    My situation leads me to a different conclusion.   I shut off only the Time Zone and iADs location services.   I have 3 email accounts set up, with two being PUSH and one of those Exchange.   I use wifi all the time and BT is on for when I'm in the car.   I have icloud running, iTunes Match running, photostream running.   I don't waste time clearing out my app history every time I'm done with an app, so my previous apps bar has some 20 apps listed in there.

 

I charge my phone every night, while sleeping.   64gb 4s received on day one of the release.

 

So, I upgeraded to 5.1 yesterday evening, then plugged in at bed time.   This morning I unplugged and all the while attached to wifi, I lost nothing ---- After 2+ hours, my phone was still at 100% with 23min of usage.

 

Time to go out --- I left home, stopped for something to eat and while there (on 3G or AT&T's faux 4G), worked a bunch of emails, did a little facebooking and read some news stories.   Immediately, when leaving my wifi connection, the battery began to drop quickly.   After some 40min on 3G, with steady usage, I was donw to 85% remaining.   So that's 15% in less than 3/4 hour.   The phone was warm, but not hot.

 

This reinforces my belief that the problem is in how the 4s and iOS 5 manage cellular data with the new dual antenna system.   For the heck of it, I brought my iPAD-1 with me, set up with the same exact email configuration, same wifi/3g connections, same iCloud, photostream and iTunes Match settings....   After all morning and part of the afternoon, it's at 98% remaining after 8 hours.    I know I'm comparing Apples & Oranges (so to speak), but to see the phone battery drop so quickly, just by leaving the wifi environment, to me, is very telling.

 

I'm guessing that APPLE is not going to be able to fix the 3G battery drain issue and iPhone 5 is our only hope.   And that will require a bigger battery, and probably a bigger form, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.......

 

OK.  You indicated 40 minutes usage of 3G.  Spec is 6 hours of 3G.  So, you used about 1/9 of your 3G ration. and 1/9 is 11%, so the 3G usage was 11% of the 15% you used, minus the 2% you already used, and that leaves 2% for all the internal functions that always go on. 

Unreasonable expectations.

Wibcs39, what I'm finding weird is my TIme since last full charge is blank.  I'm not complaining based on Apple's sepcs, I am complaining based on my own data.  I know that sounds odd but I am an Accountant and Statistician so I document everything very closely.  I just find that since this update my battery has declined roughly by 33%.  Everyone will check my math on that even though up above I said its down 20% but from where I should be at 65% and only being at 44% that shows me a drop of 34% from where I should be.

(44/65) = .67 - 1 = 33%

So I am not complaining about excessive usage as much as loss from where I was yesterday and before. 

I am going to watch over the next couple days and see if maybe it just being the first day and not killing the battery yet may have been a side effect.

Well hopefully that works out, my roommate and I both seem to think our batteries seem a little better today than yesterday, I hope everyone gets that result.

I understand everything you are saying, but what makes me mad is seeing my battery drop from 93-88% in less than 5 minutes while I check my emails - that is simply ridiculous.  I have not used my phone much today, and i just got back from a lunch break so i decided to check emails, and i just see it drop as i am looking through a few emails?!

come on now...that is just unacceptable.

I have never had a problem with the battery on my 4S. I just upgraded last night to 5.1. Been using the phone since 7:30am and the battery is showing 72% left.

my battery literally dropped 10% in less than 20 minutes - AWFUL

I updated and fully charged yesterday.

Last night the only app I had running was the Nightstand app. I pushed the power button to sleep the iPhone.

11:52 PM last night - 95%

7:24 AM today - 67%

Not much (if any) different than previously.

NO......   I said I was using the phone for 40min.   Reading emails, the phone has the screen on, but is only occasionally sending receiving, while I'm reading, correct?   I was not streaming data during that time, which would be your 3G usage numbers as you presented them............

rphunte42 wrote:

 

Jameson! wrote:

 

This is where your particular situation has you blinded to additional realities......    My situation leads me to a different conclusion.   I shut off only the Time Zone and iADs location services.   I have 3 email accounts set up, with two being PUSH and one of those Exchange.   I use wifi all the time and BT is on for when I'm in the car.   I have icloud running, iTunes Match running, photostream running.   I don't waste time clearing out my app history every time I'm done with an app, so my previous apps bar has some 20 apps listed in there.

 

I charge my phone every night, while sleeping.   64gb 4s received on day one of the release.

 

So, I upgeraded to 5.1 yesterday evening, then plugged in at bed time.   This morning I unplugged and all the while attached to wifi, I lost nothing ---- After 2+ hours, my phone was still at 100% with 23min of usage.

 

Time to go out --- I left home, stopped for something to eat and while there (on 3G or AT&T's faux 4G), worked a bunch of emails, did a little facebooking and read some news stories.   Immediately, when leaving my wifi connection, the battery began to drop quickly.   After some 40min on 3G, with steady usage, I was donw to 85% remaining.   So that's 15% in less than 3/4 hour.   The phone was warm, but not hot.

 

This reinforces my belief that the problem is in how the 4s and iOS 5 manage cellular data with the new dual antenna system.   For the heck of it, I brought my iPAD-1 with me, set up with the same exact email configuration, same wifi/3g connections, same iCloud, photostream and iTunes Match settings....   After all morning and part of the afternoon, it's at 98% remaining after 8 hours.    I know I'm comparing Apples & Oranges (so to speak), but to see the phone battery drop so quickly, just by leaving the wifi environment, to me, is very telling.

 

I'm guessing that APPLE is not going to be able to fix the 3G battery drain issue and iPhone 5 is our only hope.   And that will require a bigger battery, and probably a bigger form, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.......

 

OK.  You indicated 40 minutes usage of 3G.  Spec is 6 hours of 3G.  So, you used about 1/9 of your 3G ration. and 1/9 is 11%, so the 3G usage was 11% of the 15% you used, minus the 2% you already used, and that leaves 2% for all the internal functions that always go on. 

Unreasonable expectations.

Dude...If that 1 hr 43 mins is ur usage and the battery is at 80 %, what more do you want?...Use a car battery and the phone will last forever.....

and now i'm at 57%

with 2 hrs 8 mins usage

7 hrs 20 mins stand by

I'm at 95% after 12 hours, update made my battery amazing

Just make sure you backup your movies separately. These apparently do not go to Photo Stream and you are likely to lose them if not backed up.

I upgraded last night to IOS 5.1 and now I got this.

I was surfing very much in the Internet with 3G and wrote many messages.

Is it good or not?

After upgrading to iOS 5.1, I'd suggest going through a complete charge cycle (charge fully and then don't recharge until it shuts itself off) before evaluating the battery life.

This morning, after charging my iPhone 4S all night, the battery showed at 98%.   From the past I know that's a calibration issue and sure enough after turning the phone off and on, it jumped to 100%.  Looks like that little bug isn't fixed.

On a side note, it took forever to reacquire service (another bug not fixed apparently).

Jameson! wrote:

 

NO......   I said I was using the phone for 40min.   Reading emails, the phone has the screen on, but is only occasionally sending receiving, while I'm reading, correct?   I was not streaming data during that time, which would be your 3G usage numbers as you presented them............

Don't have exact data points for the iPhone 4S, but on other similar spec devices:

- the screen draws a lot of power when ON. You may improve the situation bi dimmig it a bit. If you want to conserve battery power, Apple also reccomends disabling Auto-Brightness.

- the 3G radio apparently consumes power any time it is on. It consumes more power when transwering data (of course), as does the WiFi radio. But the WiFi radio, being more mature technology, wastes very little power when not activeli transmitting (and most of the time, you are receiving most of the data anyway)

Apple has published long ago very good guide to optimize your iPhone battery drain. Anyone having battery life issues should first try the hints outlined there: http://www.apple.com/batteries/iphone.html

I did update my iPhone 4S to iOS 5.1 yesterday, was using it for few hours, took dozens of photos etc. It is currently at 54% with 21 hours 6 minutes Standby and 4 hours 23 minutes of Usage. Thinking of it, those 4 hours are pretty much real usage while the phone was in my hand and me taping something on the screen.

For me, the best option in iOS 5.1 is the ability to disable 3G. If I am out of WiFi coverage and need really fast network connection I know how to flip a switch --- but that saves me from all the 3G maddness (and no, it is not Apple's fault in any way - it is just power hungry immature technology)

Anyway, when brand new, my iPhone 4S too exibited 'phantom usage'. It was practically gone after the first network reset and Restore to 9A406 via iTunes (sadly, I did both in short sucession so could not say which one was the solution). I believe iPhones often come pre-configured by the carrier with some weird settings and one will do good service to themselves to reset the phone to defaults as soon as they get it.

I haven't reset after iOS 5.1 but in principle, it is good idea to reset to defaults after each software upgrade.

I had an older iPhone 3GS that was upgraded to 5.0 and 5.0.1 without any reset and just recently decided to do a network reset (only) -- that made few more options visible in Settings. So yes, old settings are almost never optimal!