Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

Btw is it me or is the iphone 4s getting warmer since 5.1 update?

Did anyone else notice this?

hello everyone. After reading this discussion for several hours decided to take some action last night. After updating to 5.1 and restoring to new device did full charge cycle. i got a good bit better battery life. I have all location system services off,not sending any diagnostic data,but 3g on,icloud,photo stream on too. During usage i used mostly web related apps like facebook,ebay,email and safari. And couple received and replied messages. I think this iOS update is pretty good. well this probably not that good as iphone 4,but close

Thanks for standing up for me - I guess I didn't realize that I was stupid because I wanted to use my iphone to its full potential.  there a FEW settings that I admit don't need to be turned on, but I should not have to turn everything off.  THAT is plain stupid, an quite frankly a waste of money.  If i want a phone that doesn't do anything, then I can use my old flip phone.

I understand some of the people on this board have seen a lot of posts coming through about battery issues, but come on...it doesn't make you an expert, much less give you the right to be rude.

Chris CA wrote:

 

Pavan Kulkarni wrote:

 

It's not complicated

No it's not but people should not have to unconfigure default settings to use a product as intended.

 

Just like how you do with your home, dont you turn off the AC or light

When I leave but I had to turn them on in the first place. They don't default to on.

I bet, you dont turn off your car headlights during the day....

Turn them off? So yours are always on, even when car is not running? and you need to shut them off in the day? Like all the options on the iPhone?

And yes, I do (sometimes) turn them on in the day.

And many cars are now configured to always have lights on when running. Just like all the options on the iPhone.

 

The battery life ratings are based on default settings. They are done under controlled settings but they are not some special, super secret configuration.

and 8 hours talk time and 200 hours standby time is just that.

If you do nothing except phone calls, you can expect 8 hours use. If you do nothing except power the phone on, you can expect 200 hours standby.

It's not mixture of internet, movies, emails, web browsing, a few apps, etc..

These those have their own, separate figures.

My car is one of those with the always on (when in gear) lights.  I hate that!  I rather enjoy being able to control things.  Call me a control freak.

I completely agree with you about some of the defaults Apple chose for the 4S.  The user should have the option to opt in, rather than opt out to things like iAds, and traffic information.  Congress in the US is not looking at this, among other security/privacy issues for all smartphones.

The specs aren't secret.  There is a website that explains how they tested, and, as expected, they set up ideal conditions.  I am pretty sure that their tests for standby were run with 3G cellular data OFF, and wi-fi not connected.  And talking for 8 hours is probably possible if you aren't doing ANYTHING ELSE on the phone, such as 3G cellular data, wi-fi, GPS, etc. and you are standing under a cell tower.

Julymel wrote:

 

Thanks for standing up for me - I guess I didn't realize that I was stupid because I wanted to use my iphone to its full potential.  there a FEW settings that I admit don't need to be turned on, but I should not have to turn everything off.  THAT is plain stupid, an quite frankly a waste of money.  If i want a phone that doesn't do anything, then I can use my old flip phone.

 

I understand some of the people on this board have seen a lot of posts coming through about battery issues, but come on...it doesn't make you an expert, much less give you the right to be rude.

I have never seen anyone advocate turning everything off, except in the troubleshooting process.  That would be stupid, just like not turning off things you won't use just because 'well it should work fine that way'.  I suppose if someone found their new TV tuned to channel 37 they wouldn't change it, and if the volume were too high, they would get earplugs?

rphunte42 wrote:

The specs aren't secret.  There is a website that explains how they tested, and, as expected, they set up ideal conditions.  I am pretty sure that their tests for standby were run with 3G cellular data OFF, and wi-fi not connected.

Umm RP, Julymel was not complaining.  Simply stated how the new phone was working great even with items on that were being used. Its was just an update how the replacement iPhone was so much better than the last one. Did you see the stats on the screenshot? Pretty decent I would say. But I did not read a complaint about battery life.

rphunte42 wrote:

 

Chris CA wrote:

 

rphunte42 wrote:

 

Leaving things turned on that you don't need, want, or use is just plain stupid.

 

As the man said, stupid is as stupid does.  And wasting battery power because one is either too ignorant or too lazy to go through the settings and turn off things they won't use, qualifies.  Especially if they subsequently complain about not getting enough battery life....

Dang I am about to agree with most here. Reset,  reset again. reboot then reset then stand on one foot and restore a 4th time and the iPhone will work better. Holy Crap why cant it just friggin work like their slogan states. I mean good grief while I am fine with making a few tweaks to improve battery life its total BS to have to do all that crap every time there is an update just to make the phone work at all.

I had to restore and jump through hoops too after the 5.1 update the 2nd day and again today (just reset network settings today) and I really have not had any issues since I updated to 5.0.1.  Mine came with 5.0 and the battery didn't fair very well then  until 5.0.1 helped and all the tweaking of settings.

Point is we should be able to update let the phone reboot and it be better than before or at least at least the same. And you know what, yes with all the DA** settings at default. While I do typically have fine battery life it still is a load of crap when all of a sudden crap hits the fan for no reason requiring a reset of some form or fashion to get it back working. And yes I have a ton of stuff turned off that I dont use, like you say no point on having it on BUT it should work with it on.

And we waited for 4 months for this? How long before the next update to fix this update. <sigh>

I guess my Apple troll, lover, fanboy stripes have been stripped away now huh?

hey i am getting 8 hours of talk time and 30 hours of standby using all services except 3g. is it fine?

I think that is pretty good. What version of iOS you using?

I updated my iPhone 4S with iOs 5.1 two days back and the battery life has drastically improved. I had started at 100% charge at 9 am and after six and half hours  currently it is showing 84%!! the ios 5.1 should do the trick as stated by Apple

Wow!!!  This thread is still going?!?!   I posted way back when the 4s first came out, and I didn't think this post would go this far.  Right now I'm still running 5.0.1.  And I have currently tried "all of the above".  My phone would have good days, my phone would have bad days.   I would get used to my phone performing "averagely", then out of no where my phone would have an extremely GREAT day!  And then vise versa  for an extremely bad day.   It would blow my mind mainly because I wouldn't change any settings or use it any different than the previous day???   Especially recently...???  I have been a little skeptical about going to 5.1 just yet, or Atleast until I see everybodies feedback here(on the

never ending thread).  But (COINCIDENTALLY) after the release of 5.1 my battery has magically went from having a charge of 30-50% charge at the end of my work day to 50-70% charge????   I use my phone the same as I have since two months after I got it (I babied it the first two months).  I don't get it personally.  I still stand by my battery dropping significantly when there is "no service".  I will say I did get a little excited when I heard something about AT&amp;T and Tmobile getting together, mainly because the only spot I get "no service" is right next to a Tmobile tower (this location is one of my work sites so I see it at least twice a month). 

Over all I feel I've been a pretty satisfied iPhone user.  One thing (maybe I'm dreaming on this one) that I would like is , before my year warranty is up if apple did some type of battery swap out or something to ensure the longevity of my (our) device(s).  Just a thought that would totally put my mind at ease over this whole "battery debacle (I hope I spelled that right)". 

Thanks for listening. 

OK little update. Still should not have to babysit and pamper this device but............ What happened yesterday was I had turned on iCloud contacts to shoot a copy up to iCloud for backup. Not sure why since I use gmail and outlook and both ave my contacts.

Anyway usually I will turn on, let it upload contacts then turn it off. I forgot to turn it off yesterday. So I suspect that's what hung me up causing me to reset network settings. My usage was hung and going up with the clock matching standby. Last night when I went in to check iCloud backup I noticed contacts were still turned on!! So anyone with issues still may want to check that. If you can get by without iCloud keep it off. Seen too many responses that its causing problems. I only have find my phone turned on and now photostream since the update. All other iCloud services I usually keep off simply because I don't need it. With gmail, calendar and contacts etc are already synced. But clearly that caused my issue yesterday . Interesting after reset network settings it seemed to be ok even with contacts still on. Again too many quirky idiotic issues to manage for simple features that should just work..

I have to agree with many who have updated to ios 5.1 (although I never had a battery problem with my 4s) - the newest ios firmware does appear to extend battery life. 

Guys I think I get it: the problem comes by manipulating some settings. Yesterday after a DFU restore on Itunes, my battery was excellent (20% lost on 14h during the night).

This morning, I changed some settings, (notifcations mainly, and locations shut off)

---> since I did this, my 4S is again leaking, hot as a fire, I could bake an egg on it!!!

For me, 5.1 just reacts badly to some change of settings.

---> DFU restore and then: DON'T touch!!!