Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

Im not denying you're success... But be realistic. There's no phone I've ever had that needs battery conditioning that makes a phone life do a 180. Battery conditioning generally helps increase capacity by 10%. Most of the complainers in this situation have had their phones since October which gives ample time to cycle through conditioning. Battery issues like the ones I've described that many of the people are complaining about are not due to battery conditioning, there is a true malfunction happening.

I too was having the same issues.  5.0.1 -> 5.1 totally trashed my usage model.

This is an iPhone 4.

I read a note a couple of days ago to do a full reset on the device and really did do the trick.

Before I would be about 5 hours standby (maybe 1 hour of use) and be at the 20% warning mark.

Right now, after the reset, I'm at 1 day of standby and 5 hours of use, sitting at 27% battery.

Settings -> General -> Reset -> Reset All Settings

Keep in mind you'll have to re-enter your WiFi settings and a couple of others, so you may want to be sure you have all the information before you do the reset...  but that did work for me.

Hope it works for you.

=( What is going on with these phones? I got a brand new iphone 4s (16gb) yesterday afternoon, so far it has needed 3 complete charges, the battery is just draining, even when idle. Surely 700+ pages on a single forum thread apple need to find a solution??

xx

Your experience does suck, and I hope you are able to get it worked out. However, your claim of 98% of 4s users having battery problems is ridiculous...I would say more than 98% of users have NO battery issues at all; despite what anyone on this forum may say. My battery is fine, my numerous friends who own a 4s all have no problems, etc. I have met no one in real life with a battery drain issue. It does suck that a small amount of people are having this issue, but to claim it is a widespread problem with the 4s is just untrue.

On another topic, for those of you upset that you have to turn off features to save battery...have you tried keeping more stuff on? Obviously turning off 3G helps, and being on wifi is way better than 3G for battery. But I keep experimenting with location services, push email, etc and I honestly don't notice huge differences. Location services on hurts my battery a little but not enough that it is functionally useful to always keep it off. I keep Bluetooth off because I have no use for it, but basically everything else is on and my battery is similar to what it has been with everything off. From my experience, 3G is always the deciding factor in battery performance. If you have crappy service, your battery will suffer. It ***** that this is a problem, but for me, it's the network that makes all he difference.

I honestly think apple upgraded the antenna signal power in the phone to compensate for the issue they had last summer on the original iphone4; remember when the way you held the phone would disconnect calls? Well, I think the iOS 5 upgrade increased the data antenna power and it's going ape**** on the phone.

If your phone is in a case take it out and feel near the sim card slot, it's gets pretty hot if your 3G is turned on, why?

The processor is behind the apple logo on the back and it stays cool, so it's not the phone working too hard performance wise.

Think about it people, we have iPhones with fuc*** up antennas or a problematic code written for the internal 3G antenna that's trying to reach out for 4G since they wrote the code to accommodate for LTE, ect...

Since last full charge (Baring in mind it was plugged into the laptop for 30 mins(ish) also whilst I was trying to sync with Itunes.

Usage (5 hours, 55 mins)

Standby (8 Hours, 51 mins)

3% Battery

A lot of that usage has been me trying to set up the phone and find out what is draining the battery so much

Maybe 98% is a bit exaggerated in anger, but I wouldn't say it's even close to the opposite. Well say its subjective... Cool? As far as 3G being an issue; where I live I have great coverage and signals. I'll agree when you're in a dead zone, your phone reaching for a broadcast can def take a toll on your phone, but nothing like this. I think if it were a coverage issue it would have fried this fish already... It's strange no other phones on the market are really suffering from this issue directly, obviously that's not saying a ton, but it accounts for a lil. I honestly think people who don't have any issues can't even begin to understand this. I have never had a device of any kind old or new suffer like this battery wise. If you could see what I am dealing with I think you might be more understanding in the fact that this issue is redic and common...

When you see dat than take a screenshot from your iPhone to see everybody.

I had the same problem with an iPhone 4S that I got last week. I would lose up to 40% battery power during a day without even using it. I decided to full cycle charge it, then turned it completely off by holding the power button down until the swipe bar came up, swiped it, turned it off then turned it back on. I have now had it in standby for 8 hours and have used it for 24 minutes and the battery percentage is still at 100%. I don't know if this "fix" is long term, but so far the battery drain is completely improved. I had turned off EVERYTHING recommended prior to putting it to sleep. I will gradually turn some of those things on to see what develops. It seemed to fix my iPhone 4S, at least so far.

Today I can confirm, that it my SIM Card that has Alternate Line Service (ALS) feature, drains the battery, even after shutting down everything (ALL notification, ALL location services, no 3G, no data, no wifi, no bluetooth).

I use my other SIM Cards from older phone, and they work fine as they have no ALS feature.

So, try start your iphone with minimal settings (all Notification disabled, Location Services off, no 3G, no data, no wifi, no bluetooth), if your iphone drains its battery even with minimal settings, and see if it relates with ALS.

Could somebody prove me wrong on this one, as I just did experiment on one SIM card with ALS. Once I found another SIM Card that support ALS which suffers the battery drain, I will let you know. You may need older handset though, to see if your SIM Card support ALS

You can notice ALS if you insert SIM Card on some older phone that support ALS, it will show "Line 1" icon, and when it's clicked, it will give an option to switch to "Line 2"

For anyone telling that 3G makes battery drain (even without data), that happens to me.

But I'm currently on low coverage area, so probably I will revise my statement later.

I have to wonder if the battery issue is the reason my telecoms provider is giving away the 4S free with certain package deals. I'm bitterly disappointed Apple.

I think Apple knows a lot more than try are giving off... I think we will see the 4S show up on American plans for $99 or free very soon; whether that's due to this faulty product or the preparation for iPhone 5 release. It's a classic move in the cellphone industry. I was with T-Mobile for ten years and every two years they'd release a top shelf phone that would flop and it's go from $400 down to $99 or free in the blink of an eye, even though the specs were still current or even ahead of the game. I think Apple has become too large too fast and the quick production efforts to impress every year is eating them from the inside out... Just my two cents...

You might check to see if a new SIM card will solve your problem.  It sounds a bit like your phone's 3G cellular data service isn't set up properly.  I get less drain with 4G cellular data (what ATT calls 4G is HSPA+ in this area), than with wi-fi (N protocol).  It may be that your service still thinks it is talking to an Android phone....

Well, looking to get a sim checked out is def an idea, but when I had 4G before it was on a different sim and different carrier (tmobile) so that's like not the culprit, but I will have the sim checked to eliminate all possibilities; wouldn't it be hilarious if all this chaos was due to a giant run of bad sim cards?

phonytony wrote:

 

I honestly think apple upgraded the antenna signal power in the phone to compensate for the issue they had last summer on the original iphone4; remember when the way you held the phone would disconnect calls? Well, I think the iOS 5 upgrade increased the data antenna power and it's going ape**** on the phone.

 

If your phone is in a case take it out and feel near the sim card slot, it's gets pretty hot if your 3G is turned on, why?

The processor is behind the apple logo on the back and it stays cool, so it's not the phone working too hard performance wise.

 

Think about it people, we have iPhones with fuc*** up antennas or a problematic code written for the internal 3G antenna that's trying to reach out for 4G since they wrote the code to accommodate for LTE, ect...

Correction, YOU have a phone with a problem.  If the heat is near the SIM card, you may be one of the unlucky people with a short to the SIM card 'drawer'.  Sometimes just popping out the drawer, and making sure the card is properly seated will solve this one.  The ONLY time my phone has been noticeably warm was when I had it on car power, and was tracking my progress on Google Maps, which meant a lot of extra heat was to be dissipated.