Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

... and, I wasn't trying to play gotcha on the term "fix." Sorry if it came off that way.

I guess my point was that we can do things to make it better, but in the long run, I don't think we can solve it. Seems like we agree.

Marc,

Your usage looks great and right in line where it should be.

The "Standby" meter counts both Usage AND standby time.  So 15 hours, 25 minutes is the TOTAL time since you last unplugged it at 100%.

As an example, if you unplugged it at 100% and used it for ten minutes without locking the phone, your meters would look like this:

Usage - 10 minutes

Standby - 10 minutes

gregomac wrote:

 

As an example, if you unplugged it at 100% and used it for ten minutes without locking the phone, your meters would look like this:

 

Usage - 10 minutes

Standby - 10 minutes

Awesome. That's good to know.

It's such a dramatic improvement over yesterday that I'm feeling hopeful. And the urge to knock on wood. But, mostly hopeful.

PS: "Awesome. That's good to know" really means: "Thank you, I appreciate the information." I really should learn to say thank you before pressing "add reply."

it's hard to say for sure - but, I believe the most-significant imrpovement has been by eliminating Location services from the "Reminders" app.

... and, I wasn't trying to play gotcha on the term "fix." Sorry if it came off that way.

I guess my point was that we can do things to make it better, but in the long run, I don't think we can solve it. Seems like we agree.

Marc,

Odd, but location based reminders is my absolute fav new feature and it hasn't caused any problems for me after I took the steps outlined in my first post.

Naw, I knew what you were trying to say, no need to apologize.  We do agree.

Hey, gregomac - Tnx for that info. I'm keeping an eye on my stats and that helps explain what I'm looking at!

Here is a problem I found today. I had push email turned on and I turned it off and set it to manual to see if that was causing the battery to drain faster. Well even with mail accounts set to manual and push to off I was still receiving email when it came in. I confirmed this by sending a test message to myself and getting it almost immediately.  I then reset the phone and after resetting the phone stopped receiving email like it was supposed to. Now I am wondering if some of the settings we are trying are not really taking and that we might have to do a reset after every change in the settings menu to get it to actually take now. Under ios4 this was not a problem but ios5 it seems like things are still sending and receiving no matter what our settings are set at.

Frenzi wrote:

 

First, I'd like to thank those who have carefully detailed possible solutions to the excessive battery usage issue.

 

Like others, I've noticed it's NOT confined solely to iPhones. Lion has caused much higher than normal battery depletion in my Macbook Pro and I've not yet figured out a solution to that issue. But, back to the iPhone.

 

Other than those who have truly received hardware lemons, I don't believe the battery issue is quite as dire as it seems at first glance.

 

My phone, a VZW Black 32gb 4s, suffered from identical and dismal battery depletion as many others. For the last few days it has behaved perfectly, and considering this models far higher dependence upon GPS usage, the battery duration is pretty darn good.

 

I started out by reading over 50 pages of this thread. Between the "me too" responses, there is a LOT of valuable data, carefully recorded by people who investigated this issue thoroughly.

 

I migrated from the iPhone 4 to the 4s, having upgraded the 4 to iOS5 and then backing it up to iCloud. Everything went off without a hitch, although due to the no doubt impossibly high demand on Apple's servers it took literally hours.

 

I "fixed" the battery depletion issue on my 4s by adopting the strategy of turning everything OFF, then gradually back on only those features I deemed important. Here's what I did:

 

1. Turned off sending diagnostic data to Apple.

 

2. Turned off automatically search for connections in Wi-Fi.

 

3. Turned off automatic Date & Time setting under General, Date & Time.

 

4. Set mail retrieve to Manual. Fetch isn't important to me. I'll check it when I feel like it.

 

5. Turned off Siri raise to speak feature.

 

6. Turned off automatic Time Zone under Location Services.

 

7. Turned off use cellular under iCloud Documents & Data.

 

8. Turned off Ping.

 

When I'm finished with applications, I close them and likewise shut down the screen. I don't want for the timer to do that, but it's set at 1 minute should I forget. Screen brightness is set just a wee bit lower than default.

 

I do use Locations for locating the iPhone and Reminders. WiFi is on for several hours a day and Internet usage is fairly high also.

 

I didn't see it mentioned here, but the signal strength is also a key factor in power usage. My phone usage at home in a semi-rural area is only 3 bars at BEST, while away from home it's consistently 4-5 (highest) bars.

 

I continue to condition the battery by always letting it run completely dead, then recharging.

 

The improvement has been nothing short of miraculous. I didn't report a battery issue to Apple because for me, there really isn't anything to report. I'll be happy if they do issue an OS patch to improve it, but right now I'd like to know what the heck Lion is doing to run down the battery on my Macbook Pro and making it hot enough to cook an egg.

 

Like it or not, the 4s is kind of a beta phone, so we're testing it.

 

Oh, my 4s isn't running hot anymore either. I don't believe there is any single fix, it's a combination of turning some resource hog features off and conditioning the battery that "fixes" the problems.

 

Hope this helps someone. As I stated in my opening, thanks to those who posted these solutions because they sure worked for me.

so you ended turning the IP4s into a $6xx dollars flip phone.....it is a short time solution............i did that

too...........yep

in 2 G mode for more battey life !!!!!!!!!!!  wowwwwwww  what a flip or a flop phone.

P.S. in short or long term , these batterys wont last 18 months like it is supoose to do.

in 8 months they will be at 50% working and dropping faster and faster.

i know about all kind of batterys  because i am in R/C modelist from 10 years. 

Frenzi wrote:

 

Odd, but location based reminders is my absolute fav new feature and it hasn't caused any problems for me after I took the steps outlined in my first post.

I'll go back and look at that again.

This is my second favorite feature (behind Siri). However, I will note that they weren't really working for me ... which may explain why it would drain my battery and not yours.

My worst battery issues have been at work. Some how I picture Location Siri (feels like location services needs a name) is sitting there for 9 hours, saying: "Dude, you're so, so close to work. Come on, you can make it."

Marc Posner wrote:

 

Frenzi wrote:

 

I don't believe there is any single fix, it's a combination of turning some resource hog features off and conditioning the battery that "fixes" the problems.

 

Agree and disagree.

 

Disagree: I think that turning things off and conditioning the battery help extend battery life. These are all important things to add minutes to the usability of the battery during the day. With my old 3G, this is how I made it through longer days.

 

But... I don't think it's the solution. Let me give an analogy: not racing your car from light to light, inflating your tires and driving 55 will improve your gas mileage. But, while it will let you drive further, it is not the solution to a leaking gas tank.

 

 

Agree: There isn't a single fix. There is something "invisible" running that is causing the battery to drain and the use time to report higher than what the user is actually using.

 

I think for that is caused by different things - but, all related to the phone being very persistent in attempting to complete tasks. For instance, I never actually get to work  because my office is actually at least a half mile from where Google indicates our street address to be. I believe location services knows I'm almost there, so it keeps checking (all day, maybe) to see if I've gone that last distance.

 

There's evidence of that type of persistence in the reports of attempting to connect to Exchange servers; probably iCloud too. I know for fact that MobileMail attempted for more than two hours to send an email a couple of days back. My Exchange server was reporting back that the account was full and I couldn't send. Mail didn't give up.

 

Given that line of thinking, I suspect that is why we see posts like "TRY THIS! IT WORKS!!!!" only to find it doesn't work for us.

 

We're all trying to cure simptoms and none of us have the tools to cure the illness.

 

I really believe that the more data that the Apple techs gather, they'll be able to spot the cause and we'll all be good. I have every confidence they're working like crazy and losing sleep.

 

This company hias a history of fixing problems and I have no reason to think they will leave us hanging.

I AGREE

I'll go back and look at that again.

This is my second favorite feature (behind Siri). However, I will note that they weren't really working for me ... which may explain why it would drain my battery and not yours.

My worst battery issues have been at work. Some how I picture Location Siri (feels like location services needs a name) is sitting there for 9 hours, saying: "Dude, you're so, so close to work. Come on, you can make it."

Marc - I did notice something about location based reminders. They are not really accurate if you're using only 3G (in my case, VZW). I'm constantly getting alerts when I'm a couple of miles away in any direction from my location under 3G, but things calm down considerably if I have WiFi turned on. Any day now I expect Siri to start swearing at me for (edited to add) NOT responding to the reminders.

"Dude, you're so, so close to work. Come on, you can make it."

Now THAT's funny!!!!!! LOL

IF , i said IF it is a harware problem they will slow the production of iphones very fast. glad i took a 2 years Apple care plan.

if it is hardware i will wait some months to have or change to  a fix phone , second generation.

and the iphone 5 will go in production in spring 2012.        and that is a very BIG delimma for APPLE .

maybe it will cost less to change it to a 5 instead revise the 4 on the production line.

the other thing is many dont know they have a problem (maybe 50% of these millions.) and are thinking it is normal

because ALLLLLLLL    SELLERS say that smart phone have to be charge each day or 1.5 day. and that include

APPLE IPHONES. (they say big screen are tough for a battery and so on , etc etc)

i wont change my phone NOW  because the next APPLE store is 50 milles from my home. i buy it at Bell

mobility and these stores do not take charge of iphone , they sold you a Apple Care Plan and wont help you

after the phone is sold.

but they help for android smart phone (1 year) . and like i said before  whe have 14 days to return but no more

than 30

minutes of  use (calls) on the contract.

Apple Canada dont know about this site . i told them that they are hundred or thousand frutrated users.

they never heard about battery issue  lollllllllll it is not a iphone 4  IOS 4 it is a iphone 4S with IOS5 .

that will take long before the news spread out here. In Canada , Canadians believe easely what they say to them........ weird.

i am not like them.......i go to US site and better information............

Very good read, very informative.   Thanks.  I totally agree.  I do however have a couple questions.  Where is this "ping" setting everybody is talking about?   I have to be totally overlooking it.  Also with the iPhones battery, after it reaches 100% should I unplug it, or are the overnight charges good?  My 3G phone seemed to last 3 years before I saw a drastic depletion in the battery.  Also on that note it did happen to have a "particular" app that would shut off the 3G after being locked.  Something I think would benefit the life of any phone when not in use.  But back to my 4s.  I have no absolutely no complaints about the battery.  You just have to be wise in how you setup your phone.  I will say the first couple of days that I had the phone I did have to charge it a lot, but that could've been because of my settings or becaus I was on it all the time.  THIS PHONE IS BAD ***!!!   Now my battery life is pretty good especially considering that I've turned my brightness up all the way to try to resolve the "yellowish" screen , without having to get a new phone. 

So good luck to everybody in trying to find the ideal way of setting up the phone. 

P.s.  I am the "run on sentence" KING!!!!

Ok so far, this morning, after 1h14 usage and 1h57min standby, it's 84%.

The use i made of it this morning was reading a book in ibooks.

I don'T think tthis is amazing. But it seems to be a tiny bit better.

BUT i kindof noticed that when i start facebook, it drop something like 5 times faster...

Losing a percentage every 1-2 minutes....I've already hear before that facebook was draining the battery,

but at that point? Is there many of you that are using facebook and noticed the same thing?

Is facebook considered as a light or heavy usage?

Oh, and I've got an appointement at the apple store for tomorrow afternoon.

The guy told me he will check it out, and when i asked him what will they do (tests, replacing the phone in case nothing works, etc?) he never wanted to answer me. The only thing he said is that when I,'ll walk out the store, everything should be fixed.....Hmmmm...Can I have doubts? I wish i could just believe it...

I am now on my second iPhone 4S. On the first phone, the battery was draining at a rate of about 10% every hour. My new iPhone (that was replaced by a nice apple store employee) is better. However, my old iPhone 4 lasted over two days with the same type of usage that I am putting with my iPhone 4S.

The problem with the battery life is iOS5. Beta iOS5 (when it got seeded to devs) was having the same problem.

The whole reason I switched from Android was of the poor battery lfie on android devices, it seems that Apple has the same problem. This battery life problem needs to be fixed immediately.

Otherwise, I will return my 4S and get a different phone. One that doesn't need a power cord keeping it alive.