Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

lahori wrote:

 

I took my 4S to a local Apple Store to get its battery issue fixed.

 

They hooked it up to their diagnostics, and told me that there are multiple crashes in essential OS features of the phone that are causing the issue, but the battery is normal. I told them that I have tried everything already. I restored the phone to a new state, installed IOS 5.1.1 on it, and only put in essential apps that I needed.

 

At that point, for some strange reason, the apple respresentative decided to offer a "battery replacement" to me. This was weird because a few minutes back they told me that the diagnostics had revealed the battery was normal. Nevertheless, I gave them my phone. About 15 minutes later the apple rep came back and said that the battery replacement went bad, and they will give me a new phone out of the box!

 

Not feeling too good about this, I went ahead with getting a new phone. Installed IOS 5.1.1 on it. I then decided to stick around the store for about 30 minutes to see if the same battery issue persisted. After 30 minutes and making one 5 minute phone call, my battery went down from 70% to 60%. Mind you, this is a new phone that apple just gave me and with the latest OS installed.

 

Then finally I got some truth from Apple. The Apple rep told me that the 4S battery life is not as good as the 4. Its processor is bigger and eats up battery even when the phone is idle. Disabling software features like location services, and time zone checker, just puts a band aid on this issue, but I can never expect to have same battery performance as a 4.

 

At that point they offered to give me an 8gb Iphone 4 with a $100 rebate. I am at home now, and still considering that offer.

ALL smartphones use battery power any time they are turned on.  It's why they can be called 'smart'.  That is, they are always doing something.  Yes, dual processors, and beefed up grpahics processors can use more battery power, but the main drains are graphics, GPS, and the radios needed to maintain contact with various towers, and wi-fi.  But these things are what makes you phone a smartphone.  I used an iPhone 4 before getting the 4S, and I noticed little, if any, difference in battery life.  How you have your phone set up directly impacts your battery life, and that goes for the 4 as well.  If you use a lot of the features the 4S gives you that the 4 didn't have, it will use more battery power.  You don't get something for nothing.

If there is any question in your mind which phone you want, then you are probably better off with the 4, but don't expect miracles.

I had major drains, had to charge my iphone 3-4 times a day.  I had a jailbreak too and didn't want to restore because honestly jailbreaking makes the iphone fun.  Anyways I bought a new battery on ebay installed it and performance was the same.

My iphone was unlocked via SAM method and I didn't want to update because of that either but decided my phone was basically useless so pulled the plug, bought a new gevey to unlock and updated.

Bam, my battery now lasts 15 hours with 8 hours of usage.  Today im at almost 12 hours standby and 4 usage with 50% remaining.

My advice, update, if it doesn't work, do it again, if it fails again then its hardware issue.

I charged my phone every night at about 7 PM, usually at that time it is at around 30-40% charge after a full day at work. By around 10-11PM it is done charging (100%) and I immediately disconnect it and sometimes use it for a few minutes before bed, charge stays at 100%. I leave it ON all night but make sure all apps are closed. I don't turn on Airplane Mode, although I used to (did not make much difference). In the morning (I wake up at 5:40AM), the charge is still at 100%. Usually it goes to 98-99% at around 7AM after being at work for some time and light use in the morning. After that happens, the percent goes down faster than what it takes 100% to go down to 98%. Total iPhone usage during a typical day at work is about 4 hours, as you can see above. This includes, some phone conversations but mostly app usage on Wi-Fi and some on 4G. I am very pleased with my battery life considering the heavy app use at work. Come back from work and at around 7PM-8PM set it to charge again... Usually about 40% when I start the charge.

Some extra things I do:

- Once a month I drain it completely and then do a full charge, before doing that I felt battery life drained faster. Draining takes a lot of work and use, usually stays at 1% for a long time before it dies, and that is with heavy use while trying to drain it.

- I only have Push Notification on some apps (mostly my chat and messaging apps). 

- I only have Location Services on selected apps and make sure those apps are closed when not in use.

- I don't want my iPhone to vibrate/ring every single time I get an email. I check my email when I want and have time to check it. It saves battery, and I feel healthier!! ;-)

- I stopped being neurotic and measuring how long it takes for the battery to go down from 99 to 98 to 97 to 96.... when I kept checking every minute I was going crazy...

- I find that if I keep the iPhone connected for too long after it reaches full charge... the battery goes from 100 to 99% much faster than when I make sure to unplug soon after it is fully charged.

- 40% by the end of my work day (7PM) after a full charge at 10Pm the night before is very respectable for a handheld computer with such horsepower as the iPhone.

I am very happy with my machine.

Oh and by the way... the top photo was after using GPS for driving for about 1/2 hour... That made the difference between the two photos. 39% in a shorter standby time vs 40% (oh, and the lower photo is actually after skipping one of my 7PM charges, therefore the time is 12AM at 40%)

there is heating prob with iphone 4s ...how to overcome this prob ??

I think this problem has been solved in the new version 5.1. For most DualCore devices this problem exists

I have had the same problem but I seem to be getting somewhere to fixing it!!! My battery was going down at 20% an an hour now its 10% with constant use and 5 in standby !!! So improvement all round

First I did a restore then I drained the battery i started to charge it and when it came on I turned the phone off completely and let it charge to 100% I then left it for a couple of hours on charge at 100. I saw no improvement after 1st drain so I repeated the drain battery and charge steps again with the phone turned off when charging and have seen a very big improvement. I am going to do it again tonight and hopefully problem solved!!!!

The next issue is iMessage as that's playing up and wifi drop out

Good luck

This worked! Thank you so much for this post. I have been trying all the suggested "cures" for resolving or improving the battery life of the iPhone 4s for the past several days. I came across your post, tried it, and it worked. Just like other posts I read, I was experiencing a very rapid battery loss, even though I was barely using my phone. It's been 45 minutes now and battery power still at 100%. I have been on it adjusting the settings, checking e-mails, etc. and no loss of power, still at 100%. Thanks again, as I was just about to go with option B and return my phone.

Updated stats:

Usage:      2 hours, 2 minutes

Standby:   4 days, 17 hours

Percentage remaining: 61%

Where's the screenshot?

I know how to get the screenshot, but I'm not sure how to

put it up here. OK, I'm not much of a Techie.

Why bother? Some pages ago he explained that everything is off, he doesn't have apps and mail, BT, Siri, 3G data etc. are all off and he uses airplane mode when not using the phone - and actual usage amounts to less than 5 mins per day. He's on that quest, you know.

@ace43: I've always been curious also as to how long this thing can last when it's "off". Hopefully you'll be exploring that too. Looking forward to seeing your results! Good luck!

Update:

Usage:      2 hours, 23 minutes

Standy:     5 days, 5 minutes

Percentage remaining:  53 %

This is using the phone as I normally use it, but switching

on what I need when I need it, then switching it off when

I don't. This has not been inconvenient at all.

Still no screen capture Ace?    Sounds like a tall tale to me.

I don't have that much trouble believing Ace. In my experince the iPhone can last a long time on Standby. When I charge my phone before going to bed to 100%, it stays at 100% for about 6-7 hours on Stand By with  some light use (setting alarm, checking weather, etc). I don't turn off Wi-Fi or pur the Phone on Airplane mode. I charge it every day because I use it about 4-5 hours a day and the battery drains to about 40-55% with that usage and an average standby of 1 day and a few hours. With 2 hours of use, my phone is at between 60-70%. I am sure that if I were to stop at 70% and not use it anymore, it would probably last about 4 days on stanby. On my 4S, hours can pass on Standby and the battery only goes down about 1-2%.

So I believe Ace, I just can't test because I charge every evening starting at about 40% so that I have my nice 100% charge in the AM. My iPhone definitely does not like being plugged overnight for charging. On the two occassions I've done that, it goes to 99% the second I unplug it whereas if I unplug as soon as it gets to 100% full charge, it can last hours there. As mention above, I charged in the evenings and unplug before bed when the charge hits 100%

I posted photos above with my typical usage. However, today I used it more than usual, I used about 45 min bluetooth audio on my car, 1 hour of GPS, some calls, about 2-hours surfing plus messaging, for a total of about 5 hours. At the 5 hours usage my battery was at 45%

Ace claims he gets 8 days out of a charge.   I don't believe it.   He won't post a screen capture, just keeps posting stats he can't prove.