Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

I might have found something interesting,

i've read on some websites that a full restore could help. So i restored my IPhone 4S  and set it up as a new phone with itunes (i didn't set it up with itunes the first time it was delivered). I am 100% sure that i had the up to date firmware and OS Version, but after the restore i noticed a new menu option which wasn't there before.

In the settings menu there is now a personal hotspot option which wasn't there before. I think the original delivery state of the phone could be buggy/corrupted/older or something else, since there are now new menu options even though i had a up to date system.

I'm going to charge it now one more time to 100% and test it. I'll let you know if there is a change in battery life.

But anyone who has no Personal Hotspot option in the Settings menu should consider a full restore and set up as a new Phone with the help of Itunes. It seems like the software on the phone is missing some modules. Has anyone noticed that too?

Been watching this forum ever since I unboxed and powered on my iPhone 4S, which was activated not as a new phone, but with a backup from my old iPhone 4 which had been upgraded to iOS5.

The 4S has about half the battery life of the 4, both running iOS5.  This is even though I have a LOT of apps using the notification center on the 4 and have disabled all notifications on the 4S, using iCloud pretty extensively on the 4 and not at all on the 4S.  Overnight, my iPhone 4 would lose maybe 5% of a charge at most in standby.  The iPhone 4S loses about 20-25% of its charge in standby overnight (airplane mode, WiFi on).  I could make it through the entire day with the iPhone 4, even using bluetooth at times, with about 30-40% of a charge left, now I have 40% charge left at 1PM on my iPhone 4S.

I tried all the fixes on the 4S: no exchange email, no notification center apps, no Siri, no location services, reset network settings, no bluetooth, shut off auto-time zone calendar stuff, etc.  The only thing left to try is the nuclear fix: factory restore.  How many people has this helped, I wonder, because this is going to be at least a half-day operation for me to put my phone back from scratch?

I will take the 4S back if there is no fix for this from Apple within 30 days because I can't always charge my phone during the day, so PLEASE Apple, release a battery fix soon!!!

Very disappointed with poor battery life Apple.

Battery 81%

Usage          1 Hour 3 Minute

Standby     20 Hours 8 Minutes

I have an IPhone 4 with the latest OS and recently noticed the battery issue as well. I have a New Trent battery case for my iPhone. I usually go 2-3 days on the iPhone's battery before turning on the case to recharge. I then get another 2-3 days before I have to plug in. This last week, I had to go without my battery case and immediately saw my battery life go down to 6-8 hours. I plugged my iPhone back into a battery case that has zero charge and immediately saw my iPhone battery life go back to 2-3 days. It makes me suspicious that there's a bug in the OS related to the docking port that's causing this. I don't remember seeing this prior to this latest release although I can't guarantee it since I use my battery case 99% of the time. However, I can confirm that I can recreate this issue just by taking the case off and watching the battery drain in a short amount of time.

I think blaming the Notification Center here is the key.

I don't think its so much to do with Exchange notifications so much as the Exchange ones are just more likely to have it happen.

Also I can confirm this is not limited to the iPhone 4S. I've seen this on my old iPhone 4 but cleared the state in a relatively short time. However my iPad was not so fortunante last night. It was 89% charged last night when I went to bed (and we all know that thing lasts like a month). This morning it was at 1% and I had a facebook notification doing this. When I cleared it my bottom of my notofication window kept bouncing by about one line constantly. I even managed to capture a video of it.

So in the end I think this is a bug introduced in the iOS5 GM build, as I did not see this in any previous beta. The good news is Apple should be able to fix this!

iPhone tests with Apple Tech Support Update & an observation that could point to at least part of the problem.

As previously posted; I am one of the individuals contacted by Apple Tech Support to help diagnose the problem. After having my OS patched to allow one-day's worth of use logged in detail (then emailed to Apple)  I received a follow-up call to discuss some of their observations.  Without going into boring details; part of what they were interested in dealt with wi-fi use not releasing a weak access point and switching to a stronger one.  I explained that this had to do with a poor implementation at my place of work; where instead of a single network with multiple access points; every acccess point is set up as a uniquely named wireless network.  I mentioned that with this same configuration, I did not have a battery issue with iOS 5 beta on my iPhone 4.  I offered to temporarily switch back to the iphone 4 and perform the logging again; so that they could compare performace of the same app / settings configurations on both devices.  They apparently liked the idea and called me back to ask me if I wouldn't mint swapping out my SIM cards and applying the logging patch to my iPhone 4.  (I have gone one step further by also reinsalling the patch to my 4S and attempting to mirror activities on both devices; while on a wi-fi network.)

While I won't be sending any logs back to Apple until tonight; I have observed something that might explain at least part of the battery drain issue.  After switching back to my older iPhone 4; I have noticed that the battery is now draining much faster than before.  It also clicked that despite having the lock-screen activated; frequent incoming notifications have caused the phone's display to come on frequently.  With a bright, colorful wallpaper; this constant on/off display switching could be using of a lot of extra juice. 

I was thinking to myself; why didn't I see this extra battery drain and ongoing 10-second flashes of my full-screen display when I had previously tested ios 5 beta on my iPhone 4?  THEN IT HIT ME.  Prior to the day-one release of the 4S (which is when I switched)  Apps in the iPhone App store had not been updated to support notifications.  (I probably downloaded 100 updates in a 1-2 day window on either side of the 4S release .  Additionally; prior to the official release, I'm trying to recall the extent to which iCloud notificatoins got pushed to the iPhone and if they displayed my full wallpaper in the background. (Just not sure)

Regardless; now that I have lots of apps sending me notifications, and each notification lights up my screen for about 10 seconds; I think this could be a significant source of the battery drain. (not necessarily the only only culprit).

While I am obviously interested in any feedback from Apple Tech Support after I send the next batch of log files; I'm going to go into my notification settings and turn off the "View in Lock Screen" optoin for each app. (it would be nice if there was an option to set this globally.)

I'll post an update on my experiences with the change in settings as well as any advice that I receive directly from Apple, once I have some observable results.

I have experienced a number of new issues moving from a Verizon iPhone 4 to the Verizon iPhone 4S.  I have had to do 2 full restores since getting the 4S in order to get the phone to work properly. 

I have a feeling there is a bug in the way that contacts are being synced with either iCloud or Google(I use Google for contacts sync) & that is causing the poor battery performance.  I noticed the bug when after resetting my phone, a number of settings(Sounds, Bluetooth, Battery % Meter) all being set back to default.  Then my address book would show all my contacts, but if I tried to view a recent call the phone number would not link to the proper address book definition.  Also, linked photos to address book definitions were "jumbled" & showing the wrong photo for the wrong person.

Some very strange issues thus far with 4S & iOS 5.  Hoping for a fix soon!  Getting tired of having to restore my phone every few days...

My iPhone 4S drains the batter much quicker than my iPhone 4 and even somewhat quicker than my 3GS, under the same circumstances with exactly the same settings.  I set up my 4S with a backup on iCloud of my 3GS, and sat the phones side-by-side in the same location, and the 4S battery drained quicker under identical use.  This is unacceptable!  I can't be away from a charger for more than 4-6 hours even with minimal use.  I went to the Genius Bar and they ran a diagnostic saying the battery was normal.  If this is normal I'd rather use my iPhone 4.

I'm seeing a lot of problems with my Verizon iPhone 4S as well, but I just read a post on Macrumors that Apple engineers are contacting people with issues in order to debug the problem. Hopefully they'll have a fix soon.

Battery on 4S won't last 9 hours without a recharge, even when it's in standby. The interesting thing is that it also seems to be draining my Plantronics bluetooth headset, which used to last for a few days and now dies after about 6 hours.

Mine was dying very quickly as well. Eventually I opened the notification center and saw one of the notifications flashing between two states. I closed that notification and all has been well since.

This battery drain issue is not iPhone 4S exclusive.  I'm have the same battery drain issues with my iPhone 4 since upgrading to iOS 5.

I'm having the same issue with my iPhone 4S with iOS5. Unplugging it after a full 100% charge then searching some web pages over 3G (not wifi) I can literally watch the battery percentage drop 8% in about 10mins.

Ping is off. Siri wasn't used. No location arrow (option is on to show it) in the menubar and brightness set to minimum (all the way to the left) and auto-brightness off. Only Safari app running.

Something's wrong.

I have an iphone for the first time (4S) and got rid of my Blackberry to get it.  My biggest dissappointment is battery life.  Simply it *****!  I can't even go from 9 to 5 without it completely discharging.  Plus I dont use it for anything other than txt, calls and email.

I hope there is a fix here.