Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

Received mine via UPS on launch day.

settings -> general -> usage -> time since last full charge:

Usage: 2 hours 47 minutes

Standby: 4 hours 37 minutes

Combined Total: 7 hours 24 minutes (I don't know how this is possible when I unplugged it from the charger at 7:30 am, which is a little less than 5 hours ago?)

Current battery remaining: 64%

I think Standby may actually count from when your battery hit 100% and not from when it starts discharging. It's also possible that the way they cound the time is that Standby is whether there was any user input, and Usage is the amount of time your iPhone was actually doing something (even if you aren't directly interacting with it).

We shouldn't have to change any settings. We shouldn't have to disable nearly half of the things our phone does. We didn't have to on our previous devices, at least i didin't.

I upgraded from a 4 and I must say the battery life in comparison is very poor. I don't know if it's iOS 5 or if it's something unique to the 4S.

I changed all the settings, I disabled half the stuff the iPhone does and I did a DFU restore. All of these in turn, did save a little battery life. However this is to be expected if a phone isn't doing anything it won't use power. But I can still tell something is draining the power and as such I have become really paranoid about it. I check my iPhone just to see what percentage the power is at. Which is beyond weird.

The 4 was never this bad. The 4S should be better, as it is advertised. But simply isn't. I hope for an update very very soon because I hate having to turn off all of the great things my device does, just to ensure it makes it through the day.

I've got the same problem on mine, have just restored all settings and am now waiting to see if that made a difference. In addition the location services are switched off, bluetooth off...and everhting else is switched off too...wonder why did I buy an iPhone again? aarrrggghhh even though I love it and I like early adopting of new technology but about 15 hours usage out of a full battery charge is simply rediculous....let's hope Apple does something about this soon.

just for sharing. yesterday the notifications centre (the pull down menu from home screen) was displaying with a strange flickering, like stuck in a loop. Battery drain was huge. Today, no such flickering of the calendar notices battery drain was less but still unacceptable. could this be linked ? just noticed as well that yesterday I had a few appointements in my calendar at the same time (double booked), whereas today most of my calendar was a normal organised set of meetings. could it be a software bug to manage these overlapping calendar items?

Ok, I think I am experiencing two problems.

Firstly I have a problem with the old SIM card from my iPhone 4 when inserted into the 4s burns through the battery at a rate of 1% every 15 minutes, with mobile data switched off. The newly supplied iPhone 4s SIM card that came with the phone uses 1% every 52 minutes. I did not change a single setting between test apart from swapping the SIM cards. Wifi was on during the test.

Secondly when I have the new SIM inserted, and switch on mobile data I loose 1% every 12 minutes, this is with WiFi still on. If I turn off WiFi I get 15 minutes from 1%.

So mobile data and the inability to turn off 3G is killing our phones from what I can see. Also from my personal experience during testing, O2 UK original iPhone 4 SIM cards are problematic for the iPhone 4s.

I've also noticed that the iPhone 4s with the new SIM card installed doesn't seem to be heating up at all. Whereas it was warm with the older SIM card inserted.  However that may coincidental and I haven't tested this in any way.

I bored now and I'm going to bed.

Good luck everyone.

I am having the same issue as J Edmondson.  Battery indicates fully charged at only 97% this morning after being plugged in all night.  I will see what happens on next charge. 

My battery drains way faster than my old iPhone 4.  I don't want to turn off functions in an attempt to preserve power as these are features of the phone I want to use and should be able to use.

I don't think the work arounds suggested solve the underlying problem. Can Apple please post a response on what they are doing to address the battery issues?

Question for all - is everyone in this thread connected on AT&T, or are people with VZW phones seeing the same extreme problem?

Apple replaced my 64g 4s today, my battery would drop at a rate of about 10% every 1/2 hour.  Anyway after getting my new phone setup, I did not put any of my apps on it, I wanted it exactly as if I never owned one to just check out the batter consumption.  So I am at home on my own network and I noticed something I had never noticed before, when I pick the phone up and hit the home button at the top of the screen it shows 3G for about 3 seconds then switches over to my network.  Is this how it works?  Why wouldn't the phone stay on my network even when it is in standby mode?

thi sis probably suppose to help save battery, it turns off the wifi radio when its sleeping, android will do the same thing.  my wife is on sprint, and hers is an iphone 4 though but it is a brand new 4.

My wife's black 16gb 4s has great battery life. My white 16gb 4a is having battery problems. All settings are the same. Only difference is hers was setup as new phone and mine restored from a backup.

I'm having the same problem on Verizon (64GB 4S).  Just deleted my exchange account and reset network settings.  I'm going to reevaluate and hope that helps.  I have an appointment with a Genius Bar tomrrow.  Going from full charge at 7am to 40% 7 hours later with just light use (mostly 15-20 instances of iMessaging). I've tweaked all the settings 10x and can't get it better than that.  I can literally watch the battery meter tick down as I use it.

I was getting battery life comprable to my evo until I made some changes...about 10 hours of battery life...

1. under location services-->system services-->turned off all except cell network search and compass calibration

2. under location services-->turned off all except maps,siri,weather

3. general --> date & time--> set automatically off

4. turned ping off forgot where that was

those 4 i would never really use anyways..

have noticed significant battery improvement with these changes..

so far with moderate use i am at 70% since 830am- 5pm

moderate use = 50 texts, 20 web pages, 30 mins talk time, 10 siri commands, twitter and facebook browsing

too me that is pretty good i do not have email pushes on either.

Gang here is my update usage after the second full calibration:

Usage: 6:10

Satandby: 1 day, 3 hours

Data: sent 12.2mb and received 91.2mb

Call time: 55minutes

I put it to charge at 11:45am and at 1:45pm it was 100% charged.

I had at least 7:30 hours of usage on my iPhone 4 doing the same things I do with the 4S. Also, I did not turn anything off. Mail is set at fetch, iclould is on, weather is using location and clock is using location.

Is this a normal usage for this new iPhone 4S?

Thanks,

M

Same issues with VZW

I have a Iphone 4S Verizon Wireless. 16 GB phone. I get exactly the same results as posted here. I am really hoping for a fix from apple before the end of the weekend... I really need this fixed b/c I am constantly watching my phone to make sure the battery is ok for me to go to my next class or to even leave the house knowing I won't need the plug.

This can not be a sim card issue because my phone is CDMA and there are others who are Verizon Wireless Customers that are having the same problem.

I also called up apple, they gave me the same routine.. turn off stuff etc.. went to the apple bar and got my phone replaced.. it fixed nothing.. still the same battery drain issue that just needs to go away!

Apple should by now, know that there is an issue and I am hoping that their team is working on a fix as I type this... If not then I might bring the phone back for the Nexus Prime that just came out.... Battery life has always been an issue with any phone I've picked up and I am sick and tired of the time I waist just to charge a PHONE. Yes it is a smartphone, but the biggest part of it is that it is a PHONE.. so it needs to last me atleast a day when all I am using is the typical texting, calling situation. Makes no sense that the phone loses 20% within an hour or two of using those simple features.

I tried restoring my phone to a new phone, i tried disabling every account I have and even removing all the information on my phone.

The amazing thing about this whole issue is that even when the Apple Genius took out the new phone and I stood outside the store fr a good 30 mins, testing to see if the battery worked decently... I hadn't even installed any apps.. it was a brand new phone and it drained like crazy.. there was nothing added or changed. Truely.. truely.. amazing.