Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

I'm not trying to be a jerk. But the signal-to-noise ratio is huge in this thread. There are a lot of valid observations and suggestions in here. As someone who was attempting to decide if my phone was worth keeping or not, the comments about what worked and what didn't work were highly valuable -- and I hope they will be for others.

You and I both made similar decisions: to return the phone because it wasn't up to a level we expected.

I get your frustration/disappointment/realization of irony/etc. But the continuing posts that added no value other than "gain some humility" seemed to serve no purpose other than to 1) rub salt in the wounds and 2) add to the noise. Maybe that's my frustration showing through.

Personally, I'd rather find a solution to the problem. Just my 2c.

I'm pleased to hear you found a painless solution to both your defective products, in most cases it's just a case of using a bit of common sense as you well know, unfortunately for most they actually adore their Iphones and although it pains me to say so i can kinda see why (don't forget i'm more Apple hater than lover) it's a shame these guy's are facing these issues as there are no alternatives other than to move to handsets such as the Samsung Galaxy S2 running Android which is a cracking phone but the fact remains it's still not quite an Iphone :-) I just hope Apple takes the issue seriously and finds a speedy solution for these Apple worshipers, above all they are the key to Apple's future success!

Turning off some location services fixed the problem for me.  I'm off the charger for 7 hours now, and with light usage I have 89% battery.  This is with push notificaitons on for all apps, multiple e-mail accounts (g-mail and exchange), and the screen brightness at 60% and auto bright off.  Seems pretty likely that the issues are location services related.

I'm confident that Apple will fix the issue soon, but I can live without auto time zone setting and geo-fenced notifications until they do.

as there are no alternatives other than to move to handsets such as the Samsung Galaxy S2 running Android

Actually, since this problem is new a good solution may be to wait a few days to see what Apple comes up with.  In my personal experience Apple provides excellent customer service and will address the issue.  I'm sure that some would like to see Apple "talk" more about the issue, but that's not the Apple way and most of you know that.  Apple has quietly acknowleged the issue, and I'm sure they are working on it, and will solve it.  This isn't fanboy talk, this is what I havew experienced from Apple in the past as far as customer service.

Where do you find the time to troll a board that for a product that you don't seem to own?  My suggestion is that you quit playing with mommy's computer or mommy will get very upset and take away your Elmo, or get out of the basement and live a little.  I'm pretty sure one of the two fits your situation.

I can appreciate your sensible comment and in no way do I want to hamper support. I believe I haven't but I will mostly switch to reading mode from now on, as I've made my point. There was some of that rubbing of salt in the wounds to my posts I'll concede.

I think what would really help is for Apple to supersede the first post with theirs, an official statement that would link to an embryo of article in their knowledge base. I'm very curious as to why this hasn't happened yet, as you see many similar "solutions" popping out in the thread, and all of the cues could be nicely summarized.

Unfortunately, I'm afraid that suggestions of turning off components that are expected to work for a normal user when he buys the device must go against merchantability and they must have legal stopping them from building a knowledge base document suggesting those. Riding out the wave and coming out with something that tackles 3G is most likely where they're putting all their efforts, and all the "persistence" aspect as you've pointed out, which is easier to calibrate.

Worst for them is that I suspect, yet this is speculation, that the drainage should vary depending on 3G coverage and carriers insofar as the 3G is concerned, some people have hinted to that, which in turns contributes more or less to the drainage depending on users - I mean aside from notifications and weirdly formatted contacts and similar things. Plus there may even be some variation in battery quality, who knows plus random hardware imperfections. Finally, the whole restore from 4 aspect is a full fledged issue in itself. So it must be a very complex puzzle in my humble opinion which makes for a very complex problem matrix.

Personally, it's clear for me that they'll come up with something. I just wish that the corporate culture would change, especially the tone of Apple users in relation to other products now that we see they can have issues of their own, and even the respect they should have for fellow users. I was appalled at some of the remarks being made here. In my humble opinion, Steve's past comments on different key players of the industry didn't help. May he rest in peace and I think that this has to stop. Variety in the mobile world is a way of "thinking different" and that was mostly my point. I like Apple's tech but Samsung's too, and I sincerely hope Apple is not going to be this patent eating monster and that they will really make something nice out of their closed source tech/OS, which they have done already to a great extent. I hope for more respect and less of a sectarian vision of things. Take this little anecdote... I have a friend who has a handicap... his hands are smaller and he can't hold an Iphone properly, yet he found an Android device he could use... because of variety in form factors. It's a true story... a meaningful one.

My 2 cents. Take care and good luck!

The problem on my iPhone 4S was definitely related to Location Services. You'll want to make sure that you have the Location Services status bar icon enabled to help you determine at a glance if the service is hanging on your device. I've posted more details on my blog.

Fair points. I wish you the best as well.

"Where do you find the time to troll a board that for a product that you don't seem to own?  My suggestion is that you quit playing with mommy's computer or mommy will get very upset and take away your Elmo, or get out of the basement and live a little.  I'm pretty sure one of the two fits your situation."

I don't think so. But even if that were true, you should respect people because they're people, and avoid prejudiced talk based on age, status and such. Did you think such remarks would offend me? Nice try. I don't want to sound condescending, as I was not condoning that, but you may not have what it takes, friend

Now that all is settled, see you.

For my iPhone 4, my problems were solved by turning off "find my iPhone".

(Orange UK) I have just moved from a HTC Windows device to the apple iPhone and I am alarmed at the battery drain. I am, as others are, seeing an excessive drain on battery, on standby its using 1-2% every 10 mins - I have tried a few things mentioned on here, I have improved it a bit. In my observations I have noticed that in the system services settings the time zone seems to be hanging and the icon is constantly on, the other thing I have noticed is the bluetooth when on is constantly searching for devices and you can not stop it. I will have a chat with my service provider tomorrow and keep looking on here for answers. If I come across anything I will post, glad I am not the only one here  

Thank you.

has anyone try removing weather and stock widget from notification? I have tried that and my battery life improves a lot better.

In regards to wifi draining battery why can't wifi be turned on automatically and only when the GPS detects the iphone is  within the location of a previously conected to wifi service?

RELAX!

The Apple Technicians are no dummies and a fix will be issued soon.  Apple has taken us this far with such a amazing product that I seriously doubt they will leave us high and dry.

Focus yourselves on other things, preferably things that benefit mankind and our society.  I am a technician myself and usually ignore and toss out "stupid ranting" emails because they are of no benifit to anyone.

What I would recommend for everyone to do is learn to deal with the current situation by sitting tight and finding a simple solution for the moment, like buying another charger, either for your car or home, until the fix is released.

Peace