Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

Hi. I don't have an iOS 5 device (I only have an iPhone 3G with iOS 4.2) but I'd like to help. Battery life and signal are the two most important in a phone coz' it some cases lack of these or one of these meant life or death, James Kim come to mind (may eternal rest be granted to the soul of James Kim) and the weather in cold countries/states are now very fatal sometimes.

I have a strong feeling it's more of a GPU issue (a little bit of on the dual CPU perhaps). iOS 5 since it may be based on Lion 10.7 or 10.7.1 which is known to make some Macs hotter and that means it's processing things unnessarily even during sleep mode. If in sleep mode it's doing unnecessary processing, even more so when it's in use.

I don't think it's a battery manufacturing, SIRI, location features. The GPU and CPU algorithms must be checked what's it's doing during sleep mode and when it's being used. We must remain patient, an update should be able to fix it (it'll probably be based on 10.7.2 which had fixed most of the fatal bugs in 10.7 and 10.7.1).

That unecessary process I feel is the iOS 5's new Find My Friends or a similar new feature/Apple app which could be turned off but might not actually be turning off and it's constantly checking (an anlogy would be a Wi-fi router for wired ADSL, if you turn off Wi-fi, the ping in the computer where it's connected usually decreases because the Wi-Fi it's not sending out nothing anymore. All the bandwidth becomes focused on the connected computer) it's surroundings, if it needs to be used and if friends are nearby. Since iOS 5 has a lot of new features that make it possible to be untethered, the problem could be focused on the new features. It may be inefficient algorithm on the new dual antenna switching, My Friends, AirPlay Mirroring, Wi-Fi syncing (Wi-Fi and AirPlay could be the two best culprits if it's an app since since they're battery hogs and are quite similar. If you turn it off I think it's actually still ON).

But usually if see it turn OFF in the GUI, it's really turned OFF. It should be something that can't be turned off that uses a lot of decision making and should be ON all the time. This could only be the dual antenna software/algorithm.

I also strongly feel it's the algorithm on the new dual switching antenna under 3G which contantly uses processing power to find the best signal. In short any new feature that's related to being wireless that has the algorithim what to do with the contant data it's receiving is not really turning off even if you switch that feature off. The dual antenna algorithm is probably using the dual core unnecessarily and the algorithm may not be that clever which will take up more time and power when it's trying to decide which antenna to use. An analogy on this is a CT scan of someone who has mastered a subject (a genius) vs. an average thinker, the average thinker had to use more parts of its brain and thus more energy to solve a problem compared to the genius who almost instantly know the answer.

To isolate if it's really the antenna's algorithm, if you can switch to EDGE and switch off Airplay, wifi-sync, Find My Friends. If the power is relative to how power should last under EDGE (if iOS 5 still has EDGE) then it's probably one of the new features, new apps that's related to wireless connection.

Prayers and hardwork for a fix on this. If you're on a long journey, get an extra very cheap phone so you can still call in emergencies if you run out of battery. Thank you for your time.

Gbu.

I've read nearly every post in this thread because I too was having the dreaded battery performance issue. However, after nearly two weeks of trying the various tweaks that are discussed throughout this thread, I think I'm in a happy place. I've just hit 1 day and 8 hours standby with 7 hours and 30 mins use (with 2% left) - hooray! The usage was split between the WIFI environment of my house and an evening in the city on 3G and included web browsing, many txts, a couple of emails, some GPS use, about 20 mins of calls etc - real world usage.

The primary contributors (IIRC) to achieving reasonable battery performance were (as discussed in numerous places throughout this thread):

• complete iPhone reset;
• 'calibration' of the battery;
• tailoring of location services and notifications; and
• only using iCloud when connected to a charger.

I've been performing one additional step that seems to provide a benefit but doesn't make sense. After my battery app (Battery Doctor) indicates the phone's trickle charge phase (...the final phase) is complete, I disconnect the phone and use it for a few mins, then reconnect it to the charger. The battery app will indicate that the trickle charge phase has restarted and I leave it connected for an additional 45-60 mins. For whatever reason, this appears to give the battery a 'boost' - after disconnecting again the phone will show 100% for several hours even with some limited, light use. As I said, this seems illogical and doesn't make sense; my perception of the benefit could just be in my head but I'll share it nonetheless :-)

Your last point is quite interesting because earlier on there was this guy who was doing heavy usage of his phone (video playback) trying to entirely discharge it and the battery would remain at 1% for 52 mins +. So the battery indicator may not always be telling the whole story...

Problem still isn't solved by all advice I've read here.

The problem is out of our range and something for Apple to fix I'm afraid.

I have just made a movie of 1,34 minutes, and battery went from 58% to 53%.

5% drop for a 1,34 minute movie? At this rate a fully loaded battery would be dead after 25 minutes, while it should last 140 minutes!

Please Apple, find the problem, this is just terrible.

I had similar problems with battery drain. Newly converted from Blackberry, so was quite unimpressed. I had the phone changed at Regent Street, didn't make any difference. Tried every single little tweak, and no real difference. The biggest improvement for my experience with my phone has been to turn off the battery percentage indicator. That way I m not noting down the percentage of battery loss per 10 minutes, and I ll wait until 5.0.1 or similar comes along.

The same problem here. Went to bed with the battery on 85% left, this morning I woke up at 6, empty and shut down.

Now I have set all location services off, let's see how long the battery lasts now.

I hope that Apple comes with a solution, it's a awesome Phone!

Regards, Harrie.

I would also just add that battery life has increased over the past week as charging cycles increase.

I too am having horrible battery life on my iPhone 4S.  I was a beta tester for iOS 5 and I never had these problems on my iPhone 4 with the beta releases.  The final release of the iOS or the iPhone 4S seems to be the problem. I am truly unhappy with how bad my battery life has gotten.  I used to be able to get away with not charging my phone for two days while using it consistently.  Now, if I have the phone in standby mode and don't use it I seem to be draining my battery faster!  Further, my iPad 2 is doing EXACTLY the same thing.  I used to have it closed with the smart cover and open it up with 95% - 100% charge all the time.  Now when I have the smart cover on I open it up to 30%-40% consistently.  I now have to charge my iPad every single day, where I used to charge it one or maybe two times a week.  Could this be a problem with the standby mode? 

I have been using Apple products since I had my Apple II GS.  This is the first time that I am truly unhappy with the performance of my Apple product. 

I am waiting for the unlocked iphone 4S to come out. This will be my first iphone, even tho I have been an apple head for over 15 years now.

Although i am a little concerned about all these battery complaints, i am sure Apple is working on a fix. Hopefully by the time I get mine. :-)

But i do have a suggestion for those also waiting....have you looked into the Mophie battery case for the iphone? It pretty much doubles the battery life and is very slim. Not much bigger than a regular iphone case.

I may nab one even if they fix the battery issue.

As i mentioned, i plan on getting the unlocked iphone 4s when it comes out. I travel ALOT, and prefer the flexibility of not being under contract and being able to swap in foriegn sim cards when abroad. I will put the iphone under the ATT prepaid gophone plan while in the US. Probably the .10 cent a minute plan. Dont need data or a text plan since i use wifi and free text apps alot.

But i was wondering, if i dont use a 3g data plan....do you think my battery life will be better? Which is the bigger culprit when it comes to battery munching? 3G data or wifi? I thought it was wifi....but some people on this board seem to say its wifi?

Thanks!

The solution for now seems to be manually switching off the automatic time zone updates located at Settings -> Location Services -> scroll to bottom to System Services -> Setting Time Zone.

angus cooney

We shouldn't have to purchase a new case to extend the battery life to the battery life of my old phone when the new phone is supposed to be an upgrade....  I would hold off on your purchase until they fix this issue.

I have had the same experience with both of our 4s's! About a 10-15% loss per hour. It's horrible! They won't even stay charged for a 12 hour period. I'm beginning to regret my purchase big time! Apple really needs to fix this issue ASAP.

Ok it seems that there is a bug with the location daemon, it doesn't shut off any location services automatically. Follow this tutorial and it should help you a bit, although we still will have to wait for an official update of Apple.

I have the issue on my iPhone 4s as well but haven't seen any problems at all on my iPad 2 since updating to ios5.

in these cases about the i phone battery problems,  i found a very good accessory that is very helpful the name is case power ,, this accessory really increase your battery life  this is the link  http://case-power.com/