Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

Just returned from an Apple Store Genius Bar appointment.  Apparently, news of this issue is filtering through the ranks. I was told that the problem is believed to be a random glitch with the firmware having problems getting certain responses from the cloud. If it doesn't think that it is getting a proper response, then it keeps going back out over G3, WiFi or whatever method available.  This goes on constantly (explaining why many report phones getting hot). The tech ran a diagnostic where he plugged my phone's info (S/N etc) and ran what appeared to be an internal Apple application off of another iPhone. He said that it showed a definite problem with my phone's communication. ( a bit spooky to know that Apple is able to track such things; but apparently Apple"s. servers thought that my phone had almost full battery capacity remaining, while I was d own to about 40% with very limited use throughout the day. The impression I got was that the firmware tells Apple a lot about every phone in use, including current charge / battery life).

Their solution was a backup to iCloud, followed by a DFU reset and system/firmware reinstall. I was told that this, in combination with the battery cycles that I have performed a over the past two nights (using flashlight app to fully drain the battery, then ovnight charge back to 100%) should resolve any problems.

I'm now syncing bac to my Mac to restore music / audiobooks & phaoto's. I'll see how it goes over the next couple of days and let everyone know if this fixes the problem.  I plan on a full test, without handicapping any features of the phone. I'll keep location slices active, Bluetooth on, full iCloud sync active, including calendars and photo stream. I plan to listen to audiobooks and streaming music/radio; just as. I always did oan my aiphone 4. I'll let everyone know the results. 

I think I'll try doing this too and report my results.

Today my battery life seems to be better after draining battery to 0% the past two nights.  However, all I did was text, check emails, and read on the Kindle app, and my usage is 4:30 and I'm at 50%.  Again, my 4 was much better

I regret selling it so quickly.

That's very interesting. I'm having the same issues and the genius bar found nothing. What is a DFU reset? Is that like restoring to factory settings thru iTunes. I did that already. I also had my phone traded today for another one although not sure that's gonna be a fix. Although when I came home I rested it again thru iTunes. I'll try and drain the battery and charge it. Did he tell u if apple is gonna address this issue at a public or large level so everyone is not running to the genius bar and why did it only happen to certain phones ? Very confusing

And how do you reinstall the firmware etc

This is very useful information bwulfe. I think you're onto something here.

I have same issues and I think we have three different things happening here to people.

1. Battery overhiting due to some glitch (as you mentioned) which kills it rapidly

2. People having perfectly functional devices but turning to many things on. They see improvemenets by playing with settings.

3. People not waiting few days for their battery to get to its optimal condition.

I definitely tried playing with settings and charging / discharging battery but with no luck.

That's why I'm eager to hear you results.

Oh, there goes 3% while typing this. Nice.

it's not too difficult, but you do need to know what you are doing.  I could write a very long post on the proceedure, but others have done it far better than I could.  Just do a Google search on "iPhone DFU Mode"

IMPORTANT items to remember.

ALWAYS set up an iCloud account and back up your iphone to the cloud first. (will make sense soon.)

ALSO download any Photo's which you do not have in photostream or in iPhoto / Aperture / etc to whatever application you use to manage photos.

Force your Phone into DFU Mode (see note about Google Search)

Connect your iPhone to your Computer via Sync Cable

iTunes should open up and inform you that it has found an iPhone in Recovery Mode.

It will ask you if you wish to restore the phone.

You want to reply Yes.

iTunes will download and install a clean copy of iOS 5. AS PART OF THIS it will also reload the firmware.

Once this has completed, it may ask if you wish to restore from a backup copy stored in iTunes.

DO NOT DO IT.  I don't know 100% of the mechanics, but the Genius Bar Tech stated that doing so (as your main restore) could reintroduce the problem.

Instead, you want to restore from your iCloud backup.  (The reason this probably works is that backing up to the cloud dosn't actually send copies of your programs to Apple's servers.  It only sends information such as your contacts and other program data, along with a reference to what programs are installed. (since all of the programs are already on the iTunes server, it does not need your copy; it just needs to know you have a copy currently installed.)  When you perform a restore from the clound, you are in essece, downloading clean copies of all applications.

Depending upon how much you have installed on your phone, this could take a while.  I spent 2 hours in the Apple store waiting on the resore to complete.  (Had I known what the tech was going to do, before he did it; I would have volunteered to do it myself at home.)

This will restore your applications, notes, etc.

What it WILL NOT restore is Music that you have not previously stored in the cloud.   (Not sure how many Music Match users are out there yet)  It will not restore Photo's either (other than providing access to whatever you may have on Photostream. (You did remember to download photo's to your computer first - right?)

Once the iCloud restore is complete; you will need to reconnect to iTunes to reload any music / audiobooks / photo's, etc that you had previously synced.  Once again; depending upon how much you have, this could be time consuming.

Once done, this should fix the problem (per Apple Genius .... I have not had the two days of testing that I previously mentioned I plan on using to put the phone through its paces.)

If you have not done so already; it couldn't hurt to try fully cycling the battery once or twice. (Run it down to the point where the phone shuts off due to low battery, then recharging overnight to 100%.)  For me, the simplest way to accomplish this was to download one of the free flashlight apps (turns your camera LED on full time) and let it run until the phone shuts down.  (I did this before going to bed) Then plug in the phone and let it charge overnight.

As I said; there are many posts on the web on how to do this stuff and many are written quite well.  If you have never done this before, don't rely 100% on my guidance.  Read some of the blog posts and information available. (Much happens to come from the jailbreaking world).  The more you read about the same thing from people with different writing styles, the better chance you will have of fully understanding the process.

Of course, the simplest method for someone who is not familiar with this process would be to make an appointment at your nearest Genius Bar (This is based upon an assumption that you have a nearby Apple Store) and let them perform the Restore / Firmware Flash for you.

(Did I say somehting about others searching the web so that I wouldn't have to type out an excessively long message ????????? )

Hope this helps.

wrong

theres no way your iphone loses 1% an hour unless its off

Oh really, lukas501? That must be why the advertised standby time is 200h. Do the math.

I'm the biggest and most inclined to be forgiving Apple supporter out there, but the battery performance is inexcusable.  Having to tinker around and disable 75% of the phone's functionality to obtain reasonable battery life, isn't going to fly with me or legions of newer Apple converts.  I haven't even migrated to iCloud and have disabled most everything including Siri. Only thing I've left enabled is Location services on Maps and Find My Phone... everything else is OFF, Off, Off...  and with some light web browsing and calls... the battery drains way too fast for a full days use on a single charge.  People that bother to come to a Apple Support board might be inclined to tinker and try and 'make things work' but 90% of iPhone buyers are just going to bail and be very wary of future Apple product claims. Not a good look, Apple.

Just recap on the fix suggested on or around page 6 of this thread, my phone battery was 42% at midnight and is now 27%  9 hours 30 mins later, I have done a few texts, and a short phone call in that time. So it was losing about 1.5% an hour, which is a massive improvement from yesterday. Which was more like 10% an hour !

4s on O2 in the UK.

Yesterday my 4s crash completely. I started the day on 80% and by 4:30pm I was down to 10%.

I have everything turned off, yet the day before it went from 100% down to 80%?

I have now done a full charge from flat overnight, and things look better. It's now 10:30am and still showing 100%.

Not that I have used it today. I am doing a similar test on my old 3GS which had no problem in lasting 5 day between charges running ios4. Now on ios5, I'll see what happens over today.

Will start to turn functions on later.

What made the trick for me was to drain the phone completely - until it dies. (It took quite a while to go from 3% to 0...). Then, charge it overnight.

Previous days I would start charging it with the battery at 10-15%, on red. Also for the last week I've been trying disabling functions, with the hope of finding what was the "offending" piece but without much success. Still was loosing about 10% per hour, just by using it to check emails, maps, and sometimes a call.

Today is almost two hours since I left home, with everything turned on again, used mail, maps with traffic during the ride to work, some browsing - using it "normally" - and the battery is still at 95%.

That looks more like normal to me.!!

Might try to drain it to 0% again as many other suggested, but if it is a battery charger "calibration", it shouldn't be necesary to do it more than once.

Ok, before i tweaked my 4s, the battery was practically ticking down in standby. I think it was 1% about every 15 minutes or so. something ridiculous anyway. without me actually interacting with the phone at all either.

So I tweaked it to the essentials for me. Went through all the settings etc.

Then I turned off wifi and cell data. i never use bluetooth, so thats always off. which arguably just makes your iphone a normal feature phone and ipod touch.

I think by turning off the radios (wifi, bluetooth, cell data) in the phone, except the gsm radio of course. Is how Apple gets it's 200hr standby-time estimate.

Because after I did all this I charged it back up to 100% and here's the numbers.

Usage 13 mins

Standby 2hrs 21mins

And the battery just went down to 99%!!

It's not a perfect solution, and I say not practical for most users to turn off their wifi and cell data all the time, but if you can bare with it and turn on wifi only when you need it and so forth with cell data as well. Your battery will last much much longer. And plus when you do turn it on it shouldn't drain so much power if you tweaked your phone to only the sevices you need and turn off the ones you don't need. i.e. ping, push email, facebook notifications etc.

I'm really looking forward to hearing your results.  I'm having the same issue with my battery draining quickly.  I have cycled the battery often (not hard when the phone drains so quickly).  I will implement your suggestion tonight, but I was hoping to hear your initial reaction to the fix today.

If your battery is draining as quickly as mine, I figure you should have a result soon.

I have a solution that worked for me. My iPhone is now dropping 1% every hour on standby, with all of the iPhone 4s' "functions" enabled, such as Siri.

1. Backup data to iCloud.

2. Restore iPhone using iTunes. No need to backup to your mac! (it's on iCloud).

3. When setting up phone after fresh restore, disconnect from Mac/PC and set up the iPhone using the setup procedure.

4. Restore iPhone from iCloud backup.

5. When the sync has finished, power off your iPhone.

6. Remove SIM card (if you have one)

7. Turn on iPhone.

8. Go into Settings-iCloud and switch Off Photostream/Documents & Data/Find My iPhone.

9. Minimise Location services, but keep on whatever you want.

10. Go into Settings-General-Date & Time-Switch Set Automatically to Off

11.Go into Settings-General-Restrictions-Switch Ping off (you have to enable a passcode first theough).

12. Go into Settings-WiFi-Switch Ask to Join Networks Off.

13. Go into Settings-Store-Switch off Automatic Downloads.

14. Go into Settings-General-Reset-Reset Network Settings.

This will remove all stored network connections including your WiFi networks from the phone. It will also reset your other data connections to default. This includes 3G connections.

15. When your phone has restarted, switch it off and put your SIM back in (if you have one).

16. Turn the iPhone back on.

17. You'll need to re-enter WiFi information now.

18. Let the battery deplete completely until the phone turns off. Leave it off for 10 minutes. Plug it in and let it charge until it reaches 100%. Leave it plugged in for and extra 10 minutes just to be sure.

A word of warning, location services such as Maps and Find my iPhone use a heck of a lot of power, much more than the iPhone 4 ever used. The update rate of the GPS location is insane. It use to update your GPS location every couple of seconds on the iPhone 4. The iPhone 4s seems to update position every half a second when using maps. If Find my iPhone is doing similar things, no wonder battery life goes down so quickly.

I think that there is also a problem in the Documents & Data and Photostream settings somewhere. With these turned off battery life is dramatically better.