Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

I have disabled virtually all the location services (maps being the exclusion and I'm not actively using that), I'm careful to close background programs and my bluetooth is off.  I've drained the battery and recharged at least three full cycles.  But the battery on my two week old 4S is at 44% at 4pm.  And there's not a day that I'm not at 25% by the end of the day.  The battery on my last phone (the 4) was far superior.

My iPhone 4S is always warm.  I've disabled Wi-Fi and all Location Services and it doesn't help.  It even goes into a SpringBoard reboot mode several times a day.  Mine is the standard iOS 5.0 install, not jailbroken or anything like that.

Same here. Got my iphone 4s last friday and found out it couldn't even last for a day. I tried to turn off wifi and 3G and stuffs but the battery was still draining extrmely fast.

I kind of have the same problem. But after seeing so many posts on this forum about short battery life, I toyed around turning off time zone, most location services. Etc.  now my battery time is fine but I have that issue you talk about where every couple of days or do I need to do a full reboot.  Sometimes it just happens minutes after I've used the Phone. It's like it turns itself off. Maybe it gets too hot?

I qualify it as a design/architecture and delusion issue.

It is an architecture issue, but pointing that out is something of a red herring.  Is the fact that a 3000 lb truck can't get more than 20mpg an architecture issue?  Suggesting that such an 'architecture' embodies poor decisions ignores the classification of use.  Yeah, you can make a flip phone with no data plan and limited featurization last a long time on a tiny battery, but what sort of point does that make?  In the end, you are arguing that 'these phones just do too much.'  And it has nothing to do with 3G - it's the power of the device vs. the capacity of the power source.

You mention software inefficiency, so lets address that: there is no doubt that more performance can be squeezed out of any software platform, but speaking as a developer myself, there really is a point of diminishing returns.  There is a point where the cost of every performance gain becomes so prohibitive, and the gain becomes so imperceptible, that it really isn't worth doing.  I'm not saying that Apple is there with iOS5, but i'm pointing out how ridiculous it is to try and chalk it up to just an inefficiency.  Efficiency is relative to task.

You mention delusion.  Well, here is a huge one: it is delusional to think that a device with the power of a modest laptop computer, which can make phone calls, play video games, take dictation, do navigation, allow you to watch movies, take high quality photographs, and record HD video (and a heck of a lot more), and which weighs less than 5 ounces and can sit in the palm of your hand... could somehow have a battery that would allow you to do all of those things for days at a time without a recharge at the current technological state of the art.  Providing for even 10 hours of that sort of thing on one charge is an engineering feat that 5 years ago would have been considered impossible.  The fact that so many smart phones are bumping up against this barrier is proof that the energy storage part of the equation hasn't kept pace with the rest of the devices.  Arguing that the software ought to somehow be efficient enough to completely ameliorate that fact is silly.

I'm NOT dismissing the issue, by the way - I really am not.  I think it is obvious that there are bugs and that they need to be addressed.  However, to chalk it up solely to a bunch of Apple engineers sitting around picking their noses and not properly optimizing their software... or to a bunch of clueless Apple users in whom 'you give up hope'... is grossly unfair and it demonstrates a real lack of objectivity on your part, and a poor understanding of the real complexity of these devices. 

So here's two curious things...

First, though, an update: since my last post way back when on page 69 [Oh, those heady days...] I have now reduced my battery drain from 15% an hour to 5% consistent averages by doing all that most of the sensible folk here have suggested: Shut down apps, switch off this, turn off that, reset everything else. The only thing I've not done is a full, clean restore of the phone. I have too many text messages that I want to keep before I resort to that. [Anyone know how to back those up and restore on a cleaned phone, btw?]

I've been watching my battery for several weeks now, so I've gotten used to its ways. Today I noticed two things:

1. Today was the first day I've used my 4s in the car. I always hook my phone up to the power as my sat-nav app eats lithium faster than a bi-polar bear. When I arrived I unhooked and clocked it was at 100%. I then spent 3 hours working in a rural area with only 2 bars of O2 signal; no 3g; wifi on but no networks anywhere near; hard closed sat-nav as soon as I arrived. What was strange was that for the first time the battery lasted 3 hours only dropping 3% total. In the city, at home and pretty much everywhere else so far, this would have been at least 10% and sometimes even 30%.
2. The good battery charge I got from the car was with me all day and I have had the best battery life so far. For  hours I was seeing 1-3% per hour until I got home... I launched What's App and found that it was behaving strangely. It was logging on and off repeatedly and I could not use it. I then found that whilst my wifi was saying it was connected, no web enabled apps were happy with it; they all stated that no Internet connection was there. My wifi at home was fine, I was using my laptop too and having no issues with connection. I renewed my lease via settings but still no dice. As soon as I started to check apps, my  battery started to drain as before. It has now lost 10% in the last 45  minutes. I closed all apps for about 30 mins of that time and shut off wifi but it is still draining quickly again.

I've found with any iPhone I've had that if it thinks it has a wifi connection but there's a fault on it, it won't revert to cell/mobile data; it just gets cross and apps don't work. I imagine that this is taxing on the battery as many errors and loops will result.

It strikes me that this issue is definitely software and not hardware related for the majority; just look at the evidence on these 220+ pages. I think there are issues surrounding 3G and wifi and I also imagine that many apps, Apple official ones included, are not yet properly written for such a new type of chip and that until many small power leaks are filled, this problem will remain.

It seems from all that is posted here that you can reduce some of the  leaks most of the time but it will surely take an Apple fix to solve the  real reason(s). Most of the suggestions made on this site help some people some amount, and so I think it's clear: were all just fixing a sieve with tissue paper.

While it works however, and before the scriptwriters get a good fix and shut the remaining sluice gate, we may as well carry on...

Hopefully 3rd party  appsters will also check their battery usage and issue robust updates for iOS5 this  year.

As many have said, that patch is surely around the corner so hold on to your charger and your disappointment...

Same here. Battery lasts only a day with very minimal use.

It's crazy to me and something I originally thought was just me!  I waited and waited for this phone and upgraded to the 4S from a Blackberry.  I could talk on BB and let it stand by for a week.  I have to charge this phone every day.  I charged last night to 100%, went to bed and the next morning 10% was gone.  Something definitely needs to be done.

Actually I said "irrespective of brand", as I was aiming at the smartphone industry at large. I wondered if I was arguing that those devices "do too much" as you put it. That may be as it seems to be those OS are burgeoning into full fledged desktop counterparts. Yet it is not black or white. I believe there is opportunity for a device that does less of everything without being a flip phone, as less can be more or better, questionning even the choice of OLED in relation to more tailored uses. I can see Eink. But that's a bit beside the point. On the other hand, I fully acknowledge your discussion on efficiency and the logical conclusions you come to. Your discourse was quite flawless. I do not really question the efficiency of the platform itself, within the caveats you pointed out, more so of the 3G stack let's put it like that. I believe patent wars hamper 3G hardware integration but that's an entirely different story - and I lack the sufficient knowledge to document it let's face it. Of course only conceptually can we separate the network aspect from the whole equation. Contrary to what you say, I do not believe it is solely the number of functions that factor in so much in relation to the power usage in the sense that I've come to believe that these functions are somewhat efficient and that the 3G is grossly inefficient. I think it was the case with prior devices, but with the extra functions Apple implemented, it just showcases the inefficiency of the 3G in this particular instance. Android is no better and it may be people are just used to it, and they do pay considerably less too.

Thank you for that most well put opinion.

Turn off location.

I agree for the most part, but i will say this - apple claimed this battery was better then the iPhone 4,simply put, its not.  Apple has always made claims that" this" is better then "that" and in the end it didnt really work out....everyone is such a super fan that chose not to see it, but there are many example over the years.

Now IOS5 clearly has flaws, after upgrading to IOS 5 a few weeks ago on my iphone 3GS, the battery life was half of what it was when i was using IOS4, now simple logic tells me that its the OS was messed up.  After getting the the iphone 4S a few days ago, the battery life is significanlty worse then my old beat up iphone 3GS !

Apple's official response to this new battery issue was "there is a small amount of users having trouble", not only is that insulting, but its down right laughable, as i have yet to hear a single person whom is satisfied with the power usage of the new IOS5 / iphone 4S....the bottom line to me, as an avarage people is this; if you say its going to do something, then it should do it, if its not possible to make it do something, then dont say it can, its not my concern on whats possible and whats not, what is my concern is that i get what i pay for....truth is, none of the iphones ever had good battery life, we all just come to accept it as "normal" and we justify it by saying, "well look at all it can do" , but if i have to shut all those features off then whats the point? -

If Apple is obsessed with making small impressive devices that dont last for more then a day - why not make it bigger, and let go of the fact that smaller is not better - functionality is.

I was having massive battery drain, close to 15-18% per hour.  Called apple support, they said to take it into the genius bar for a replcaement.  After waiting 1 hour and 20 minutes past my appointment time the tech ran the diag app on the phone and determined that a large amount of applications were constantly crashing.  Springboard, Location, Twitter.  

He said this was a problem they have seen from users who upgraded from older phones.  I upgraded from a 3gs and he said that most likely there was a corruption in the restore that was causing the apps to constantly crash and restart on the phone hence draiing the battery.

They did a full wipe of the phone and firmware reload.  So far the battery life is a lot better.  However I lost all my text messages and settings as a result.

Not only do I belive what you say is "desirable" but it is also required by law i.e. merchantability. This is why marketing has to be realistic so that consumers have rational expectations and get what they paid for. I'll dare ask do they get 600-800$ worth of value. I'll further ask do they get 300-400$ more value than with an Android phone - I've made that point before. I'm not about Android, you guys are the Iphone users so you should know the answer - I thought battery life was the big difference but if it is not, then what is.. the store, call quality, support, form factor, warranty or durability, Siri? I believe it's possible to ask those questions and still be fair. Anyways.

Blimey, have you seen the above links?? Apple is aware of this issue and will issue a software update in the coming weeks to fix this.

Apple has finally acknowledged the problem and has released 5.0.1beta1 to developers for testing.  So hopefully it will fix the problems. The thing that bothers me is whether there may actually be faulty batteries since it seems some are not suffering the poor life.

as for ios5 itself - I am not sure it is the culprit directly, but more how it interacts with the hardware since my wife has vzw 4 from the local office and an att 4s from her out of town office - both are new and setup the same, except the 4 has less music and photos stored on it - she syncs with exchange, has a gmail and pop email account on both - she has charged them both at the same time and compared battery life using each one for similar tasks such as messaging, email and calls and few games - the 4s battery drops roughly 2x faster than the 4. The 4 is still getting excellent life even with ios5. Apple would do well to contact her since how many people carry both a 4 and 4s with the same apps and same setup - probably not too many.

anyway, I just have a 4s on vzw and the battery life is terrible - with a bunch of stuff I don't need running it is not terrible - just really poor. We live in a somewhat rural area and at times the signal can fluctuate quite a bit when driving around the area - I noticed this impacts the battery significantly - when the signal is weak and bouncy, it looks like the battery drops far faster. When I am at home with a fairly stable signal,even with wifi connected, I see a definite improvement. I'm guessing the new antenna arrangement and the software that monitors them may be part of the problem. fwiw - this new arrangement does seem to pull a stonger signal - it is much better than the htc android phone I was testing out before switching to vzw.