Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

I have a new Iphone 4s with sprint.....my battery life is drained so bad its not even funny! I called them to let them know then I had to go to the apple store with it! They switched out my phone, but that did no good at all. The lady helping me said it was a problem they are trying to fix and they want all iphone customers to keep the phone until they send out an update. I feel like I have an Android phone because i have to take my charger everywhere with me. I hope they get this problem fixed fast because I expected better from Apple. But other than that its a great phone.

A friend has the 4S also except has disabled a lot less of the features compared to me. He keeps WIFI on the whole time, has push email, etc and yet his drain is maybe 1% for every 5-6 mins use whereas mine is 1% per 1 min use. We compared side by side today and on standby his dropped 2% in 90 mins whereas mine had dropped almost 10%.

I hope that Apple will give me a new phone as I will feel sick to have paid £600 a week ago only to get a refurbished one. Unacceptable to run through 70% of battery in 8 hours of minimal use.

Please share your configurations?

Is this normal? What do you think

Usage: 6 Hours, 49 Minutes
Standby: 1 Day, 1 hour.

Notifications all ON except Wheather.
Email Push: Off; Fetch every 15min
Location services: Time Zone off, Traffic Off, Diagnoistic and usage off, location based iAds off, all other are ON.

SIRI Off, since in Mexico is not available yet.

Brightness to 40% and auto-brightness OFF
Did 2 cycles already.
Im about to do the 3rd just now.

All of these with normal use: facebook, twitter from time to time, some pictures, 5 to 10 min calls, a lot of texting via imessage, whatsapp, WLM.

What are your opinions: GOOD or BAD?
Hopefully with the 5.01 will get better battery life.

I hear what people are saying about spending a lot of money on a premium product and having issues.  But they can't take all these phones back and replace them when the new one is likely to have similar issues.

Apple said they have a problem and are actively working to resolve it.  As one of the people that was contacted by Apple, they have been nothing short of stellar in customer service (calling me almost daily asking questions and responding within minutes when I reach out).

Apple acknowledged S/W issues that affect battery life.  So mass hysteria and complaints won't make that go away or get it out there faster.  Replacing hardware only to have the same issue now means they have to refurb more phones and still have customers upset.  It gives a false expectation that swapping phones will help.  I also see people getting great battery life but still asking "is this good".  Swapping phones or making more of the issue in the press would cause people without problems to unnecessarily swap a phone because they just feel the need to.  I think Apple is handling properly.

So my suggestion is to hang in there and I'm sure 5.0.1 will be out soon. It's Apple, it's their attention to detail that made you buy the phone in the first place.  They're not going to ignore the issues. 

I just reiterate the simple things that can help:

- turn off system location services

- turn off calendar notification center

- turn off push, especially for Exchange 2010 SP1

- reset all settings (not just network) which won't erase your content

These items definitely help.

I'm sure in 10 minutes this will be 3 pages behind in the thread but I think it's important to put some reality into all this.

Push is on only for facebook and twitter.

Email is fetch 30 mins (2 gmail accounts).

WIFI off

Bluetooth off

Siri raise to speak off

Auto time zone off

All notification center off

Location services only on for compass, maps, mobile network search and find my iphone

Brightness 25%

Battery has been conditioned with 2 full cycles

To me this looks like very conservative settings!

netofrombrazil wrote:

 

Please share your configurations?

Basically all OFF but email set to manual fetch (using 3G most of the time)and WIFi. Used at the moment for phoning, text messaging and email plus some limited Internet browsing. See my previous answers for more info.

I know this is not what it should be used for but at the moment I am trying to get what I really need and will seek the rest once problems have been identified and fully resolved. Hardware was one as my first unit was faulty. Now I am waiting for Apple to cure all issues with iOS5.

I agree with you, especially about returning the phones, but it is a good idea for people to post their issues so that Apple is aware of them. What I can't understand is that they must have beta tested the phones so surely the battery issue would have arisen then? Or is the real world so very diffeent from the tech testing one!!!!

Thank you. I just changed mine to FETCH. Let's see.

@writergirl2, I think you''re reply was to me.  My post was more in reference to some of the non-issue or non-helpful posts.  Real world is definitely different than testing.  I'm in the software indutsry and no matter what you do, there will be situations and environments you simply can't anticipate or replicate.  I also think Apple is more prone to this stuff since a lot of what they do is secret and they likely don't have the large numbers of testers for "surprise" features or H/W.  These are very complex eco-systems of software and hardware.

My "reality" with this phone is that the problem was significant enough that I have decided my next phone will not be an iPhone. the patch is taking too long to be delivered for such a significant issue. In the 21st century I shouldn't be worrying about a 'Plan B' for my phone's operation.

It puzzles me how they wen't live w/o addressing this issue.

I am a computer engineer that worked in design of digital telephony systems, and sure real world is different then testing envvironment but if you take validation/verification seriously, invest sufficiently, you don't end up w/ eggs on the face afterwards.

If there were   "long-duration" tests, this probably would have popped up in the verification phase.

@bz101:

I understand what you are saying and it is right probably! But you are saying this because you've been looked after by Apple. They know your issue, and they are contacting you and they must have said to you that if the update doesn't work for you we will swap the phone or we will return bla bla bla. Because they need to track down teh stats. in the field and customer could be teh only one.

So, based on this that Apple contacting you and they are aware of your issue(particularly you in this case) that's why you are satisfied and you are tryin to tell others to relax! And that is totally acceptable.

But here is teh second scenario. People like me and thiusands others on this forum and around teh world who are just left stranded for now and only know that Update is coming, when? No idea? And their battery life is getting even worse and frustrating. Phone can't be looked at, can't be swapped. you try to tlak to them and three few words they tell u " update is coming". Seriously when? In 2015?

Because you are missing the fact that alot of people are using it for business and regular use and don't even care about entertainment and if they can't get the phoen through even one day until 4:00 it's worse than ridiculous.

Now here is my story. My phone's battery has gotten worse than before. I don't know how it works, but yes, believe it or not. I was able to pull off 4-5 hours usage before but now only upto 2-2.50 hours. How does this work? Yesterday I was in Toronto  for my work stuff , I travelled from Ottawa in teh morning with 100% charge and teh freaking thing got upto 60 % by noon with just checking like 5 e-mails(just checking them) and making two calls( 3-5 minutes)? How the **** that works now? And i was on  a work trip and i know that how frustrating was this when my battery almost died around 4 with 1 hr and 36 mind usage.

So, when customers like me are not getting any feedback and no ETA, we sure feel as **** left stranded and hopeless and feel betrayed!

But, in short whatever you say it makes sense but only in your case! I was impressed by Apple's customer service before but not anymore because they are nto helpful anymore.

Hi bz101: I'm happy to wait for the fix because I am a long-time user of Apple products and I have never ultimately been let down by them. Also, they're the best phonesI've every used. The battery thing is so fundamental that I'm amazed it didn't show up before. But I will bow to your knowledge of the industry!! However it would be immensely helpful if Apple put something up on their site saying that the fix was on the way.

WG

@umairz and writergirl2: I believe what I said which has nothing to do with the fact I was contacted.  They've made noi promises to me.  They have said a fix is on the way with 5.0.1.  I have no idea when that is.  It might be good for them to at least throw a date out even if it's a month in the future so it sets expectations -- but we know they won't.  I'm just trying to be level headed about it.  Doing the things I mentioned above have helped tremendously and I suspect will help many.  Not all, but many.  If you have real overheating and severe 10-20% per hour drain, visit the Genius Bar.  If one is not near you or you're really unhappy with the phone, return it.  I just hate to see all this craziness when we know Apple acknowledges the issue and is working on a fix as fast as it can.  All the ranting, complaints about testing practices, hysteria over what is actually good battery life is all just noise that dilutes the real posts from people with issues -- kind of like my lasty few posts. :-)