Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

I hope that the battery issue gets resolved with the "update" that is upcoming. I am very disappointed in the battery life. My 2 yr old 3GS had a better battery charge than this 4s.

While I was intrigued by Siri, it is still beta and it shows. As I researched the process of Siri, I realized that info is sent to apple servers, and when the appropriate response is found, apple sends it to your phone.

As I dug further, it seems that iMessage also is routed through apple.

I may be alone on this opinion, but phone to phone is fine by me. I dont need to have apple take my text and resend it for me. The phone company (usually) does a fine job on their own. If I have to use my iPad to message the wife, it's nice but for a vast majority of my use, it's not a must have.

Once I turned off Siri (too glitchy, needs more polish) and iMessage, my battery lasts for quite a long time, along with location services, etc. If you just turn off Siri and iMessage alone, you will enjoy enhanced battery life. Gotta cut that apple umbilical chord!

I feel like apple has the ability to data mine all our info, music, pics, you name it. It is far too easy to get lost in the slick interface and ease of use. It's bad enough they "own" all my music and give me certain restrictions as to how I can use it. They don't need to deliver my texts, store my pics, or "get to know me better" as the Siri ads claim. I feel like some of the cool, independent, creative spirit that drove apple to its current standing, is in jeopardy of falling by the wayside.

If you will excuse me now I need to read the New York Times on my iPad now :)

(I am not a hater or a troll, please do not take this as an apple blast. That is not my intention.)

bz101 wrote:

 

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. 

 

[...]

1- Replacement units may not be as flawed as the original ones - especially in the case of units with major battery drains i.e. most likely faulty batteries in some cases. I'll concede Apple acknowledges this and doesn't bar replacement in those cases. People should know this and not be afraid to have their devices checkout out.

2- The lack of knowledsge of the user base is a consequence of Apple's own PR - a "piece of magic" device with hundreds of standby hours where in fact the well known trend is more than 50% of the time is used on internet usage and network centric apps, the rest being calls - so between 8hrs and 6hrs lies 7hrs - those usage specs are not cumulative, standby time is irrelevant and the ONLY number that PR should talk about is 7hrs usage. If the device is a better device, it's because of functions, not battery life and that should be clear.

3- There is objectively an issue and Apple acknowledged it so the press can handle it objectively - no censorship is required by the fan base. Propaganda by Wired and such biased sources is what creates false expectations in the user base, on top of Apple's PR, not the user complaints.

4- If attention to detail were a valid claim there wouldn't be any issue in the first place and there would have been an intelligent choice of factory settings to safeguard battery life, not to make a lifestyle glamour gadget out of the phone. People are paying more for something, and it's not to wait 1 month while drinking a nice beverage and being called hysterics because they're worried.

5- The fact that the FB and Twitter apps may be culprits shows poor attention to detail because those are apps that most of the user base will use.

Problem is the 3G network,
I had the same problem, a power drain of 30% in a night on standby and 1% every couple of minutes when using the iphone 4S... That's just not normal.

I wanted to see if the problem was the battery or just crappy software so i changed my settings to:
     Siri off

      all locations settings off

     3g off (will rapidly drain your battery!)
     Wifi off (in fact you can put it back on and it strangely doesn't drain your battery)
     no push

     no bluetooth

     no wifi-sync
after that I did a reset of the current settings, and deleted all my free apps.
Result: I recharged my phone yesterday:
Battery left right now: 60%

               Time used: 3h20m (played a game, listened to music, texted,..)
               Time on Standby: 23h19m
That's really really great but yeah.. not alot of fun when all those setting are off...
I checked the battety with some settings on, when i put wifi on, no difference in usage.
However when u put the mobile netwerk 3G on, it started draining the battery very very fast... (even without most apps)
So i hope they fix this in the next ios update but for now i'm just putting the 3G network on when i want to check my mails and i put them off when i'm done.

A temporary solution..

Edit

When i just put on wifi i went on a wireless connection so it was connected and still there was no big increase in the energy loss.

Following up on my post from 6 days ago.  I am getting better battery life and I hope that when the firmware update comes out it will get better.  I seem to be averaging about 5% per hour with normal usage.  When I just let the phone sit while I do other things it seems to be draining at about 2% per hour, which seems to be high for a phone doing nothing.  My guess is the poor 3G service in my building.  Which ironically is the AT&T center in Los Angeles.  And I sit by the window.  I think the signal issue is because of all the aluminum cladding on the outside of the building.  It looks like it has big radiator fins surrounding all the windows that probably scatter the signal. I have a MicroCell Tower at home so I get 5 bars all the time there.  But at work I see the phone flip back and forth between EDGE and 3G several times an hour and when on 3G I get 2 bars max at my desk.  I hope they give us the option to turn 3G off on the 4S iPhone.

I have drained the battery a few times and did a full over night recharge using Battery Doctor to ensure I get a good long trickle charge after the battery gets a fast charge.  This seems to actually get the battery to 100% charge.

The only change I have made beyond what I reported the other day is that I turned off Siri Raise to Speak.  There have been reports that the proximity sensor is on the entire time the screen is active so that Siri will be aware that you are speaking to her by simply holding the phone to your ear.  I will see how well this works.  I haven't used this feature anyway although my wife likes it on her phone.

So here are the things I have turned off.

In System Services I turned off Diagnostics & Usage, Location-Based iAds, Setting Time Zone and Traffic.

In Location Services I only have Siri and Weather turned on.

In Notifications I have Phone, Messages, Reminders and Calendar turned on.  I am considering turing off Calendar but I don't know if that will make a big difference or not.

I have mail set to manual fetch and typically check it a couple times a day.  I can't link to my office work email so I really don't need to have my personal email pushed all the time.  I just check it when I am expecting something or as I said a couple times in the morning and the afternoon.

I think that conditioning the battery by draining fully and doing full overnight charges made a difference, even though there is some difference of opinion on whether or not this actually helps a new battery or not, I think it helps to calibrate the battery meter if nothing else but that is just my opinion.

So anyway with most of the cool features turned off I get a full day out of the phone but no more than that.  Hopefully the firmware update will actually fix the issue.  The early reports from those using the iOS 5.0.1 Beta firmeware seem to be mostly positive. So I hope that Apple releases it soon.  I know that they are doing what they need to to prevent releasing an even worse piece of software as an update. 

My guess regarding the one or two bad reports about the update firmware that I have read may have come from people who also have wonky hardware as well. And that is totaly my personal opinion.

Hey guys, what number did you guys get a call from Apple? I think i received a 1-800 call from apple but my phone was off! And I didn't have any appoinment either!

Can you guys remember the number they contacted you?

iOS 5.0.1 now avaliable vía OTA update or iTunes. Let's hope this fix the problem...

THANKS MATIASCABBARA.. AM ON IT...

Got the update.  Process was quick and smooth.  Phone got really warm during the update process but cpu usage has settled and we'll see what the differences are.

BTW, its a 44Mb update, not 800Mb as someone mentioned before.  The file you get from iTunes is 800Mb because it is the entire OS, not just the update. 

5.0.1 update was less than 10min long including the file download. I am charging my iPhone with the wall charger, then I will assess the battery life.

@DAROBMAN:

It was only 55.5 for me and i did it wirelessly on phone!

KristoffDeJonghe, how are you managing this:

KristoffDeJonghe wrote:

 

     3g off (will rapidly drain your battery!) 

As far as I've found snooping in every menu and sub-menu, and from what many others are saying, you cannot turn 3g off on the 4s. I asume you still can on the 4, even on iOS5.0 but I don't own one so i can't comment.

Are you telling us about a 4 or a 4s? It makes a big difference. If it is a 4s how are you managing this feat?

Please kindly confirm.

Many thanks.

I'm just waiting for Apple to post some videos on their website about how other manufacturers phones get really hot and consume 10%-30% battery per hour just trying to connect to 3G. Oh, but they can't because no-one else's phones do that...

I'm just waiting for Apple to post some videos on their website about how other manufacturers phones get really hot and consume 10%-30% battery per hour just trying to connect to 3G. Oh, but they can't because no-one else's phones do that...

Why don't you just install the update and see how you feel after using it a few days.  Or, are you not actually an owner, and merely here to troll?

Just upgraded OTA to 5.0.1.

Very easy process. Worked perfectly.

Now battery charged at 100% and still shows that level after 20 min of usage and all location settings turned back on.

Very promising so far....