Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

It may be worth wiping your phone and setting it up as a new device. Since installing 5.0.1 over the air, I charged to 100%, then shut the phone OFF. (not a reset, just shut off). I then plugged it back in to power and allowed it to power up. Once I confirmed it was up and running and the battery read 100% (plug icon, not lightning bolt), I unplugged it and haven't plugged it in again since.

Right now I'm at 98%

Usage 23 Minutes

Standby 1 Hour, 6 Minutes.

Pretty darned good so far. We'll see how it holds out.

Installed iOS 5.0.1, charged the phone to 100%. Went out running with 3G and GPS activated. Runned for 1 hour and it droped 8%. Amazing so far!

Only in 24-48hrs will we really see what gives.

Good luck.

@ matiascabrera

*Ran

the same issue here

Same problem here. After updating my iPhone4 to iOS 5.0.1 I've lost 50% of battery in 3 hours. I've only listened to a podcast for 15min and the rest of the time the phone was locked still.

i just updated my iphone 4s to ios 5.0.1.. its seem improvement on my 4s battery... usage 21 min and stadby 1 hour..

and battery level is 98% now...

1AppleADayNoWay wrote:

 

Oh, so it seems carrier/3G tech specific as there's one update at 44.6mb and another at 55.5mb. I have some sympathy for Apple.

It's device specific.  The update for my iPad 2 is 44.6mb, the update for my iPhone 4S is 55.5mb.  Both are AT&T 3G.

matiascabrera wrote:

 

Installed iOS 5.0.1, charged the phone to 100%. Went out running with 3G and GPS activated. Runned for 1 hour and it droped 8%. Amazing so far!

Hey thanks for reporting your experience with the GPS running.  This is the only complaint i have with my 4S on ios5.0.  The battery is good if I dont touch gps apps(waze, tomtom, maps).  I hope I see the same battery life as you.  Currently if I run Waze for my hour drive home I am at 78% from a full charge, so only dropping 8% like you would make me a happy camper.

geezerdave wrote:

 

Is there any way to revert to the previous version. I'm bleeding like a stuck pig.

There is no previous version for the 4S.

So far so good on my battery. I was at 93% with 20 min usage when I updated to 5.0.1. Was at 84% with 1h 6 min of usage. Usually at 50 min of usage at 80% so doing good so far. Going to charge it up to 100% and see how long it goes without a charge then. Will post updates when I have my results.

Has anyone notice that sound effects like after you press the lock button has noticeablly been quiter even at full volume? Also battery is draining just the same.

After 4 hours standby and 1 hour usage, I am at 85%.  That included some GPS, a couple of phone calls and 20 or so text messages.  10 minutes of video playback over wifi.  Not bad but not really different than what i was experiencing prior to the update.

I have noticed one odd thing, my battery held at 100% for quite a while and then dropped to 99% for like a minute and it was at 98%.  I observed this one more time when I was on the phone with redbox customer service.  Battery was at 96% and quickly got to 94%.  Didnt notice it before but as others have suggested there may be some calibration changes to the battery meter included in this update.  Could just take a while for it to get sorted out.

I think there are a couple different battery issues going on within this thread. 

1. Those with extremely fast battery drain even in standby(ex. phone dies overnight)

2. Those (Me) who have only slightly worse than 4.x battery life.

I would imagine the 5.0.1 update will help people like me in category 2.  As for those in category 1, I think there is something else going on.  I bet those devices need to be swapped out at apple because there is some hardware issue, OR, my more likely opinion is that it is something that came over when you restored from backup.  I think those in category 1 may find their extreme battery drain issues go away after restoring the ios and setting up as new.  Either way.  Good luck to everyone.  The best thing we can do is just keep sharing and soon enough the truth will come out.

I think since the release of 5.0.1, two things need to happen to ensure we're getting accurate results. The first is to use the phone from a full 100% charge to 0%. The second thing to notice is not all posts with results are explaining what features are enabled/disabled such as: Push, Location Services, Brightness, Wifi on/off (duration of use), talk time, Auto-Lock duration, Bluetooth on/off.

Initially, the results may seem poor but if we let it run through a few cycles, it may calibrate to the new software. I know so far, with the GPS status icon enabled, my Setting Time Zone location service hasn't been running as frequently.

Also with the following settings: Push on, Fetch hourly, Bluetooth on, All Location Services on, Wifi on (used most of the day), Brightness set @ 50%, Auto-Lock after 2min, and 30 min of 3G talk time.

Results:

Usage - 3 hours (should decrease battery to 66% based on wifi specs, 63% based on 3G specs)

Standby - 11 hours, 30 minutes (should decrease roughly 5.75%, or 6% rounded up, based on 200 hrs standby)

Battery Percentage - 55%

My iPhone 4S has lasted me most of the day so far, which is what I expect, since it's normal for me to plug-in for a charge at night when going to sleep. So my phone has used 5% more battery than advertised on tech specs not taking into account the fact I based usage primarily on 9 hrs wifi internet when in reality I used 30 min 3G talk time, which is advertised as 8 hrs usage.