Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

I think this is really simple - I will take my phone to the genius bar tomorrow - get them to replace it with a new phone to make sure it wasn't a first batch problem.  I will also make sure that if I get a new phone my 14 day return period starts again.

The next issue is this - why are all these people, not just on this site but so many others on the internet trying to solve this problem when it is not our problem to solve.  We have all spent our hard earned money on this product which we were all so excited to get and has so severely disappointed.  If I get a new phone tomorrow and it works properly then the solution is you all return your phones and demand a replacement.

If the issue isn't resolved by a new model and Apple do not bother to issue a statement with a software update announcement then I think a mass return of this model will send them a message very loudly!

Finally, I think it is wrong to keep trying to turn off variants of the various services offered by the phone so that the battery can last a while longer.  The battery should be able to cope with simple calls and emails without dropping 20-30% on a call lasting more than 20  mins.

So to get a replacement phone or not ....

I agree in general with what you said, but getting a new iphone will not solve the issue since it appears to be a software issue.  Most initial software issues will get fixed in the update is my guess.  If everything else seems to work fine, i.e. no dead pixels, no light leaks, ect I would wait for the fix. Since the new iPhone you get will still have the battery issue if it is software and you might get other problems that your current iPhone does not have.

I have now completed 3 complete recharge cycles and have turned off various services and still have the battery drain issue. I installed an app called DataMan Pro that watches your data. I noticed that even in standby the phone uses data constantly...roughly 30 kb every 10 minutes. If I turn off wifi, it uses 3G instead. It has to be something in the software doing that. Any ideas? I'm down to 6 days before my 14 day return is up.

Surely if it's a internal issue with the device (faulty battery) you will be able to use the full years return policy seeing as the device as faulty, I want to know this cause I've had my device since launch and dont have a official apple shop near me so haven't visited a genius bar yet.

Also I'd you got the phone on a new contact can you get a new one from the apple shop or do you need to talk to your contact provider?

Thanks

Syther101

Allow me to jump in here.

I have followed this thread since i got my 4S as well.  I am experinceing PITIFUL battery life.

I followed the advice to do the 2 button reset on my 4s and restore from the cloud yesterday. The improvement was STAGGERING. I never dropped below 80% all day and i was using the phone for internet, calls, text and push emails.

This morning, feeling very optimisitc, i set a location based reminder to alert me to do something when I Left my current location. Not only did the reminder never sound, my battery life began to plummet immediately.

What is worse is that after i dismissed and deleted the reminder. the battery continued to drain.

I am now going to do the reset procedure again and stay away from Location based reminders indefinitely to see if things stay stable.

That said, i still plan to retrun it and go back to my 4 as well until Apple at least acknowledges the issue.

I think if its determined that there is a true hardware problem, Apple will let us exchange them without a hassle. I still believe its software.

Myself and one other person have experienced the problem with losing battery life while driving or being away from home.

I resolved this issue when I turned off "Ask to Join Network" under Wi-Fi Networks.

Luckily, I'm getting what I think is acceptable battery life here.  Not sure if any of this will help, but I'll pass it along . . . I have an Exchange email account with push enabled, and a POP email account where I set it to manual/manual retrieval, as opposed to fetch.  I turned off the stock and weather tickers, and have minimal notifications, but have them on for iMessage, email, Find My Friends, Phone, Calendar.  iCloud is on for Photostream, contacts, calendar.  Locations Services is on for most items but not for Siri or Time Zone or Weather.

The following image shows what happened over almost a 24 hour period.  It was on my WiFi network all except for about 2 hours (when I was on 3G cellular), and includes just one 5-minute phone call (on cellular, obviously).  The phone has not been cabled to iTunes during that period.

The battery was at 81% last night at 10 PM, and at 74% this morning at 7AM (and still at 9:53 AM, but it was off between 7-9AM) after running all night on WiFi.  By past experience with my old 3G phone, setting POP email to manual/manual helped me a lot.  Not sure if it's making a difference with the 4S.  One other item:  I double-clicked the home button to reveal all of the apps loaded into memory (a ton, since I had been messing with everything). (They appear in a row at the bottom of the screen).   I pressed on one to make them "wiggle" and then "unloaded" most of them.  They will re-load the next time I use them.  I don't know if that matters, since their presence in the list doesn't mean they are really running, I don't think.

My "ask to join networks" is off and my battery still drained.  I think it's pretty obvious that the problem is an arcane software bug, and toggling settings and switching things off won't help anything.  The problem comes and goes enough that even diagnosing which setting have what effect is probably impossible.

Here's what may (or may not) be an interesting update for the technical folks working on the issue...

Per my previous posts, at Genius Bar on Friday we did a DFU Restore from iCloud but I experienced the same battery drain for the rest of the day. I drained completely that afternoon and then recharged to full. I also powered down the phone, powered it back up and then charged again for another half hour. I have location services on with a handful of apps using location. Wi-fi is on. Bluetooth is off. I have an exchange email account for work that pushes and also a gmail account that fetches.

Even though yesterday was a non-work day and the phone therefore didn't get same level of use as most days, it still had moderate use and had a surprisingly good battery day even with running a few errands, taking some pictures, texting, emails, and a several (short) phone calls. Different than a usual work day, but still decent use with best battery day yet.

Here is whats interesting (maybe)...last night I plugged into power cord for the night as per usual. Woke up this morning with 100% charge as usual. I read three gmail emails (only) in 7 minutes immediately after waking up and the battery dropped 2%...in 7 minutes...after full charge. Ugh. I reset the phone and then plugged back in for 30 minutes just for kicks.

Phone has been off charger for 3+ hours. I have read more than a dozen emails (no replying yet) and have done a minor amount of app use (no calls or texts yet). Still holding at 100%.  Obviously much different than the first 7 minutes off charger earlier today and trending favorably for the day.  We'll see what happens after some calls/texts but I like where things are right now.

I have no idea what the recipe is here and I'm sure there is a software fix coming. But wanted to give this update in case anyone working on the problem is reading and might find this helpful. 

It seems like everything isn't working for everybody... After doing things from the bottom up though, my battery life is excellent.  Perhaps you won't be able to "fix" the problem without Apple's help but we should all be able to improve battery life by doing these things:

1. Backup your phone and Restore

2. Restore your apps (because I am sure you will want to)

3. Turn off "Ask to Join Networks" (I know you did this already coloradoappleuser).

4. Turn off as many Notifications as you can stomach (go into each individual notification and turn off as many       options as you can)

5. Go into Location Services and turn as many off as you are willing to

6. From Location Services, go to System Services and turn off some of the options (I turned off Location-Based     iAds and Setting Time Zone)

7. Calibrate your battery by charging it to 100%, running it down to 0%, rinse and repeat.

8. Adjust your Exchange settings as others have suggested (I haven't done this).

These are the steps I have taken to drastically improve my battery life.  I still use multiple location and notification services.  I have iCloud running, as well as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.  Yet, I am able to surf the web for several minutes, pull email and have some standby without losing one percent.

For the record (if it is a software problem): I am running AT&T, Version 5.0 (9A334), Model MC918LL and Modem Firmware 1.0.11.  If it is a software issue, I would venture to say that anybody with the same software (and carrier) as me will greatly improve their battery life by doing these steps.

I have experienced the same drastic reduction of battery life using the location services in the Geocaching app... I turned of "Ask to Join Networks" (because location services often use wifi) and that was one of the number one things I did to improve my battery life... In fact, I have several location services turned on right now and my battery life is great (though there were other tweaks I made as mentioned above).

A recent article has posted two fixes.

1.  reset network settings

2.  disable ping

hope this helps!!!!

Let us know if this changes things...i just did mine this am after reading it.

Being a Sunday, I have not used my phone in the usual way.  It was 100% charged at 10am this morning, I have not made any calls on the phone but have read many emails, played words for friends numerous times and another game quite a lot.  I have sent and read a couple of texts.  It is now just after 5pm and I am down to 42% but as I said have played quite a lot on it today.

This shows me that when I make calls in the week, that is a problem.  My percentage drops hugely after speaking on the phone!

Also, I have been connected to the Wifi all day but when I am out I have switched search for other networks off. I have switched all unnecessary location finders off, I use bluetooth so can't switch that off and I do have iCloud running.

Smc117 - I followed all the instructions you gave from your visit to the genius bar.

My appointment at Apple is not until 2pm tomorrow, so in the morning I will make my usual amount of calls when the phone is at 100%, check and use my email system as usual as see where we are at before my appointment.  If the percentage is bad from making the calls - I'm not sure what would cause that.

Just to add to that - have now made two very short calls lasting not even a minute each - and after each call it had dropped by 1% each time.  So it makes sense that if I'm on a call lasting 20 mins the percentage is dropping by almost the same amount.  Why???