Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

Quite often the battery indicator has been found to be quite off for some reason. Further 3dmac is right when he says some maintenance is required - although personally I'd wish Apple would spell it out more clearly i.e. more education about the http://www.apple.com/batteries/iphone.html and consequently different PR about the phone. He also said "The More things running in the background, the more power used by the system to control it." - not only is that right, but also there might even be further power usage for network centric apps i.e. 3G antenna+data. Finally, you said 1 day 8 hrs standby so that's 32hrs so this at 0.5% per hour (200hrs standby spec) means 16%... which would mean 84%(from when you stopped charging), and so you have almost 2hrs usage for 10% drain - in comparison to what I've seen, if this usage is a mixed one with internet and calls, that seems very good in theory. If you had any standby drain issues, you would have never reached 1+day standby...

"If Apple came up with a switch of sorts that said "It's just a phone", that would turn off everything running in the background, without me having to do it, that would be very helpful, at least for nubs like me." - I argued they should simply also make a flip phone but I hear you. It's all about "choice" - a concept that Apple should revisit, in my opinion, less your choice become "their experience" or altogether "another experience". Sadly they don't offer a cellular data off+killall switch.

Good luck!

3dmac wrote:

 

Afaceinthecrowd wrote:

 

I would also be happier if the phone didn't get gassed on standby so easily. If Apple came up with a switch of sorts that said "It's just a phone", that would turn off everything running in the background, without me having to do it, that would be very helpful, at least to me.

You all need to remember one thing : It is a computer that can make phone calls, YOU need to control your APP usage. Same goes for using any computer laptops. Quit when finished to conserve battery life. The More things running in the background, the more power used by the system to control it. AND YES Apps are still running on the phone till you close them from the DOCK.

Before 4.0 comes about, everyone was crying foul over its ability (or lack of it) to multitask. Then, lack of multicore... now everyone wants to have longer battery life at the expense of multitasking. When LTE/4G comes about, it will not be any better... Just look out for Galaxy Nexus LTE/4G and see how long their battery can last.

All the technology (software, CPU, GPU, RAM, display, etc) had been moving so fast, yet battery technology is still at least 2 generations behind. Until we have a breakthrough in mass produced high capacity fast charging low cost battery or alternative power source,... we probably have to carry a brick of a battery to sustain full day usage when LTE comes along, or have this sort of topic in every forum of every handset manufacturer's website discussing the same issues.

I DID IT!! I think these extra settings will help some people!

Well today have been a amazing day for battery life!! I must say I was growing with others on the fact that this would never be fixed. I'm amazed now! my first time hitting 7hours usage in a day.

Today I plugged out my phone around 5am or so and left it on stand by until I got ready and leave out by 7am. Battery was at 99%. I listened music for around 30min on my way to class in a No Service area. I was at 94% at 8am when I got to class. I thought today would have been a worst day for battery life at this rate, man was I wrong. As my day continued I listened to more music on and off for another 30min, going in and out of No Service areas. I was even on o(Verizon's E or 2G service) for an hour which I thought would drain my battery life alot, it surprised me because I only lost 2% in a hour on stand by in a patchy signal area. Nearing the end of my day this is what my usage looked like:

So far I had listened to about 1 hr 30mins of music via headphones, 1hour worth of voice calls, a game for 5mins, some news reading for 10mins and 5-8 texts. Impressive I thought, but I knew it wouldn't last me by the time I would reach home. Again, I was wrong..

by now I had started to head home after my final class for the day and was using my phone full on. Listened to another 30mins of music, ask Siri a few questions..

Referring to the above picture. By now, I was finally home, after asking siri to text and play a song and  another 30min call!! WOW! it gets more interesting. I read on the news that there was some deals on games, so got one and had it download 500MB in the background while doing another 10 texts. Finally my battery hit 1%, of course it still had another hour of stand by in it left. Here is my final usage!

I AM SPEECHLESS TOO ..lol..I think I just fell in love in my iPhone again..

I'll describe the extra steps here:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3484755?start=435&tstart=0

Just curious - (sorry there's too many posts and I didn't manage to go through all). Have anyone updated their software to 5.0.1 and the problem of battery life persists? For my phone it is such. I updated (even though it was said to supposed to fix the battery life bug) but I am still getting my battery depleted despite me turning off all the apps through double clicking on the home button every so often.

Anyone have tips to support more battery life?

Min- wrote:

 

Just curious - (sorry there's too many posts and I didn't manage to go through all). Have anyone updated their software to 5.0.1 and the problem of battery life persists? For my phone it is such. I updated (even though it was said to supposed to fix the battery life bug) but I am still getting my battery depleted despite me turning off all the apps through double clicking on the home button every so often.

 

Anyone have tips to support more battery life?

OTA delta update or iTunes full update to 5.0.1?

I was not experiencing any battery issues until I updated to 5.0.1. After experiencing the same battery issues after updating the software, I did the restore and backup option last weekend and then a reboot. That made a world of difference in my battery life.

My question is when you fully charge the phone, is the standby screen suppose to show the complete amount of standby? I went to the Genius Bar this morning and the person that was helping me could not answer my question on the usage/standby. Or does the standby screen suppose to go up as you use the phone for email, internet, phone, etc. That is what it does now. So in other words, when I go from 100% to say 80% my standby goes up not down.

New to the iphone.

Thanks.

Ah. Sorry I am not sure what's the delta.. New iPhone user so I am unsure of these terms sorry!

I meant the update via the phone..

miless wrote:

 

Before 4.0 comes about, everyone was crying foul over its ability (or lack of it) to multitask. Then, lack of multicore... now everyone wants to have longer battery life at the expense of multitasking. When LTE/4G comes about, it will not be any better... Just look out for Galaxy Nexus LTE/4G and see how long their battery can last.

 

All the technology (software, CPU, GPU, RAM, display, etc) had been moving so fast, yet battery technology is still at least 2 generations behind. Until we have a breakthrough in mass produced high capacity fast charging low cost battery or alternative power source,... we probably have to carry a brick of a battery to sustain full day usage when LTE comes along, or have this sort of topic in every forum of every handset manufacturer's website discussing the same issues.

I sort of agree that all smartphones are now average at best with battery life for the reasons you have stated. On the Android side, out of the box this is well known, yet it seems there is more expertise at trimming down the settings and more flexibility for taking charge of the background processing. A thing you alluded to as a joke was form factor. And then again I'll repeat something I have said i.e. the Iphone (and some other smartphones) are really small - by changing the form factor slighlty, they could have put 2 of those batteries in their phone. Plus on some other phones, the battery compartment is serviceable, which changes the situation as swapping is made easy...

Min- wrote:

 

Ah. Sorry I am not sure what's the delta.. New iPhone user so I am unsure of these terms sorry!

I meant the update via the phone..

Ahh... update via the phone is delta update OTA (Over The Air).

Try plugging your iphone into your PC/Mac and click restore to update (full) via iTunes. Works for many of us.

Remember to backup to iClouds first before restoring. Dont back up to PC/Mac.

Reset all settings after you restore from iTunes ... then restore your settings/apps from iClouds.

MUK61 wrote:

 

I was not experiencing any battery issues until I updated to 5.0.1. After experiencing the same battery issues after updating the software, I did the restore and backup option last weekend and then a reboot. That made a world of difference in my battery life.

 

My question is when you fully charge the phone, is the standby screen suppose to show the complete amount of standby? I went to the Genius Bar this morning and the person that was helping me could not answer my question on the usage/standby. Or does the standby screen suppose to go up as you use the phone for email, internet, phone, etc. That is what it does now. So in other words, when I go from 100% to say 80% my standby goes up not down.

 

New to the iphone.

 

Thanks.

Standby time is the total amount of time your phone has been switched on (whether airplane mode or not), after a full charge.

Usage time is concurrent to standby time. Not consecutive.

"8. If your in a no signal and your phone is saying "Searching..." even after 10mins, reboot while in that area and after 1-2min it should say "No Service". This mainly applies to Verizon customers and improve battery life in these areas."

I found this really quite interesting... it's one of the first "carrier based advice" I've seen.

Anyways, good luck!

1AppleADayNoWay wrote:

 

miless wrote:

 

Before 4.0 comes about, everyone was crying foul over its ability (or lack of it) to multitask. Then, lack of multicore... now everyone wants to have longer battery life at the expense of multitasking. When LTE/4G comes about, it will not be any better... Just look out for Galaxy Nexus LTE/4G and see how long their battery can last.

 

All the technology (software, CPU, GPU, RAM, display, etc) had been moving so fast, yet battery technology is still at least 2 generations behind. Until we have a breakthrough in mass produced high capacity fast charging low cost battery or alternative power source,... we probably have to carry a brick of a battery to sustain full day usage when LTE comes along, or have this sort of topic in every forum of every handset manufacturer's website discussing the same issues.

 

I sort of agree that all smartphones are now average at best with battery life for the reasons you have stated. On the Android side, out of the box this is well known, yet it seems there is more expertise at trimming down the settings and more flexibility for taking charge of the background processing. A thing you alluded to as a joke was form factor. And then again I'll repeat something I have said i.e. the Iphone (and some other smartphones) are really small - by changing the form factor slighlty, they could have put 2 of those batteries in their phone. Plus on some other phones, the battery compartment is serviceable, which changes the situation as swapping is made easy...

My assumption for above argument is maintaining existing form factor.

Changing the form factor sure gives a lot of solution to a lot of manufacturers by simply increasing the capacity of the battery. But that does not solve the problem technologically.

The new ARMv8 Big.little tech could solve part of the problem by pairing A15 and A7 in a single SoC, while mainitaining the performance and yeilding better battery usage. However, It does not address the issue of achieving higher capacity at smaller form factor, lower weight and faster charging time.

The moment there is a breakthru in power/battery technology, we will all be driving EVs.

My thoughts are, either a new battery storage techonolgy is found, where large amount of energy can be stored in a small and light form factor, and can be charged at a fraction of the time taken to charge Li Ion batt now.

There was significant breakthru in batt tech from NiCd to NiMH (more or less address memory issues), to Li Ion (addressing longer charge at shorter charging time issues), to Li Polymer (addressing weight issues) ... but since then (more than 10 years now) there is no progress at all.

Or, we see significant breakthru in wireless charging, where your battery is charged wherever you go ... wirelessly. Thereby addressing the need for higher capacity battery.

Or transforming energy source by using kinetic energy (like automatic watches, KERS in F1, etc) to charge the battery, by just moving a part (some sort of dynamo) to activate the alternator.

Maybe there are some energy tech out there that i dont know... nuclear anyone?

You're right that form factor doesn't change the technology issue. I just wish there would be more choice in that respect as a heavy usage 24hrs device would be nice I think - nice enough for people to buy it instead of something that lasts less.

Insofar as power sources are concerned, maybe a combination of kinetic, wireless charging and solar (on device + relayed from solar cells on clothing for instance). It is quite interesting to speculate. Thermal.. body heat and wind based (helmet mounted lollll).

1AppleADayNoWay wrote:

wind based (helmet mounted lollll).

Don't laugh - I've got a small wind turbine on my bike, and it can be strapped to my arm for skiing etc - it charges an inbuilt 1500mAh battery and has USB socket to charge anything I can connect to it. Proving most useful at the moment.

I have to say I'm a little upset. I like the iPhone 4S's and iPad 2 I bought two weeks ago. But the shocking battery life and continued silence from Apple on whether or not there is a problem they intend to fix just means they're all being returned to the retailer tomorrow under their 14 day cooling-off period. Samsung phone and tablet, here I come.

Hope they sort the issues out for everyone else - especially those who haven't got the option of returning their devices like I have.

Mini Kin or HyMini Wind charger I guess lollll. Well, I'm not really surprised that those exists, but I didn't actually know about them. Fun stuff. How much bike do you have to do to yield an acceptable charge?

As far as Samsung's products are concerned, they're quite expensive too - too much to my liking. But today I read about Qualcomm's Mirasol displays i.e. color IMOD... with e-ink power specs... can't wait to have that on cheaper items... I guess we'll see if some manufacturers gambles prove successful, as not everyone can afford the elite products of the feuding brethrens.