Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

Apple just called me.

I had a conversation with an Apple senior advisor about this issue with the battery.

He was really professional and we went through many details about phone usage. I have installed a custom log file which will collect information about the battery and I'll send them the file in two days. It should help them narrow the problem. They are working hard to fix this.

It's now just a matter of time. Until then, bring your chargers with you.

I have an iPhone 4S and iPad 2 both on the iOS5 now, and my iPhone 4S battery life is abismal compared to the iPad 2. I have the same 3 email accounts setup the same way. I have basically the same kinds of apps installed and running.

My test scenario was I plugged in my iPad to fully charge on Friday while at work, left work at 5PM and unplugged it and put it in its neoprene sleeve and stuck it in my bag. I didn't touch it all weekend, just now at 10:30AM on Monday I awakended it and its sitting there at 93%! I have tons of notifications and have heard the notifications and emails coming through it periodically all weekend, just never checked it, till today. 93%...

Now the iPhone sits next to my bed, and I charged it from 20% last night, over night to 100% today at 6:30AM, well its now 10:37AM and the same amount of activity, besides a few text messages, have come through to my iPhone 4S, but its sitting at 63% right now. Terrible. Something is not right. I'm going to let it run down to 0% today and then charge it back up to see, but if it doesn't resolve in a way that resembles the iPad 2 batter life, its going to get exchanged...

Or should I not be comparing these two?

My WiFi is full strenth, connection 65MBit/s - As I suspected a DHCP issue myself I tried static IP settings as well - the phone gets a static IP allocated from DHPC. I have about 5 devices on WiFi here...

The only difference to the WiFi/usage anomaly made when I disconnected my carrier (SIM removal).

Before this I observed that the phone had some connections to apple servers hanging in CLOSE_WAIT state. They are gone now.

With regard to iphone 4s usage, my personal estimate is that i actually use the phone no more than 1/3 of the usage statistics reported by phone. this is true even after performing a DFU update reload of os and restore data from icloud.

The iphone can initially hold at 99-100% without battery dropping until you perform the first function with the phone.  once you do something, regardless of activity type, the phone begins a downhill move in battery remaining. i don't consider one of my apps the problem as i don't use them intentially to try and isolate the usage problem. there also is no visible activity on the cell phone data portion of usage during the phones mysterious episodes of acitivity. its like some gremlin takes over the phone either unto itself or interacting with the cell network irself causing usage to go up.

even after doing the DFU update, and several deep cycle charges to the battery i'm getting only 5 hours of reported usage with only a third of that time with me actually doing something with the phone.  honestly, i've got everything turned off and i'm scared to use it as the battery drops too fast. i must conserve to receive a call.

I noticed the same jensfromploen says. The iPhone connects/disconnects like 2 times per minute to/from the WLAN. Removing the SIM-Card fix (and bricks ;-)) it.

Out of curiosity, did they call you out of the blue or did you log a support ticket with them?

Cheers

Michael Ginsberg wrote:

 

For those that received a call from an Apple Engineer, can you post what questions they asked or what settings they had you look at?  I think that may help everyone else experiencing this issue.

I received a phone call from an Apple Senior Advisor at the "Call Center" last evening.  He asked about the settings of Notifications and Location Services.  He asked about email accounts, the type (Exchange vs. POP) and how they were handled (Push, Fetch, manual).  We discussed WiFi vs. Cellular 3G, but he indicated that even with 3G data the phone should have a long battery life -- it has a long talk-time rating.  The conversation lasted perhaps 30 minutes.  He asked about any 3rd-party apps that I may have running.  They are definitely aware of the situation and seem to be working hard to address it.  He said my info would be reported to the engineers working on it.  My impression is that they take this very seriously and want to discover what needs to be done.  Also -- they just called out of the blue.  I have not contacted them in any way.

For the record, I'm currently at 47 hours standby, 2 hours 31 minutes usage, and 47% battery, with 45 hours on WiFi and 2 hours on 3G -- good news from this end.

Received two pre-ordered ATT 32GB iPhone 4s phones (for wife-white and I-black) on the first day (10/14) to replace our roughly one year old iPHone 4 phones and had the same battery drain problems.  I posted early in this long discussion about my troubles, but after about the 17th or 18th the battery problem stopped and both are now functioning like the iPhone 4.  No special set-ups other than turning off "send diagnostic and usage".

Then this morning received an unsolicited telephone call from a technician with Apple.  He said that they are monitoring  this board closely and had seen my original post and wanted to check on how my situation was going (kind of weird and a little "Big Brother" -ish that he could track me down at my office - didn't even call the iPhone)  He gave me his personal contact information and said that I was free to call him anytime over the next month to continue to report on any issues.  He said he would be my personal contact for this or any other problem regarding my two new iPhones.  I told him that my battery situation seemed to have settled down but I would continue keeping a close eye and contact him if needed.

He said that they are very aware of the problem and are trying to track down the cause but that many of the people he has contacted have told him the same thing I had.  I told him that I thought the problem might be the initial 2-3 days of contact with the network and the initial icloud back-up process.  He didn't comment much on that but urged me to contact him for any reason.

This company is top notch in my opinion.  I doubt that I would get such attention from other computer/electronic manufacturers...

Out of blue. They choose who they want to call according to the information we are all sharing here.

I find it amazing, because my phone is not getting any better with the charges I give it.. I have tried everything offered here.. I put it in DFU restore and tried hard to turn off most settings that wouldnt need or use... and i have no apps running in the background.. just doing simple Messaging... and its just droping at like 20% per hour... It makes no sense.. I am really hoping for a fix soon.. and I am scared to death that this problem is effecting my battery and damaging it as it continues to have issues...

I have a verizon iphone 4S 16gb.. i got it on october 14th when they all shipped out and arrived etc.. the first preorders.. and I still have issues... I really hope they fix this soon.. Location seems to destroy my phone's battery.. I don't know what to do...

Well I have all location services off,Icloud not set up, 2 exchange accounts set to manual, ping off..I have done 2 DFU restores and set up the phone as new each time. Right now Im at 96% Usage is 15 minutes and Standby 1hr 1min..sent a few emails and imessages. No wifi..all 3g

This morning I performed a complete draw down and recharge of the battery after my second restore as new (after a couple days post my first restore as new and two complete battery cycles I started seeing the drain problem again). As an experiment I have turned off the wlan and cellular data network connections (but still have voice service active) and made sure no apps are running. I am still showing 100% charge with 4h 44m standby and 17min usage. Of that 17min probably only 5 total mins of that is mine from briefly turning on display to check usage and battery stats. Obviously not a mode I can maintain but I have never had this level of standby time, even when I previously had the phone in plane mode.

My Phone hasnt got any better too. i went into the Apple store and they have ordered me a replacedment...

i dont get i though cause a oman i work with leaves all her apps open and she only charges once every 2 days...

maybe she just got lucky but i struggle to get to the end of the day....

i dont think we should have to turn everything off either. at the end of the day why have all the bells and whistles on the phone if it cant cope with the usage of them?

I have spent the afternoon in the Apple store at the genius bar in a London store.  I bought my 4s online with Apple.  The first woman I saw couldn't have been ruder and plugged my phone into her machine and told me the battery was perfect.  I told her everything I have tried to improve battery life ie., everything on this thread.  I also told her I spoke to Apple support last week who told me if I was still experiencing problems to go to the Apple store.

The woman in the store then told me that as I had ordered the phone online it was a different company and that Apple online have different stock to the Apple stores!!!!  I then asked to see the manager who was helpful.  He told me he also had a 4s and his battery life wasn't great.  He looked at my phone and said "oh, you have your bluetooth on" and I said, yes because I drive and use the handsfree in my car!  Then he said, you have to realise the phone is more like a computer than a phone and the battery runs down faster! I told him it was not fit for the purpose I bought it for as I don't have enough battery to last a working day!  He said that in this case he would swap my phone for a service phone, which means not brand new in the box but possibly one that's already been sent back and repaired.  I said that wasn't good enough as I had just spent £500 on a brand new phone and I would expect a brand new replacement.  He said it was irrelevant as he didn't have one in stock anyway.

So with a blinding headache, I came home and called Apple who couldn't have been more helpful.  I explained what had happened and they are now sending me a brand new replacement and when I receive that, I am sending this one back.  The guy at Apple said it was a hardware problem.  It may take up to two weeks to receive the new phone as the stocks are non existent.

That's todays saga!!!!

my replacement will only take a few days i was told fortunately the manager i spoke to didnt offer a repair as like you i would have refused it. less than two weks old and they want to give you a repaired one thats disgraceful