Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

One hypothesis that has not really been discussed is that at least in some cases, the observed problem might arise from a rogue app. I have noticed the same battery draining on my 3GS (after upgrading to iOS5) and my 4S. I see no such problem on my wifi iPad 1 and 2. This makes me wonder if an app interacting badly with the 3G network might underlie the problems observed by some users. Makes me want to delete all third party apps off my 3GS and see if the problem goes away. I wonder if anyone has done this.

Here are my statistics. In this period of time I woke up at about 9.00am with 100% battery and the device would have trickle charged for a fair while aswell.

In the period of use I was

- Check my emials in the morning

- Replied to some texts

- Played abit of angry birds

- From about 11.00am to about 3.00pm I was streaming radio over Wi-Fi

- Got bored of the radio and used listened to my iPod music for abit

- Checked my emails some more throught the day as I have subscribed to this thred and look at the updates

- I then left my phone on over night when I went to sleep a 2.00am the next day and woke up with 1% battery at 8.38am

My emails fecth every half hour, I have system location services as they are not needed, bluetooth was off

I came from a Blackberry and iPod touch so im not sure what battery to expect, but one thing I do know, this battery is alot worse than my iPod touch 4G when it was running iOS 4

My new 4S is also getting abysmal battery life. I've restored it twice, run it without any email accounts, and still it seems the battery drains as if I were playing infinity blade or something. From a fresh reboot, and the phone on wifi completely in standby, I lose about 1% every 8-10 minutes. I've even tried manually removing everything form the multitasking bar to make sure there were no rogue processes. I want to believe this is a software bug that will be fixed, but if its not im going to be stuck with a phone that wont even last a day with minimal usage. Luckily I still have my iphone 4 to fall back on, which would last for days even when I used it normally.

Has anyone had any luck exchanging their phone at the genius bar? I'm probably going to do this, but I'd like to know if getting a replacement has actually been helpful.

If Apple really is monitoring this thread, I'd suggest that everyone give the specs of their iPhone when they post. As there are many types of 4s it's probably a worthwhile practice to give the model and carrier you're using.

I am running a:

Black, 64gb, ATT 4s.  It was delivered to my door 10/14.

The first couple days were awful as far as battery is concerned.  I turned off settings, did "battery calibration" (fully discharge/re-charge) and tried other suggestions that were posted in this forum (reset wireless settings, back-up/restore from cloud, mail accounts, etc).

For some reason after I backed up to the cloud, not even restored from it, just backed up to the cloud... I fully recharged and my phone loses a lot less power in standby mode now.  However, as soon as the screen is on I can watch the percentages drop before my eyes.

It's better than when I first turned it on (losing 5% per hour in standby), but now it just seems to behave completely erratically.  I'll stream an hour of music over pandora while it's in my pocket and only drop 1 or 2 percent.  But then I'll mess with the settings for 2 minutes and lose one or two percent.  Standby percentage drops are not consistent, but they are way less than when I first fired it up (about 1 - 3% every 2 hours).

As far as usage: It definately adds about 10 minutes of usage every 3 hours (sometimes more sometimes a little less) while in standby. 

Fingers crossed for a fix.

I'm just waiting to find out how long my replacement will take.  Looks like it will be a couple of weeks but at least I get to keep this one until I get the new one.  And it's also made me glad I bought the phone online as the help was amazing with Apple online and awful in the store.  I think in the store, the manager was trying to convice me that I really didn't know how sophisticated the phone was and what should you expect from a machine that's so advanced!  I told him I expect to be able to make calls, check emails etc., just basic functions of a phone.

If anyone does go to a genius bar just be aware if they do change your phone, if they have one in stock, it will be a service phone.  This means that it is not brand new and it could be one that someone has brought back for the same reason you're doing.  They will tell you that it's all been checked and is fine. If you want to change it and you are still within your 14 days, insist on a brand new one.

abross:

I went on Saturday and the Apple Store I went to would not exchange it because my battery appeared to be "Fine," and then the guy helping me was sort of rude and told me I needed to change some settings..I've already written this earlier in the pages, but I will re-write again because I know it's a pain to go through over 40 pages. Lol.

What he told me I needed to do was go over certain settings and change them.  I had restored the phone the morning I went and did not change the settings again.  I also did not add all of my emails to the phone at that time. I still have not added all of my emails...anyways.

I was really frustrated with him and stormed out because I literally had 30 minutes to get back to my car and back home (which is 40 minutes away), and he was adament that I needed to change those settings even though I had assurred him that I had done that before I restored the phone.  When I got the 4S I did not use a back up at all, I started fresh.

I only use gmail accounts.

I rarely use the phone to make a phone call.

In 33 minutes I went from 67% to 57% with only emails and texts.  Dismal.

I did recieve the call from an Apple Care Engineer on Saturday and he only asked me questions.  We went over my settings, how much I use the phone, which ten apps I use the most, auto-lock, brightness, WiFi, carrier, email, push (and what it's set to), etc.

My battery life is not as horrible as some people, which I'm thankful for, but I don't want to carry my cable around, and I don't want to buy another cable just for the car either. 

Agree totally Mike. I've experienced the same issues (3G S to 4S; no problem with iPad) that you've observed. The crazy thing is I did a fresh re-install after I saw the issues with my 4S and the battery problems were resolved (2 days with great battery life). Then the problems came back yesterday after using mail, Twitter and LinkedIn yesterday morning (15-20% drain per hour thereafter). I plan on deleting all of my backup files and restoring from scratch as a new iPhone, then reinstall all of my apps over the air. I'll post in 48 hours how that goes. Kind of ***** that we have to go through this, but oh-well...

Thanks kali. I fully expect them to blame the problem on my setup/usage, even though I have stock settings and almost no apps (I went through exactly what you did at an apple store, except with my macbook pro which gets excessively hot and has terrible battery life after a fresh install of lion...needless to say the apple store couldn't help me.)

I plan on just being persistent so that I can get a replacement and at least have some chance of solving this.

Like most people I am having battery life trobule too.  I have a 32 Gig 4s on Verizon. I have nearly all locations settings turned off, brightness all the way down combined with auto brightness on. Wi-fi and bluethooth are off. It seems that in stand-by it goes down abouth 1% every half-hour. Battery life during ueage is worse as I lost 1% in a short 1min 34sec call. How long is the return window open for inorder to be sent a brand new 4s without having to pay a fee? I'd be very upset with Apple if we had to pay the fee for a new phone due to any of their hardware defects.

UPDATE FOR ALL

As I mentioned in my last update on Friday / Saturday; my local Apple Store replaced my 4S after their initial attempt to fix the problem failed.  Unfortunately, I'm having the same exact problems on my new phone.

The positive news is that Apple is definitely aware of this problem and is monitoring this thread.  I received a call from a tech this morning and he spent about 15 minutes with me trying to get a rough profile of how I was using the phone; trying to find commonalities between myself and others he had contacted regarding this issue.  As of now, they have not determine if it is an issue with the iOS 5 (enhanced features only available on 4S) or if it is hardware / firmware based.  They are actively seeking to resolve this issue.  (As someone who has developed software in the past; I realize that no matter how much you try testing something in advance of release; real world usage will ultimately poke holes in your best efforts to bulletproof the code.)

The tech asked; and I gave permission for them to send me a file / patch that will allow all of my settings / usage to be logged (annonymously; simply recording things like what apps are active, for how long, and I assume battery levels associated with individual app use.)  It seems a logical approach to track actual settings and usage on problematic phones and to let software search / analyze when/where the battery is being sucked dry the most on both an individual basis and where they find items in common among multiple users with this problem.

So; my best advice to everyone out there with this problem would be to continue reporting your experiences on this forum, but you might as well give your local Genius Bar Tech a break (for a little while at least).  If the iPhone tech staff doesn't know how to fix this yet; then your local tech or Applecare tech support won't have any better information available to them.

Hopefully; this latest effort to track and diagnose the problem will lead to a formal announcement of an iOS or Firware update that fixes the problem.

This is not the first time that a manufacturer has had to deal with such an issue after a product was released; but from experience; it seems that Apple is good at addressing and correcting such issues as soon as they can.

If there isn't any news from Apple in the next week or two; then I'd be concerned and start complaining again.  In the mean time; I'll just keep a charger nearby and let the tech's do their work.  It's the price one must occasionally pay for being on the leading / bleeding edge of technology.

(Just my own humble take on the situation - If you disagree - no flaming please.)

I have contributed several times to this thread and I wish Apple would call me!

I have tried everything - today I set up a new phone with no apps and everything turned off and still the battery drains 10% per hour and around 1% per minute when I am using it.

It's a hassle but I will return it on Thursday if there is no official word from Apple - i don't want to get stuck in a endless cycle of refurb phones if I go to the genius bar. I am a bit annoyed with myself as I sold a great 4 for this (before the annoucement when I thought we were getting a redesigned 5). Now I have a phone that lasts half a day, Siri is pretty pointless outside the US, and a super duper dual core processor that makes no discernable difference in everyday usage. I suppose there is the camera.....

Is anyone else noticing that mail gets "stuck" on messages and is unable to load them, then frequently quits.

I probably wouldn't be overly concerned with the "Big Brother" theory just yet.  Apple probably doesn't know your iPhone telephone #; unless it is what is in your AppleID profile.  Since you need an AppleID to post to this thread; it seems logical that they would look up whatever phone number you provided when you set up or provided your latest information update for that profile.  One of the reason's they ask for a phone # in the first place is so that they can contact you about any problems / conerns (Technical or Billing related.).  I'm sure it's fully covered in the iTunes terms and conditions that no one (with a life) ever bothers to read.

Jon, yes definitely.  My mail get stuck every now and then after which I need to close it from the 'dock'

I'm sure it's noting personal (not being contacted)  It's just not practical to contact every single person who has posted.  From your comment regarding the use of Siri outside of the US; they are pobably concentrating their efforts on the US; since this is where they are located and it is by far their most concentrated base of users.

Regarding your concern about getting a refurb phone from the Genius Bar ... What Refurbs???  They just went on sale 10 days ago.  Where would they get enough old 4S devices together to send off to China, have them refurbish and issued into the supply chain?  If Apple gives you a new phone; it is exactly that - a NEW phone.  It typically takes 4-6 months after an iOS device is released before you see refurbs released into the marketplace. 

Problems with brand new devices (along with an OS update) are not uncommon. If you're not satisfied with Apple, (or any other tech company) making an honest effort to fix an unanticipated / undiscovered problem (prior to release) then you might want to consider waiting a few weeks after the release of ANY tech hardware or software to see if users start reporting problems.  Adoption of the newest thing out there is seldom 100% trouble free.