Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

And I've just went from 65% to 60% with doing little more than turning the phone on and looking at a few photos.

This can't possibly be right!

Well, today was a huge improvement in the battery life of my phone!

Last Monday, I took it off the charger at 6 am. At 9 am it was down to 75%. By noon it was at 59% and at 3 pm it was on 46%.

Today, I took it off the charger at 6 am. At 9 am it was at 94%. By noon it was at 84%, and at 3 pm it was on 70%. That's better than my 3G was getting with the same usage.

I followed virtually the same routine and usage on both days: listening to podcasts and music, checking email, making a few calls, etc. The biggest differences were that today I had the wifi turned off, and cellular data off when I wasn't checking email. I live in a 2G area, and work inside a metal building that ruins cell phone signal. I'm lucky to get 2 bars of signal strength in my office, but if I step outside (about 15 feet down the hall) I get a full 5 bars.

Maybe conditioning the battery over the weekend helped, and maybe there's still some issues, but I'm much happier with the battery life today than I was last Monday.

I'm also having horrible battery life.  Phone was used for two phone calls which both totaled less than 45 minuts, no text messages and a couple of emails and I'm down almost 30% in less than 2.5 hours.  Other than the battery life which I can see is going to be a problem when I go out in the field, I'm enjoying the phone.  I hope there is a resolution to this soon.

Just got off a 6.5 hour flight.  The phone was in airplane mode (no wifi, no bluetooth, location services were turned off - completely).  I started at 95% and listened to music for about an hour.  The phone started becoming very warm which I see as a common trait when it starts to eat up battery.  Got of the plane at 60%.  Just 1 hour listening to music, no phone calls, no texts and everything else turned off and this is the drop?  Wow. 

I am at wits end with this phone and hope Apple relases a patch soon.

Oh one more thing - I had no other apps running other than music when I was on the flight.  Apple can't blame other apps for this problem

jenakap wrote:

 

Just got off a 6.5 hour flight.  The phone was in airplane mode (no wifi, no bluetooth, location services were turned off - completely).  I started at 95% and listened to music for about an hour.  The phone started becoming very warm which I see as a common trait when it starts to eat up battery.  Got of the plane at 60%.  Just 1 hour listening to music, no phone calls, no texts and everything else turned off and this is the drop?  Wow. 

 

I am at wits end with this phone and hope Apple relases a patch soon.

Ironically, I had 2 similar experiences in August/September using iOS 4.3.5 on my iP4.  I lost over 50% overnight in airplane mode while I was sleeping (camping in the mountains with no signal) and woke up to a dead phone and another time I lost 13% while in airplane mode on a 3 hour flight when I didn't even touch the phone until we landed.

So this actually isn't a new issue.  I'm starting to get really annoyed with how buggy iOS has become and how long these bugs stay out there without being fixed.  This isn't Windows Vista - or at least it's not supposed to be!

I too am experiencing less than stellar battery life on my 16gb iPhone 4S with Verizon. Started at 100%, my usage stats: 49 minutes, Standby: 9 hours 11 minutes... Battery percentage: 81%

I've honestly turned the screen on a few times to check the time, check some messages... other than that the phone has been untouched during my work day. My actual usage time should be somewhere around: 10 minutes. Wifi, iCloud, Bluetooth, All but one location service is off, few notifications are turned on, Gmail set to fetch every 30 minutes... not sure what is going on, but Apple needs to come up with a fix ASAP. I thought my Droid's battery life was bad... this is horrific.

Does it make a difference if the battery is "conditoned" first?

Drain it all the way down, then charge it up overnight?

My usage is pretty similar too.  My average usage is 5:30 and 1 day standby.  My best usage was 6:11 and 1 day and 3 hours standby.  Coming from iPhone 4, I used to have 7 to 8:30 hours either the same type of usage.  I think iPhone 4S is low usage/battery capability compared to what I used to experience on i4.

Anyhow, I am questioning myself the same--is this the new normal for the iPhone 4S usage?

I have and appointment, again, tomorrow with Apple and I wonder if they swap phones, I am gonna get the same of what already have (kinda donot like to go to the apple store, sometimes I few kinda of a stupid with my complaints about this things and the way the tech guys handle it--althought they are nice, they imply things on their explanations and answers).

Any input will be appreciated.

Ok I really need help from APPLE.

APPLE please HELP!

So, as you guys noticed i had a post earlier explainign my standby time is ok and kinda acceptable. But i think that's nto right. Because i can't just let my phone on standby forever and not use it because of the fear that's its gonna die. Standby id one thing which is fine  but the usage is terrible. I had everythign turned off(which makes this brilliant technology) useless. But then i turned on few things( and just few) and i see the battery drains fast. I don;t think I can get more than 4 hours usage on my phone and that includes checking e-mails(not push) just manual, makign few calls, watching few youtube videos and few txts and playing around with some settings and almost minimal brightness and all those fancy features turned on discussed in the thread earlier(which actually makes this phone fancy).

Right now this is wht my stats are: 43% battery with 3 hrs and 4 minutes usage and 11 hrs and 28 mins standby. And I am just wandering that if i had typed all this on my phone, it would've dropped to 30% may be or close to it. So, yeah this is the one thing that's sacaring me these days. DONT USE YOUR PHONE! Seriously, I had an iphoen 3g for teh past 4 years. Got it when i recently came out and never had battery issue. Of course, over time it became inefficient but that was after 2 years i guess  and this is just oen week older and I expect 15 hrs of usage min. plus 2 days standby. May be I expect much but at least we should get better.

And I always liked apple just because of their customer service. Engineer called me today, I had an appointmetn set and they inquired and I am going to the apple store after work and see what they have to say.Guys, one thing i have noticed that reps on phone have been really helpful and positive but the one at genius now a days are rude and alot of people have compalined about that on this forum too. I was in store last week and the lady said " Oh this is the best you gonna get from this phone and you will have to recharge iot everyday" I didn't say anythign to her at that time because i wanted to do some more experiments with teh phoen to have a solid reason to back my theory up but she was just being ridicuolous. She herself pretty much meant yes " iphones are worst than android and it's going to last only a day and you have to charge ti by the evening everyday with moderate usage. I was shocked.

But anyways long story short. I am not goign to take their word tonight as i have a ticket open and will see wht they say. will update you guys soon!

Good luck to us all!

Sorry I meant "Fancy features turned OFF(not on)"

Guess I'll join the club now. I too have been following and trying everything under the sun besides throwing my phone out the window. That is my next step.

I went from a 4 with IOS5 to a white 4S 32GB with identical results as the rest of us. Having used the 4 for 18 months total and a few of those weeks on IOS5 I feel I have a good apples to apples perspective (pun intended).

I honestly saw a slight improvement with the battery life of the 4 on IOS5 as compared to IOS4.

It was also markedly faster (web, multi-tasking etc) for whatever reason.

I used the 4S for about 4 days before I decided to give Genius a try. They checked the battery and said that the report showed the battery was good. Howver he did say the usage report relative to the battery capacity was defintely an issue. They obviously do not have enough info or experience yet to properly diagnose what is going on. He was stumped and simply exchanged for a new unit. But their was acknowledgement which is the first step to resolution.

The new unit is slighlty better but that could simply be because I'm turning more things off and playing with settings (way too much).

I did notice besides battery life I was having connecting issues when trying to surf the net with WiFi off. I sit next to my M-Cell base and have 5 bars 100% of the time. With WiFi on the internet is typically fairly fast but on occassion it also hangs.

Today I turned off the M-Cell and now have 4 bars however the internet on cell data is much faster and works everytime. So there is some issue there I believe.

I also have left WiFi off all day today and the battery life seems to be a little better. Still at 42% @ 4PM sitting in my office all day using the phone the same way I always do. As compared to the 4 when used in the same location and at the same load its about 35-40% lower. I gave the 4 with IOS5 to my daughter and at the end of each day she has more battery than I do and probably has logged 5X the usage I have. The wife also has a 4 with IOS5 and her results are on par with my daughters. So with 3 Iphones in the family I have a reasonable benchmark for comparison.

Based on everything I've read there are things that work for some and things that dont. There is no consistancy between what seems to be the "trick". Between all the restores and setting changes its all over the board in regards to who has seen success and even then to what degree. My gut feeling based on my 4 expereince is that this is an IOS5 and 4S firmware issue. I realize this doesnt explain the issues the folks with 3GS and 4's are having but from personal experience its only the 4S that I have seen the issue.

My feelings are that Apple has to be aware of it based on the phone support and Genius feedback. I trust that they wont simply discount it as a few people not happy with the battery life which seems to happen with new product releases. Almost like when you buy a car that says 31 MPG on the sticker only to find your first fill-up you got 29 MPG. I'm sure their battery #'s are based on best case  scenarios and I expect to vary slightly from what they advertise. However I dont feel 50-75% less than what they market is acceptable.

For now I'll keep the charger close at hand and wait for the 5.0.1 software version to roll out. (or however they number it)

Danny

Dallas-Texas area-AT&T 

I seen an article on yahoo a few months ago that took you through steps to reduce battery drain.  I havent done it since i upgraded to IOS5 but am looking for it now.  Basically yo9u turn off all the Location services for every app except maybe 1 or 2.  and when you are done using a few apps, dbl hit the home key and a new row of previously used apps come up on bottom of the screen, supposedly these are not "running" in the back ground, but you phone has to keep track of them somehow, which uses power.  hold one down for a few seconds and close the ones you dont need right away, then hit the home key to return to home screen.  if i find the article i will post it.

I just came back from an appointment with an Apple Genius.

I told him that my battery life was poor.  After having problems, I tried a test where I charged the phone to 100% and did nothing with the phone (no emails, calls etc), most things were turned off.  I also did this with my iPhone 4.

The 4S was dead after 18 hours whilst my iPhone4 was still going strong at over 90%.

The Genius did some diagnostics on my iPhone which told him the battery was normal.  He also said he had not heard of any battery issues with the new iPhone.

I asked if it was normal to only get 18 hours of standby time despite the claim on the Specs page is 200 hours standby.  The Genius said 200 hours is under ideal conditions, and in the real world you should be happy with 10% of what Apple claims!

He said if you get 1 day of standby time out of your iPhone that is normal and not too worry.  The shorter battery life was due to the faster processor.

I could not believe that he said you need to discount Apple's specified usage times by 90% in real world conditions.  In the end, he said if I was not happy I can return the phone as it is still under the 14 day period.  This was not an offer of a replacement phone (as there was nothing wrong with my phone), it was a return.  Given my phone is 8 days old, he said I need to make a decision if I want to return the phone or not before the 14 day period expires.

I know this is all wrong, but wanted to share what I was told by the Genius (only 10 minutes ago!).

I had the same thing in London today at the genius bar, but I was told that it was because I had bluetooth on and that I had to understand the phone is more like a computer than a phone.  I was basically told that I had to accept it is how it is!  I also found them quite patronising and rude!

Speak to Apple online, they were much more helpful!