Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

Oh great, you're back are you?

 

Can't wait for your next insightful pearl of poorly written, shouty wisdom... Yay.

I suspect that he's compensating for something, people (and I use the word cautiously) like him usually are....

What do you mean by "iPhone is the best"? If it was clearly the best, you wouldn't have a thread as long as this about something that should never have been allowed to happen in the first place, with the manufacturer being almost totally silent about the problem...

I purchased an iPhone 4S two weeks ago.  Battery with minimal use was ONLY lasting 4 hours.  I returned it, got a new one.  First day battery was normal, second recharge saw some battery drainage.   Did a reset, turned off all the items recommended here, charged......battery is draining this morning right before my eyes with minimal use.

There is a problem, they know it, now when are they going to reach out to us and let us know what is going on.

3dmac wrote:

Actually Lipo's req. a full conditioning routinely in order to keep them at optimum capacity ( full electron movement. Discharging the phone till dead is only to set safe limits just like any Lipo in a laptop. Min voltage is 3.2volt per cell ( in this case a 2s 7.4v 1465mah) BUT this is not the threshhold voltage when the phone turns off, thats 3.7v per cell. Full charge is 4.20v/ cell.

The phone comes with a storage charge ( and a lipo can have over a year or more shelf life !! )

Yes lipos do not suffer from memory, BUT usable capacity will if not conditioned ever so often during use. Lipos like to be discharge to keep things moving.

Note: I use large hi amp packs in my TREX 450 heli !!

Hi 3dmac,

From my understanding, you do not need to completely drain LIPO batteries to keep them maintained.  You just need to go through full charge cycles. i.e. keep electrons moving often.  If you read Apple's own website on Lithium based batteries, they do not define a full charge cycle as letting the device drain until it crashes which is what people are recommending here.  Here is the link:

http://www.apple.com/batteries/

You may be able to increase the capacity by a small percentage by performing a full discharge but that improvement is minimal compared to the problem that people are describing. 

It has to be a software issue. My iphone 4s has excellet battery life! Will last an entire day. I have to charge it every night though, which is like any other smart phone!

Don't know if that was sarcasm but that is NOT excellent battery life..

Funny how we all see things differently. I would have said that means it must be a hardware issue.

Why would the same, deterministic software cause two identically manufactured handsets to have dramatically different usage figures?

The OS is the one thing which can be guaranteed to be exactly the same between my phone and yours. To the tiniest degree.

I am prone to believe it is a hardware problem.

I'm adding my 2 cents about the iPhone 4S battery, and possibly not in the right place. But I want to be heard! The battery is extremely disappointing. I've tried every solution recommended; I've wasted hours accomplishing nothing; I need to move on and get my life back. (I spent over 40 hours resolving iCloud issues; I continue to try to get wifi syncing to work; the list goes on well beyond the battery.) My iPhone 3G was wonderful. I'm in love with my iPad. I was about to make the move from PC to MAC but I'm afraid to switch.  I fear the company is on a downward trajectory now that Steve Jobs has passed. Please, Apple, say it ain't so.  Then again, don't say it--prove it ain't so.

Hi zSceptic,

I quite agree.

Apple, please excuse me if I am slightly reticent to believe the "recommendations" for maximising battery performance. Best I have achieved in a week is 6.5 hours from full to shutdown.

Looking like I may get 9 hours today - I am now without Siri, location services, notifications and Mobile Data is disabled except for when I want to check for a couple of minutes - then it is straight back off again.

Is that how the user experience should be?

I am doing as requested by my phone company and allowing a few charge/discharge cycles  - but right now I could hit this thing with a brick. If the replacement handset is not the greatest thing since sliced bread then iPhones and me are over!

I need to retain my composure...

We are almost on page 468 of this thread. Could we move on from people saying "Turn off location services" and "disable setting time zone automatically".

Actually, no we couldn't. The fact so many people are having issues makes reading the entire thread almost impossible.

And after all that - not one word from the manufacturer to assist anyone.

They just want you to go away and trust that a release of the next generation handset will cause enough distraction and hope that enough users will give up on the current problems that it will all just be forgotten amid new reports going out stating how the company has more cash in reserve than the Federal government.

And that, folks, is not simply added as satire.

It has to be a software issue. My iphone 4s has excellet battery life! Will last an entire day. I have to charge it every night though, which is like any other smart phone!

You are deluding yourself when you say "like any other smart phone". My Nokia N8 lasts 2 or 3 days between charges, even under heavy usage, but that's the difference between an OS which can properly manage multi-tasking and one that can't...

3dmac I've never seen 1 Day in stand-by on my 4S!!! so your 2Days and 2h. looks fine to me.

This screenshot I've made this morning when I woke up. Fully charged last night and this morning 1/5 of the battery is gone without touching it.
Siri and "Raise to Speak" are "ON" ; Wifi & 3G - ON ; "Don't Send" for Diagnostics ; Location Services for System Services - All "OFF"... Mail & iCloud - Manualy.
I guess that last night Siri talked to herself for 1,5 hour...

Got my 4S two weeks ago and noticed i was losing 10% of the battery per hour in standby alone. Turned off bluetooth, WIFI, dimed screen, turned off push email etc nothing substantially improved the batterly. I also deleted all my email accounts and created them over again. Apple replaced the phone, same problem with new one.

Determined to get to the bottom of this I turned everything off except the phone and checked battery, I was now only losing 1% per 2 hours. I slowly starting turing fucnctions back on to see where the culprit was. For me the problem turned out to be under settings>location services>system services>setting time zone. Once I swithched that to off, my battery issue is gone. With moderate use WIFI and Bluetooth on, I can get 20 hours on one charge. To be sure I went back to setting time zone to "on" and my battery was drained in just a few hours. I hope this will help some of you.

I've gotten really good standby time by turning iCloud from push to Manual and all my email accounts (2) to Manual as well. You can access it by Settings>Mail, Contacts, Caldendars>Feth New Data>Advanced.

I would say software because we all have identical hardware. These phones are made in china and are made with the same machinery. It cannot be a hardware issue. If it were everyone would have the same problem. Millions of phones have been sold. Few of us are having problems. And mine was a brand new factory unlocked iphone 4s and i did not sync anything with icloud or use a previous back up. Set it up new. I did not update to though. Because some who updated started having the battery problem, people who previously did not. Which is why i am inclined to believe that it is software bug.