Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

Jameson! wrote:

 

Well you can call it an unfortunate coincidence, or believe whatever conspiracy theory you wish.   When I see a problem that crosses many models of phones (and iPads), with the only common element being iOS5, logic and common sense tells me where to point the finger of blame.

Some facts:

- iPods with iOS 5 seems not be affected by the battery issue

- iPads 1 and 2 with 3G chips and iOS 5 seems not to be affected by the battery issue

Some history:

iOS 5.0.0 beta did not fix the battery issue

iOS 5.0.0 did not fix the battery issue

iOS 5.0.1 first build did not fix the battery issue (only here Apple mentions that this fixes the battery issue)

iOS 5.0.1 second build did not fix the battery issue

iOS 5.1 beta 1 did not fix the battery issue (battery issue is not even mentioned)

iOS 5.1 beta 2 does not fix the battery issue (battery issue is not even mentioned)

The future iOS 5.1 looks great regarding the battery issue (sarcasm)!

Jameson! wrote:

 

Shhhh.......   Don't tell enx23!   He doesn't believe it's a cellular data management problem!!!  

brilock1 wrote:

 

in addition to the suggestions on here, after re-boot,re-set, re-charge and goodness knows what else i got mine yesterday to .5% drain per hour hooray!!!! what else did i do? iAd off and mobile data off. i will until theres a fix only put mobile data on when i need it!!

Sorry, but wrong again.......   I have a 3G iPad-1 and it most certainly DOES experience battery drain problems when I take it away from my wifi network.

enx23 wrote:

 

Jameson! wrote:

 

Well you can call it an unfortunate coincidence, or believe whatever conspiracy theory you wish.   When I see a problem that crosses many models of phones (and iPads), with the only common element being iOS5, logic and common sense tells me where to point the finger of blame.

Some facts:

- iPods with iOS 5 seems not be affected by the battery issue

- iPads 1 and 2 with 3G chips and iOS 5 seems not to be affected by the battery issue

 

Some history:

iOS 5.0.0 beta did not fix the battery issue

iOS 5.0.0 did not fix the battery issue

iOS 5.0.1 first build did not fix the battery issue (only here Apple mentions that this fixes the battery issue)

iOS 5.0.1 second build did not fix the battery issue

iOS 5.1 beta 1 did not fix the battery issue (battery issue is not even mentioned)

iOS 5.1 beta 2 does not fix the battery issue (battery issue is not even mentioned)

 

The future of iOS looks great regarding the battery issue (sarcasm)!

Jameson! wrote:

 

Sorry, but wrong again.......   I have a 3G iPad-1 and it most certainly DOES experience battery drain problems when I take it away from my wifi network.

I have a 3G Ipad 1 with iOS 5.0.1 and I have no problems with battery life. The battery lasts as long as with iOS 4.3!!! Also my friend has 3G iPad 2 with iOS 5.0.1 and has no problems either with the battery life!

Look the bad guy here is Apple for making such a bad iPhone 4S and/or iOS 5.X.X! Apple is the common point in iPods, iPhones, and iPads!

Regardless........    I have the problem, but rarely take the iPad where there is no wifi, so am not affected badly by it.   Even with my 4s, I spend the bulk of my day with wifi, either at the office or home, so I easily get through a full day+ on a charge.   I charge every night, which is pretty much my SOP with previous iPhones.

You claim 5.1 will not solve the problem, but I have in fact heard mixed results from beta testers.   In reality, it'll be a wait and see thing......    IMO, the longer we wait and the more betas we see released, the less confident I'll be that they have fixed the problem.  I fully expect they will never fully acknowledge the problem, just fix it and let the furor over it slowly die out........

enx23 wrote:

 

Jameson! wrote:

 

Sorry, but wrong again.......   I have a 3G iPad-1 and it most certainly DOES experience battery drain problems when I take it away from my wifi network.

I have a 3G Ipad 1 with iOS 5.0.1 and I have no problems with battery life. The battery lasts as long as with iOS 4.3!!! Also my friend has 3G iPad 2 with iOS 5.0.1 and has no problems either with the battery life!

 

Look the bad guy here is Apple for making such a bad iPhone 4S and/or iOS 5.X.X!

I must admit that even though there are 500+ pages on this battery issue, the number of non-repeat posters complaining about the battery issue is rather small.  Sure there are 7,549 replies from various people, but some people have posted upwards of 15-20 times or more.  In reality, this one thread alone only has about 600-700 people that have experienced battery problems on the new 4s.  Seems small considering the millions of phones that are now out there around the world.

Though a pain in the butt, most people have seemed to solve the battery drain issue by setting their phone up "as new".  Sure they lost all their data and such by wiping their phone clean, but it only takes an hour or so to get everything back on it.  In fact, most of the issues seem to be caused by people who setup their new 4s using a backup from an older iPhone.  I think the home-remedies that people have invented, like shutting of everything and then rebooting while holding the phone upside-down, and jumping in the same spot doesn't do much (at least to those that understand software programming and hardware integration). 

Are there defective phones out there....YES.  Is there a software problem likely contributing to excessive battery drain, in combination with individual user settings...YES.  Could the problems be a manifestation created by people with limited or no experience using smartphones, or what to expect from one?....YES.

I have had my phone for almost two months now and have not had a problem with the battery life.  I am currently running 9A406 and it operates the same as 5.0 did (not sure of the build number, 9A334??).  I keep most stuff on and see acceptable operating life (about two days between charges).  The only glitch I noticed was standby time and usage time being identifical.  This went away after I rebooted the phone which cleared the internal RAM and iOS buffer.  Other than that, the phone works as represented.

The issue is not just the device, it is if your using push with an email, siri gets overactivated or the auto time refreshes to frequently. Not everyone is affected since not everyone uses microsoft exchange for instance. I am at 45% battery now just 6 hours after a full charge but i did talk for 1 hour 29 minutes, 56 minutes of internet without wifi and I had for a while the stocks page open. It is at least compareable not to my other phones. (yea, i wish i had more) but its working better now than before.

In all honestly, iPhones blow for integration with exchange server accounts.  I have a blackberry for work which is sync'd to the exchange server and it can go 5 days between charges with moderate use everyday.  A few people using iPhones as their business phone have reported that the exchange account destroys battery life.

You didn't mention what settings you are using, ie., Location, Exchange, Twitter, WiFi, etc. I really doubt there are many defective phones out there and this is a software issue. I'm running 5.0.1 (9A405) and have only charged the phone once since buying. I don't think I could see that big of a gain after the battery is conditioned. I remember having an Incredible that when location was on the battery drained faster. I've since disabled that, have Gmail setup through Exchange per Google's intructions, Yahoo setup, and WiFi networkes connected at various locations.

The phone was brand new from the box with factory settings. I will try the reboot but that happened I believe when I let the battery go completly dead before charging. Right now from the initial charge I got maybe 22 hours of standby and a couple hours of usage which at the time the phone was at 10% before charging again. I've since only shut off location so I'll see what happens.

They should put a setting on the phone in which you can manually select the phone to use either: 2G, 3G or CDMA.

That would fix some batt issues. IMO..

Current settings are:

Location services = ON (4 apps)

System services = OFF

WiFi = OFF at work, ON at home

Cellular Data = ON

Notifications = Six apps ON (calendar, mail, messages, viber, phone, weather); all others OFF

Bluetooth = OFF

Mail = One account set to fetch every hour

Facetime = ON

iMessage = ON

Apple Store = logged in all the time

Restrictions = Ping OFF

Siri = ON, raise-to-speak OFF

iCloud = Not setup/not used (i still sync the old fashion way)

I agree, they need to make the toggle for cellular data and 3G separate...just like iPhone 4.

Unshaven wrote:

 

[...] I think the home-remedies that people have invented, like shutting of everything and then rebooting while holding the phone upside-down, and jumping in the same spot doesn't do much (at least to those that understand software programming and hardware integration). 

 

Are there defective phones out there....YES.  Is there a software problem likely contributing to excessive battery drain, in combination with individual user settings...YES.  Could the problems be a manifestation created by people with limited or no experience using smartphones, or what to expect from one?....YES.

[...]This went away after I rebooted the phone which cleared the internal RAM and iOS buffer.[...]

Although there's lots of truth to what you're saying, well you just solved your issue with the home remedies you criticize. You see, the home remedies you make fun of are simply spins on usual steps support people do (reinitializing, rebooting, clearing up, etc), based on Apple's guidelines - http://www.apple.com/batteries/iphone.html - or ways to disengage or alleviate the impacts of the lesser than stellar features of iOS i.e. integration with exchange as you point out later on. Or they're relfections on knowledge that many Apple users don't have i.e. usage specs etc. The fact you know or not about development and integration changes nothing except how you qualify these things - aside from depicting you as slightly condescending when you brag about it. Finally you fail to take into account the fact that Apple doesn't do support in the forums so the users are left with themselves and of course will speculate according to their respective knowledge. I don't remember your extended knowledge adding anything here. Of course it's easy to come here after the bulk of the initial issues have cleared up and oversee in retrospect what has happened here. This is also why very knowledgeable people are very much useless in terms of support, as was evidenced in the thread on countless occasions. Support is about empowering the user base. You fail to grasp this.

Take care!

I have iCloud setup and two mail accounts, one being gmail through Exchange and fetches every 5 minutes I believe. Perhaps it's email that's causing the drain.

Ummmm.....    I am using PUSH with EXCHANGE for me office email.   I am using PUSH for personal Yahoo Mail.   I'm using FETCH 15min for personal Gmail.   I have Siri ON, but lift to activate OFF.   I have location and notification services all ON.

Again, when I'm connected to wifi, I have no battery drain issues.   As soon as I leave wifi and data starts flowing over the cellular netowrk, my battery drains like crazy.   I stand by my original statement that iOS5 has a problem with cellular data management which is causing the battery life problems.

jorgejr wrote:

 

The issue is not just the device, it is if your using push with an email, siri gets overactivated or the auto time refreshes to frequently. Not everyone is affected since not everyone uses microsoft exchange for instance. I am at 45% battery now just 6 hours after a full charge but i did talk for 1 hour 29 minutes, 56 minutes of internet without wifi and I had for a while the stocks page open. It is at least compareable not to my other phones. (yea, i wish i had more) but its working better now than before.