Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

@Tom-Bo-Mac: Another user reported problems with T-Mobile SIMs in Germany: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3491623?start=0&tstart=0

Get an App called 'System Status'.  That should help you out.  I don't know how good the free version is, I just bought the paid version and it's helped me quite a lot.

I got the full version of System Status (the free doesn't do much) and so far nothing looks fishy. CPU load is low (< 1 % on average), will see how that stat changes over time.

The problem is that the app doesn't show how much CPU time processes are using (iOS probably doesn't provide that metric), just how long they've been running. The other thing is that battery drain doesn't necessarily happen due to high CPU load, it could also be constant activity on one or more of the radios and that wouldn't show up in the app.

During the time I've been writing this the average CPU load according to System Status has been around 1% and the battery has gone from 29 % to 25%. So I think it's probably safe to say it's not some rogue app that's hogging the CPU, it's most likely related to one of the radios.

Edit: Another thing that's strange is that all this only started about 3 days ago. I've had my 4S since November or so and battery life was normal during that time. And all of the sudden something has to have changed and it's not a recent iOS update (5.0.1 came out early December). I'm suspecting it's something outside the phone, like on the network or baseband. I'm not on iCloud, by the way, as others have reported their problems started after moving to iCloud.

So I did a test yesterday.  Starting off from 100% yesterday, I did NOTHING on 3G yesterday, except for texting and calling.  I did NOT use 3G data.  I was on Wifi the entire time all day.  I did regular usage, and to my surprise, I got through the day from 10AM to 7PM WITHOUT putting my phone on charge.  My battery was still at 69% at the end of the day.  I was shocked.  The after 7PM, I intentionally turned off Wifi and started to use 3G data and the battery started to drain like CRAZY again.  So I can conclude that this is a Chipset issue and Radios issue.  Perhaps the new Hybrid chip is performing very poorly, more than what Apple would have anticipated. 

What I don't understand is that did Apple decide to release this phone with this chip without doing any sort of pre-testing on it?  Obviously a company this big should have gone through various situations, various tests and what not before releasing a phone that is very heavy on the wallet.  Having the problem that this phone has, this just tells me how careless Apple was with going through careful testing with the iPhone 4S.  This is truly unbelievable.  To me, releasing the iPhone 4S was just a point by apple where they are just wanting to make 'extra' money on the side, while working on their main upcoming products, iPad 3/4 and iPhone 5.  I'm really disappointed with Apple.  I am a hardcore Apple fan, owning Apple products from a very early age of my life, and now I'm really disappointed with Apple.  Having ALL of the iPhones, I'm really disappointed with the 4S.  I'm willing to give Apple another chance, but they MUST fix this issue ASAP.

My 4 iPhone 4's are outperforming the iPhone 4S in battery life.  I have iPhone 4S's on three different networks.  Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T, all performing VERY poorly.  This i struly disappointing and I am disguisted at Apple for releasing a product that has a very big problem. 

I just called T-Mobile and without any hesitation they told me to go to one of their shops and get a replacement iPhone 4S. The rep didn't even ask for specific details or anything, I just told her that the phone had started draining the battery over night and had been working fine until a couple of days ago. My guess is that they're getting plenty of calls about this problem and potentially know it's a hardware problem so they don't fuss around and tell you to get a replacment.

If I can get a replacement tomorrow I'll report back if the issues are gone or not.

Wrong conclusion!   Since the battery problem follows iOS 5, even on iPhone 3G and 4 models, I conclude it's a firmware problem.   NOW, that being said, the iOS firmware is written to manage the dual antenna setup and new chipset of the 4s, so making firmware mods that ficx the problem may not be simple.   A fix may cause other problems.......

Androgen wrote:

 

So I did a test yesterday.  Starting off from 100% yesterday, I did NOTHING on 3G yesterday, except for texting and calling.  I did NOT use 3G data.  I was on Wifi the entire time all day.  I did regular usage, and to my surprise, I got through the day from 10AM to 7PM WITHOUT putting my phone on charge.  My battery was still at 69% at the end of the day.  I was shocked.  The after 7PM, I intentionally turned off Wifi and started to use 3G data and the battery started to drain like CRAZY again.  So I can conclude that this is a Chipset issue and Radios issue.  Perhaps the new Hybrid chip is performing very poorly, more than what Apple would have anticipated. 

 

What I don't understand is that did Apple decide to release this phone with this chip without doing any sort of pre-testing on it?  Obviously a company this big should have gone through various situations, various tests and what not before releasing a phone that is very heavy on the wallet.  Having the problem that this phone has, this just tells me how careless Apple was with going through careful testing with the iPhone 4S.  This is truly unbelievable.  To me, releasing the iPhone 4S was just a point by apple where they are just wanting to make 'extra' money on the side, while working on their main upcoming products, iPad 3/4 and iPhone 5.  I'm really disappointed with Apple.  I am a hardcore Apple fan, owning Apple products from a very early age of my life, and now I'm really disappointed with Apple.  Having ALL of the iPhones, I'm really disappointed with the 4S.  I'm willing to give Apple another chance, but they MUST fix this issue ASAP.

 

My 4 iPhone 4's are outperforming the iPhone 4S in battery life.  I have iPhone 4S's on three different networks.  Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T, all performing VERY poorly.  This i struly disappointing and I am disguisted at Apple for releasing a product that has a very big problem. 

Firmware problems?  Perhaps PARTIALLY true.  Although my iPhone 4 is functioning perfectly fine on iOS 5.  NO problem at all.  My 3GS is the same way.  I can confirm this because I have three of each iPhones.  One model of each is more than 1 year old and were bought when they were first released.  iOS 5 seems to be fine on all of them, with the exception of my 4S.  Now iOS 5 did act up a little bit at first one my older devices, but but 5.0.1 fixed the issues.

I just had my iPhone 4S replaced at Apple. Previously, my phone would last a MAXIMUM of 12 hours. Use or no use. It could be on airplane mode and easily go down 46% in 8 hours overnight. From my experience and many hours of reseaching what the problem might actually be, I have to a conclusion that there are a number of iPhone 4S's that are simply defective. No matter how many times the phone is restored, optimized, etc. the battery will drain at a steady, ridiculous rate whether you like it or not. Unfortunetly, there seems to be an extremely large number of defective phones. I think that if you have a 4S and you're experiencing absolutely disguisting battery life, forget optimizing, closing running apps, and what not. Just take it in to an Apple Store, speak with someone at the Genius Bar and they will more then likely replace your brand new 4S with a non-defective one. That was my experience with the 4S that I've received directly from Apple few months back.

Do we have a consensus yet as to what constitutes a "working" 4S as far as battery life is concerned? I mean, my unit can squeak by on around 7.5-8hrs of usage with a blend of Wifi, 3G data, browsing, texting and phone calls - I toggle 3G on/off as location requires.

Are there 4S' that are realizing, say, 12hrs of reasonable blended use?

Okay so I received my iPhone 4S from work three days ago.  I spent a lot of time on the iPhone 4, 3GS, and 3G so I can say I've got enough experience to know what battery life SHOULD be like.

Day 1: I authenticate the phone and start putting all my apps on it.  I keep the phone busy until it dies and kept it on a charger for roughly 24 hours.

Day 2: I bring the phone to work, and use it as normal.  The battery dies before I leave work.  From the time I leave home to the time I leave work is usually 9 hours.  The battery died in roughly 7 hours of light to moderate use.  I was aggrovated by this, but like anything, I do my research before I start complaining.  I found this post and took in to consideration a lot of the advice given.  I got home, and did a full backup of my phone, then a full factory reset.  I left it on the charger for the remainder of the night.

Day 3: I get up and go through my normal routine.  I used the phone to text a few people, and also installed WhatsApp to be able to text my ex-wife.  The battery drains to 70% before 2 hours passes.  I compared my phone to a co-workers phone who runs about the same time schedule as I do.  He is still at 100% battery on his iPhone4.  I noticed also that with the phones side by side, he gets a 3G signal and I don't.  In fact, my phone struggles to keep a 3G signal where his phone keeps connected all the time.  I figure since the phone is bone stock except for WhatsApp, that WhatsApp is the problem.  I did a little more research and saw some people with the same problem relating it to WhatsApp, so I removed it.  Back to bone stock again, I notice the battery is still dropping tramendously fast.  At 64% I again pull up this thread and check for further updates on this issue.  I saw several posts saying that we can't disable 3G and use EDGE.  This is true.  I read further seeing people say that if you turn off the data usage all together, the battery life improves tramendously.  I've got WIFI at work, so I gave that a shot.  2 hours in to having a WIFI only data connection, my battery life is now 63%.  That is a HUGE difference in power consumption and there is CLEARLY a problem with the new radio chips. 

If you ask me, we need to start a petition to get Apple to focus on fixing this issue.  If a recall or repair for every phone sold is the only solution, big deal.  They sold us bad product.  I'd much rather go back to an iPhone4 or 3GS than continue to use this.

My iPhone 4S battery life collapsed after the latest (December) fix went out. I am on O2.

Something is generating a huge amount of network traffic. Battery life is fine if I switch off cellular data AND wifi (or just do the former and stay out of wifi signal). Otherwise the phone drains within a few hours and in the process becomes (on 3G) hot to the touch.

I have not installed any different apps or configuration to the phone, other than "upgrade" the OS.

Travelled from UK to Poland in December. The phone was roaming and used up 100% of its roaming allowance in 1 day.

I'm not sure if there's a tool to report network activity on particular ports, maybe that would help with tracking down the culprit.

Apple doesn't seem to be taking the issue seriously. I'd suggest that, if a software defect is causing a significant upsurge in subscriber data bills, the regulators might hold them liable, so they might want to take it very seriously indeed.

@LutherLassiter: for me a working 4S is the one that I had until Tuesday afternoon. For about 4 weks it had the same battery usage as my iPhone 4. Then I moved from MobileMe to iCloud and all of a sudden my battery drain was around 15 times higher than the weeks before.

The issue here CANNOT be Qualcomm's baseband chip because Verizon's iPhone 4 also uses the same exact cellular radio chip, with the GSM part disabled. It had the same exact battery life as the GSM counterpart so it cannot be Qualcomm's chip, and it also DID NOT have a 3G switch.

The issue here is software-related, either in optimization, drivers, or something.

@justinxtreme2

justinxtreme2 wrote:

 

The issue here CANNOT be Qualcomm's baseband chip because Verizon's iPhone 4 also uses the same exact cellular radio chip, with the GSM part disabled. It had the same exact battery life as the GSM counterpart so it cannot be Qualcomm's chip, and it also DID NOT have a 3G switch.

 

The issue here is software-related, either in optimization, drivers, or something.

iPhone 4 and iPhone 4s have different Qualcomm chipsets!

iPhone 4s has Qualcomm MDM6610 chipset!

iPhone 4   has Qualcomm MDM6600 chipset!

Please, not the difference between MDM6610 and MDM6600!

For now the Qualcomm MDM6610 chipset can be found only in iPhone 4S!

Indeed in general the Qualcomm's chipsets do not have the 3G switch (they are on "auto-pilot" mode)!

@Pete

In your case it can be that suddenly your 3G network cell became "busy" when you switched on the iCloud and MobileMe!