Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

@ukshady

 

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

 

This issue has been reported before by users who were shocked to see that after they got the iPhone 4S their data plan reached the limir a lot faster. This happens because iPhone 4S prefers to use 3G Cellular data for internet in standby even that it is connected to Wifi!

Apple doesn't seem to be taking the issue seriously.

To me it looks like Apple is hoping that people will get over it! I really hope that people will complain and return their iPhone 4S until Apple will address the issue officially.

 

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.

I see black clouds gathering over iPhone 4S!

@Androgen @Jameson!

Androgen wrote:

 

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 agree with you Androgen! For sure iOS 5.X.X has bugs which affect too the battery life. On top of that one has also the hardware issue regarding the 3G which affects the battery life even worse! This is why the entire issue of miserable battery life is so murky because it has many components, which are hardware issue plus software bugs!

I concur with you that also two of my friends which have iOS 5.0.1 on their iPhone 3GS have no problems with battery life! Also I have no problem with battery life with iOS 5.0.1 on my iPad 1. This shows that indeed that the battery life issue on iPhone 4s has also hardware related!!!

@Addohm

Addohm wrote:

 

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. 

 

 

I concur with you fully! iPhone 4S has a much worse battery life than iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS and this is not acceptable for a new phone!!! Indeed there is a hardware problem with the 3G chips (and maybe also with the antenna configuration)!

 

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.

To me it looks like Apple is not doing enough!

The petition idea is good! How we could start that?

@enx23 I was on Wifi. But indeed the drain started really when I went out of the house. Then why did it continue, after I came back home and switched mobile data off?

Are you able to regain the past performance by disabling iCloud?

No, that didn't work. But I regained past performance by deleting MobileMe-related apps (Mobile Me Gallery and iDisk) and doing a restore to factory followed by restore from backup.

I used the free app called Sytem Status and you are right, doesn't tell you much. I tried one called iAssitant and that seems to have quite  a lot going for it. Not sure what it all means or what you can do with it but there it is if anyone is interested. I can see in the CPU area that I have anywhere from 28-38 Processes Running when no apps are running. The iPhone does quite a bit while just resting.

Took my iPhone 4s into my local Apple Genius today, he put it through its paces and even showed me, which he didn't have to do, what the status is of my phone. One app in particular showed that it had crashed numerous times, it has to crash at least 15 times per the "Genius" to show up on the report.  I deleted that app so I'll keep an eye out and see what happens. It showed the battery to be normal as well as the usage and standby numbers. I let him know that I have experimented with turning almost everything off on my phone to prolong the life of the battery. I wouldn't say my battery is performing as good as my "4" was at all.

Might consider the "juice pack" if you really need the phone to last.

Yeah, nothing like a good petition to get things done.......  

enx23 wrote:

 

To me it looks like Apple is not doing enough!

 

The petition idea is good! How we could start that?

@Pete

Pete from Switzerland wrote:

 

@enx23 I was on Wifi. But indeed the drain started really when I went out of the house. Then why did it continue, after I came back home and switched mobile data off?

I guess that 3G data transferr might have corrupted your iCloud and MobileMe settings on your iPhone 4S. Probably this is why after you switched off the Cellular Data and moved back to Wifi the problem was still there. The only way to fix this temporarly was to switch off the iCloud and MobileMe (and maybe a restore would help too).

@Jameson!

Jameson! wrote:

 

Yeah, nothing like a good petition to get things done.......  

enx23 wrote:

 

To me it looks like Apple is not doing enough!

 

The petition idea is good! How we could start that?

Exactly!

Same issues here, first day the phone lasted 3 days when I was roaming and had cellular data turned off. Came back home, switched it on and all **** broke lose. My phone was charging all night, unhooked it 10am in the morning, by 18h i have less than 20% with lower than average usage.

Never used iCloud for fyi

Anyone tried the solution in this vid yet?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mwpRotYS78

I just realized that I did change one thing over the last week or so that might have been causing the sudden battery drain: I turned on WiFi syncing in iTunes.

Normally I wouldn't think that this would cause such a massive drain, but if the info on that video page is correct, it might be the iPhone continously trying to resolve DNS and failing with certain types of routers.

I turned WiFi syncing off for my iPhone and after I've given it a full charge I'll let it sit over night and see how things are tomorrow.

As I understand wifi syncing with iTunes, it will only run when connected to a charger......

Tom-Bo-Mac wrote:

 

Anyone tried the solution in this vid yet?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mwpRotYS78

 

I just realized that I did change one thing over the last week or so that might have been causing the sudden battery drain: I turned on WiFi syncing in iTunes.

 

Normally I wouldn't think that this would cause such a massive drain, but if the info on that video page is correct, it might be the iPhone continously trying to resolve DNS and failing with certain types of routers.

 

I turned WiFi syncing off for my iPhone and after I've given it a full charge I'll let it sit over night and see how things are tomorrow.

Add me up for the petition!

This thread has become my hobby. I've been checking it daily so I thought I'd chime in again to see if it may perhaps help somebody.  I bought my 4S the day it was released, and I updated to the 5.0.1 (not the latest build, though).  It seems this has to be a software issue. All my apps are updated.  I've been closing out apps that run in the background, and I think this has made somewhat of a difference as well.  I've never had terrible battery life as worse as some on this board, but perhaps my settings may show just for comparision. This is the best battery I've got right before it shut off :