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Scarface.

Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

My iPhone 4s battery seems terrible! Almost equivalent to my 3GS and it's terrible battery life. When I got my iPhone yesterday and restored from backup I noticed nothing really changed with minimal usage and standby! Is this normal or should I consider setting it up as a new phone because maybe something is running in the background that's causing it to drop a percentage every few minutes under light usage? Input would be great!

Posted on Oct 15, 2011 7:14 AM

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Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

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  • by Jameson!,

    Jameson! Jameson! Jan 6, 2012 12:05 PM in response to circuitslave
    Level 1 (40 points)
    Jan 6, 2012 12:05 PM in response to circuitslave

    What did that 4 hours of usage over the 4+ days consist of?

  • by EdiMC,

    EdiMC EdiMC Jan 6, 2012 12:12 PM in response to Jameson!
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 6, 2012 12:12 PM in response to Jameson!

    Even if it was in Sleep Mode its a SUPERB performance!!

    I get 1 day and 6/7 hours with EVERYTHING off, 35minutes of calls, 2 or 3 text messages, 5minutes websurfing (3.5mb)...meaning: most of the time in Sleep Mode...

     

    And i get the ridiculous usage time of 15/20hours, which stupid, since i've only used the phone for about 30-45minutes...

     

    I'm hating my first experience with an iPhone...just hating it!!!!

  • by circuitslave,

    circuitslave circuitslave Jan 6, 2012 12:15 PM in response to Jameson!
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 6, 2012 12:15 PM in response to Jameson!

    Jameson! wrote:

     

    What did that 4 hours of usage over the 4+ days consist of?


    The usage was mainly surfing, email, and text and some FB--all mostly  via wifi.  I think that as apps were updated, it had to have helped.  I was really considering going to the Apple store to get a replacement handset, though, because I really thought it was a hardware issue because sometimes I had worse battery.   I think using cellular data in bad areas and having other apps open would really suck the life out of the battery.

  • by Vomgottsland,

    Vomgottsland Vomgottsland Jan 6, 2012 12:17 PM in response to Scarface.
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 6, 2012 12:17 PM in response to Scarface.

    I had mine for 2 weeks and returned it. The battery life is horrible and mine with everything turned off would loose 20% per hour. I spoke with Apple numerous times and all they can say is we are going to try new software. Finally mine just quit working in mid call and could not find signal so I just returned it to AT&T. Got a refund and said NO WAY to another. Apple, AT&T, Verizon or any carrier selling 4s phones are knowingly selling a faulty product...If you or I did this we would end up in jail..In my last conversation with a supervisor from Apple I was told that it was a good phone anyway and the 5 would be out soon and they hope the problem will resolve with the new phone that as of now there is no real hope of fixing this battery problem ...If there was a class action suit against Apple for knowingly continuing to sell a faulty product maybe they would then care enough to fix them. I have a 4 as a work phone that is used all day for everything and it can go almost 4 days without recharging... Shame on Apple for this type of business practice..........

  • by Pete from Switzerland,

    Pete from Switzerland Pete from Switzerland Jan 6, 2012 12:23 PM in response to enx23
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Notebooks
    Jan 6, 2012 12:23 PM in response to enx23

    @enx23 it's almost a pity that the issue disappeared. I would have loved to remove my SIM, stay on wifi and watch what happens. Did anybody ever try that? Without SIM you can do everything with an iPhone except sms and calls. I would have tried it. But my issue has not come back.

  • by enx23,

    enx23 enx23 Jan 6, 2012 12:27 PM in response to Vomgottsland
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 6, 2012 12:27 PM in response to Vomgottsland

    @Vomgottsland

     

     

    Vomgottsland wrote:

     

    I had mine for 2 weeks and returned it. The battery life is horrible and mine with everything turned off would loose 20% per hour. I spoke with Apple numerous times and all they can say is we are going to try new software. Finally mine just quit working in mid call and could not find signal so I just returned it to AT&T. Got a refund and said NO WAY to another. Apple, AT&T, Verizon or any carrier selling 4s phones are knowingly selling a faulty product...If you or I did this we would end up in jail..In my last conversation with a supervisor from Apple I was told that it was a good phone anyway and the 5 would be out soon and they hope the problem will resolve with the new phone that as of now there is no real hope of fixing this battery problem ...If there was a class action suit against Apple for knowingly continuing to sell a faulty product maybe they would then care enough to fix them. I have a 4 as a work phone that is used all day for everything and it can go almost 4 days without recharging... Shame on Apple for this type of business practice..........

    Thanks for sharing your experience with iPhone 4S. I will follow your footsteps shortly! It looks like I need to talk too to a Apple supervisor!

     

    The only thing which intrigues me is how come that the big media does not bring this up?

     

     

    ......In my last conversation with a supervisor from Apple I was told that it was a good phone anyway and the 5 would be out soon and they hope the problem will resolve with the new phone that as of now there is no real hope of fixing this battery problem ....

    If this is true (and I do not see why it wouldn't be true) then it is the first sign which indeed proves that the iPhone 4s problems are hardware problems which affect the battery life and Apple cannot fix the them with software or firmware updates and Apple hopes/wishes that people will get used with a miserable battery life! This is really really bad news!

  • by thembulldogs,

    thembulldogs thembulldogs Jan 6, 2012 12:28 PM in response to Pete from Switzerland
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 6, 2012 12:28 PM in response to Pete from Switzerland

    just called apple care and on a 10 minute phone call lost 8 %..oh the irony

  • by circuitslave,

    circuitslave circuitslave Jan 6, 2012 12:30 PM in response to thembulldogs
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 6, 2012 12:30 PM in response to thembulldogs

    thembulldogs wrote:

     

    just called apple care and on a 10 minute phone call lost 8 %..oh the irony


    LOL ( laughing with you ! )

  • by turbn8r,

    turbn8r turbn8r Jan 6, 2012 12:44 PM in response to marc-man
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 6, 2012 12:44 PM in response to marc-man

    I did a little research on the ir sensor, especially when Siri is On and when Raise to Speak is Off. On my iphone 4s, when I turn Siri on, automatically Raise to Speak is On. I check the sensor with a digital camera and can see the little green light blinking. When I turn the Raise to Speak Off, I still see the ir sensor blinking away. What gives with that? And if I turn Siri Off just through the settings, the ir sensor continues to blink. Strange, guess I'll be making another trip to the Apple store to figure this out. If I do a hard reset, home and power button, then I get the ir sensor to extinguish. Any thoughts? How is anyone elses working? I know there have been threads on the some 573 pages here but I am tired of reading through them all. Thanks...

  • by rphunte42,

    rphunte42 rphunte42 Jan 6, 2012 12:44 PM in response to enx23
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Jan 6, 2012 12:44 PM in response to enx23

    I don't know that your conclusion is supportable, yet.  We shall see.

     

    Some things I have learned from reading about the last 40 pages in this discussion.

     

    First some people are having battery issues.  Some are not.  From the discussions here, some might get the idea that most 4s users are having this problem, but then most of the people HERE are having the problem, but look at all the other topics where users don't mention poor battery performance.

     

    One observation is that most users with a battery problem manifest one of two symptoms.

    1.  static (which is probably internal arcing), and heat buildup in use, and charging.  Hardware problem!

    2.  Unexplained 'usage' out of line with time the phone is being used (not asleep) by the user.  Software?  What does Apple define as 'usage'?

    3.  Problems relating to 3G signal strength (or quality), and failure to switch to 2G when it should.  This impacts battery life, and more than likely something built into the Quallcom chip.  It may be possible to mitigate this by software (I hope).

    4.  Some people are pretty hacked off about the whole thing, and Apple isn't doing themselves any good by remaining aloof, but then that is the way Apple IS.

  • by rphunte42,

    rphunte42 rphunte42 Jan 6, 2012 12:47 PM in response to turbn8r
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Jan 6, 2012 12:47 PM in response to turbn8r

    Isn't this sensor the same one that tells the phone to turn off the display when you are talking to someone?  If it turns off, that wouldn't work.  Or maybe someone skipped a branch in the software....  Something for 5.1...

  • by ftlum,

    ftlum ftlum Jan 6, 2012 1:01 PM in response to enx23
    Level 1 (9 points)
    iPad
    Jan 6, 2012 1:01 PM in response to enx23

    Might be worth a try. 

     

    I updated to 5.0.1 and have NO apps on the phone at the moment, aside from the stock ones.  I ended up doing a DFU restore and set it up as a new phone (I couldn't get rid of the Settings app badge after the update when I attempted to restore from a backup-- thanks for another bug, Apple.).  No email accounts set up.  Just iCloud, a few notifications.  Wifi on.  Bluetooth / iAds / time zone / ping / etc, etc, etc as has been previously recommended are off. It is currently a 'dumb phone'.   

     

    I still have at least 3 times the advertized drop on standby and an hour of phantom use at the end of the work day.  The phone tends to drain the battery at work where there is no wifi.  I suspect it may die faster when the signal is bad (eg in the basement) at work.  I need to test that theory out some more.  At home on wifi, the drain is not so bad.

     

    < Link Edited By Host >

  • by rphunte42,

    rphunte42 rphunte42 Jan 6, 2012 12:48 PM in response to Pete from Switzerland
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Jan 6, 2012 12:48 PM in response to Pete from Switzerland

    I am pretty sure that most of the people with issues here would be overjoyed if they would go away, and you can still pull the SIM and only use wifi, if that makes you happy....

  • by rphunte42,

    rphunte42 rphunte42 Jan 6, 2012 12:51 PM in response to ftlum
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Jan 6, 2012 12:51 PM in response to ftlum

    Yes, low signal will certainly cause higher battery drain as the phone cranks up the wattage in order to try to maintain contact with the cell tower.  This is a normal aspect, and probably affects all cell phones.  It certainly did on my old Windows phone (HTC Pure).

  • by rphunte42,

    rphunte42 rphunte42 Jan 6, 2012 12:57 PM in response to enx23
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Jan 6, 2012 12:57 PM in response to enx23

    Hummm.  In two days, I have racked up a whole .5MB on my data plan.  I suspect a lot of those users were spending a lot of time playing with Siri to get amusing responsed.  It amazes me that so many people will use a feature without considering what it may do to their data usage.  Do they really thing Siri does all that processing for language on the phone?  I guess they do.  Of course, Apple didn't out that feature in just to increast data use, but I bet the carriers aren't complaining...

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