Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

Turnbnr8,

The siri sensor for raise to speak is supposed to be on any time he handset is not locked. Thats one difference from the iPhone 4 as it only came on when making a phone call. If you turn off the raise to speak feature and reboot a few times like you mentioned it does not come on. Effectively functions like iPhone 4. There is debate whether the led in fact causes drain as typically led use very little power. But there are several folks who have turned it off and appear to have better battery so perhaps there is something to it. Anyway again its supposed to be on all the time so it knows when you raise the phone to your ear to turn on Siri. Personally I have it off and prefer to press the home button for Siri. So also get the side benefit of longer battery even if minimum.

turbn8r wrote:

 

I really think that the Siri ir sensor is causing an awful lot of the battery problems with the 4s. I have posted this many times about the ir sensor being on when it shouldn't be. You can check this just by holding a digital camera in front of the phone and see if the sensor is blinking away. Try Siri and make sure it goes on and then shuts off. If it remains on then you have to expect the battery will be draining. And the ir and Siri is part of the problem!

sbailey4

I really don't think the siri ir sensor should be on all the time when the screen is lit up. I have tested this many times and it goes off when Siri is off. When I make a phone call I can see the sensor come on and off as it should do. I have rasie to speak off like many do. I would almost agree the sensor is using low power but I have no proof. IMO, if its on its using battery power. I think we should all check this and eliminate this part of the battery drain issue.

Have you tested that by chance?  How else would Siri "raise to talk" work? And why would turning off the raise to talk feature make it go off and stay off?  If you turn on raise to talk and watch with your camera you are seeing the sensor on anytime the screen is unlocked yes? And if its off you dont? Thats the way mine functions. Not sure I ever looked at it just using Siri with the raise to talk off.

I saw a review somewhere regarding this (Maybe CNET or something like that) They explained it pretty well there.

turbn8r wrote:

 

sbailey4

I really don't think the siri ir sensor should be on all the time when the screen is lit up. I have tested this many times and it goes off when Siri is off. When I make a phone call I can see the sensor come on and off as it should do. I have rasie to speak off like many do. I would almost agree the sensor is using low power but I have no proof. IMO, if its on its using battery power. I think we should all check this and eliminate this part of the battery drain issue.

HI There... it would be really great if i could get some help on this. i have bought an 4s just few days back and my battery drains like anything. my battery lasts for around 22 hrs with about 4hrs and 30 mins of usage where as the spec is upto 200 hours of standby time.i have done everything possible. and this is without playing music.just checking few mails.. texting nd few calls during the day.i notice thers a drain of about 3-4% every hour. also wanted to know. by upgrading it to Build 9A406 from 9a405 will it help to increase the battery life? if anoyone could help me on this i would be really greatful. thank you

Thanks for the calculations! According to Apple's specification, it is supposed to stay up to 200 hours and I don't think my phone can go over 120 hours. Unfortunately, I can't see the usage time so I don't know if there is something still running in the background as before, but I'm sure there isn't. According to my results: last time I recorded before I slept was 10:56PM, and I had 72%. I woke up at 6:15 with 68%. My iPhone is getting back to normal. This was the standby time before about 20 December. It was good up to that but then I don't know what happened to my iPhone. Anyways, I'm lovin' it. About 25% for 24hrs with extremely low usage. Fair enough!

Just to let you know, I'm not complaining about the battery life now. I'm very satisfied. Very!

Lloyd - Did you try switching off the settings you're not using (location settings)?

I tested this by reading through the many posts on here. Way back and early on there was a discussion about this. I do not use Siri "raise to speak" but I just press the home button to ask a question. It doesn't really matter if you just lay the phone on the table and ask siri a question or raise it to your ear. Laying on the table you can hear through the speaker, if you raise it to your ear and ask the question you can hear it through your ear. That's interesting as I have "raise to talk" turned off. When I turned "raise to speak" on, I see the sensor on all the time and the only way it will go out is if I do a hard reset. I really believe they have a software problem with the way that sensor operates.

I suggest you go to Settings > Location Services > System Services and turn off Setting Time Zone. Also, make sure your bluetooth is off to avoid battery drainage.

By going to Settings > General > Date & Time, you can tun of the Set Automatically setting and change the time zone to your city. This might save battery as well if you don't travel a lot.

Lloyd - The Raise to Speak setting (Settings > General > Siri) causes the IR sensor always on. You can test after turning it off to see if its still on by using a digital camera or your laptop camera and when you see a red blinking light on the screen of your laptop/camera, then its on. This will only work when the phone is unlocked - not in lock screen. Please try this and hope it helps you.

Shake that... Everyday I'm Shufflin'!

Just wanted to let you all know my situation after updating to iOS 5.1 beta 3 (for dev. only)

Nothing dramatically changed when compared with iOS 5.0.1

I turn all of my notifications off (since I don't think this is so important in my life) and do not set-up any emails.

My battery last 24 hrs standby plus 4-6 hrs of usage time approximately.  Which I think is acceptable.

Anyhow I am still waiting and hoping that Apple would do something to fix this issue.

By the way, I will be stopping the investigation I'm doing today because I have approved that my phone has no hardware issues. This is the only phone I'm using and I can't live without it. I'll put in apps one at a time, as I stated before. I will stop the test at 7:11PM today, 8 minutes to go. Thank you all!

After exactly 2 days of standby (not airplane mode), I lost 48% and now have 52%. I lost about 25% on the first day and 23% on the second. I made 3-4 calls and sent 2 text messages. These results are great.