Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

bilbo_baggins wrote:

 

 

Bizzarre.  Next you'll be saying you switch your iPhone off when you're not making calls.  I've had every model of iPhone, and always had bluetooth, wifi, etc on and never until the 4S have I had any issues with battery life.

 

I'm gettng about 2/3 of the published battery life. eg. 2 hours of internet use on wifi drains the battery by about 33%, as does playing games (though this isn't mentioned in battery life figures in the tech specs).  eg. I'm getting about 6 hours on wifi.  Standby seems fairly good though - it dropped about 5% on standby for 10 hours overnight. (this is after doing the reset all settings).

No.  I don't switch the phone off.  I use the wi-fi all the time, and 3G cellular data is also on, as is Siri, and location services.  However, I don't let all apps use location services, nor do I let all of them bother me with alerts.  If you got 5% standby use in 10 hours, then you are right on spec for the standby figures.  I couldn't say what mine are for that long as I charge overnight so I have that battery power to use during the day.  Even the MANUAL tells you to turn off Bluetooth when not using it to conserve battery power.

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AND, if you do what theory suggests, you should charge your battery when it reaches 20%, not when it reaches 0%. That will damage the battery. So, you can't say that I have battery to at least another 1/2 day. Technically, that is true...but in pratical terms, it isn't.

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You are right. But 0% of iPhone indicator is NOT a 0% of battery. It always couple or even ten percentage remains. So using upto zero is normal.

EdiMC wrote:

 

And I honestly don't understand why people keep saying that the Standby Time isn't important...it's there for you to save energy to use the phone when needed and to give you a reasonable autonomy. This is a very important question to me because I work on shifts and it's impossible to me to charge it every night!

 

If I have draining issues in Standby Mode (which is when it's supposed to save energy to use later), don't you think it's going to influence the phone usage?? You'll have less autonomy.That's why that's important to me. Besides, if you can live with something that doesn't work like it's supposed to, I just simply can't. Not when I payed 600€ for it! It has to work like it's supposed to! 

Sure, it's important, if you just let your phone sit around for days and days without use.  If you USE it every day, and it makes it through a whole day without needing a recharge, then what difference does it make whether it will go 3 days, or 7 without a recharge? 

I got to admit that it really has batt issues, but, what we need to do here is focus on how we can deal with it for the meantime and help each other, instead of criticizing everyone's post.

The 4s is a nice piece of hardware. And I'm not a big fan of apple but you got to admit, you just fall in love with it.

I'm also having batt issues and what I did with mine can last me atleast 12hrs before I can charge it again at home with still 30-20%.

Plug/charge you device normally. You do the following while it is plugged.

Lower you backlight to 25%

Turn off siri,

Take everything off of Notification Center (and I mean everything you can see under notifications).

And turn off View in Lock Screen. leaving only Badges and Sound "on"

You'd still have push notification, but with this, it will only limit it to "Badges, and Sound". Less process for that power hog A5.

If you are having phantom usage, usually it is because of a running app. Just close everything. Closing those app doesn't mean you won't get push. It would still give you push notification. But the phantom usage will dissappear.

After you're done with the settings, close all apps running in the backround.

Make a soft reset (hold down lock switch and menu until it switches off. Dont release until you see the apple logo). After reboot, dont do anything yet, swith off your device now. And turn it on again.

Before opening any apps, make sure you check under usage that everything is under zero.

Unplug your device when it reaches 100%. And observe the usage and standby.

This helped me with my phantom usage. And squeeze some more juice out of my 4s.

Hope this method can work for you guys.

EdiMC wrote:

 

I wish!

For quite some time, and with everything turned off, I could only get it to last 1day and 6 hours, with minimal usage.

It was only until yesterday, after a new restore (lost count of them!), that I got my best result:

- right now i have 9% left (i'm letting it fully drain to calibrate), 1 day and 19hours of waiting time/ 16hours and 27minutes Usage Time (NOT REAL).

 

 

I can charge it while i'm at work, of course.

What I meant is that, as I work on shifts, it's going to be difficult to maintain a routine regarding the charges...it's easier to someone who works 8-17, uses the phone during the day and charges overnight...sometimes I'm sleeping during the day, sometimes I'm sleeping during the afternoon...it's random!

 

I don't like the idea of the phone dying on me, even when I'm asleep...and I also don't like to put it to charge when it's around 30/35%...I know that Li-ion don't have memory issues, but I also know that Li-ion batteries have limited cycle charges, so I try to maintain (as much as I can) the suggested routine: let it go to 20%, charge it. Once a month let it drain completely and charge.

 

See what I mean?

 

Cheers

I sleep about 6 hours a night, if I am lucky, so my phone needs to go for the other 18 hours of the day without a charge.  When I put it on the charger tonight, it was at 74%.  That was with VERY light usage today, but pretty much what I have seen on a regular basis since I got the phone Dec. 2.   I don't understand the number of people here who seem to recharge, then let it sit around overnight, and then complain about the 'standby time'.  Lithium Ion batteries last longer, and work better, if recharged before they reach 20% (Apple knows this, so the charge percent is figured to that point being 0.  They have a vested interest in keeping your battery working.  Lithium Ion batteries don't have a 'charge memory', and recharging them before they are down to 20% is even better for them than full cycle charging.  My first laptop's batteries lasted 6 years before they began to drop in capacity.

rphunte42 wrote:

 

1AppleADayNoWay wrote:

 

rphunte42 wrote:

[...]

I suggest that if you plan to leave anything turned on on any phone you buy, you will have the same problem as you have with the 4S[**].

** comparison applies to a phone with same little non serviceable battery showcasing more hardware and software technology than it can handle

Not comparing.  Based on prior experience, the more features you use, and the longer you use them, the less battery power remains to be used.  This is a fact of the physical/electrical nature of batteries.  It will apply to ANY smartphone you buy.

Your seriousness exhausts me somewhat lolll. Your last comment states the obvious I would say; and that's not what you were discussing in the first place, which I underlined. Using features and leaving them turned on or off is not the same thing. Like having bluetooth on vs. actively using a bluetooth headset is not the same. Having a facility for using a feature should not bring you down. Granted some features use themselves automatically, like iCloud once it's setup, and there you would hope the effeciency would be reasonably optimal and that the initial setup would be non agressive. And that's where I challenge your reasoning. As I was reading the Galaxy Note review today (http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/23/2722302/samsung-galaxy-note-review) I could see that the battery is logically proportional to the form factor and when you go up the scale to 5"3 for instance, you won't necessarily get more juice per se as the screen becomes a bottleneck - so they got from a few hours (though their browser torture test is nasty) to almost 2 days, with the possibility of multi days standby. But did they turn off bluetooth and push while testing? I think not. In the end it all depends on actual real usage, from light to heavy. I guess the problem with your statement is that Apple users used to have more than what's obvious... they had magic. Now it's just like ANY smartphone one can buy. You have to learn to turn things off and come down to earth - and that's a disconnect from the PR line - but somehow you pretend as if it was always like that. I wouldn't know really but some beg to differ. And I feel like I'm repeating myself when I ask, "then what is the difference"? For me the difference is immaterial - it's brand construct to a very high degree. But in my opinion you can count on Apple rethinking its offering quite differently next time over... Yet all of a sudden there is appeal for me intellectually in MS's take on this... experience quality over specs. Apple and Samsung will take it to the top where you can breathe that rarified air for 30 mins before the next recharge. Anways.

First of all rphunte42 lithium polymer batterys DO have a memory effect. You can only get around 1000 charge cycles (50%+50%=1 charge cycle). Second you should listen to 1Appleadaynoway. He is right. He always has been on the topic. Go here to learn how to take care of you battery. http://www.apple.com/batteries/

tyler39 wrote:

 

First of all rphunte42 lithium polymer batterys DO have a memory effect. You can only get around 1000 charge cycles (50%+50%=1 charge cycle). Second you should listen to 1Appleadaynoway. He is right. He always has been on the topic. Go here to learn how to take care of you battery. http://www.apple.com/batteries/

Read the following.

http://support.radioshack.com/support_tutorials/batteries/bt-liion-main.htm

http://www.apple.com/batteries/

http://www.apple.com/batteries/iphone.html

Litium ion polymer batteries do not exhibit memory effects from repeated partial charging.

If you turn Bluetooth on, it will poll the Bluetooth frequencies looking for a device to pair with.  This takes rather more power than NOT doing that polling.  On my previous phone, just leaving Bluetooth turned on when not needed would shorten my battery life by 30% or more.  Since I only use Bluetooth in the car on long trips, I keep it turned off.  Just like I keep lights turned off in my house when I am not in that room, and shut off my car engine when I am not actually USING it.

This is 'conservation 101'.

You still don't WANT or FAIL to understand the issue - of course i will turn light off if i don't use it - BUT I GET CRAZY IF AFTER TURNING OFF THERE IS THE SAME CONSUMPTION AS THE LIGHT IS ON!

You get that old man? You need more input? THIS IS WHAT WE ARE WRITING ABOUT!

rphunte42 wrote:

 

.... Just like I keep lights turned off in my house when I am not in that room, and shut off my car engine when I am not actually USING it.

This is 'conservation 101'....

I think that 30% is a huge exaggeration......   I have BT on at all times, since my car has it and I use it during my commute.   I see no significant difference when leaving BT on all the time, vs shutting it down when not in the car.

rphunte42 wrote:

 

If you turn Bluetooth on, it will poll the Bluetooth frequencies looking for a device to pair with.  This takes rather more power than NOT doing that polling.  On my previous phone, just leaving Bluetooth turned on when not needed would shorten my battery life by 30% or more.  Since I only use Bluetooth in the car on long trips, I keep it turned off.  Just like I keep lights turned off in my house when I am not in that room, and shut off my car engine when I am not actually USING it.

This is 'conservation 101'.

I'll have to say my Blackberry with bluetooth on would kill the battery quickly whether using it or not. The iPhone does not seem to make much difference for me. I typically leave it off unless I am going to use it but if I happen to leave it on but headset off, the BT symbol dims and I dont really see noticible drain any worse than when its off. Sorta suprised but that is my observation. Apple suggests it shouuld be off to conserve battery though as rphunte42 states.

I have had varying success over the last few months to try and elliminate my phantom usage (and thereby improve my battery life). My usage now seems to be in a much better state but I have noticed something quite bizarre over the last few weeks.

After upgrading to build 9A406 of 5.0.1 (in Dec 2011) my Phantom usage in standby appeared to happen less frequently. However, I did notice that there were periods when the Phantom Usage seemed a little high so I decided to monitor it.

I noticed that during the working day I would have little or no usage being registered on my phone. I would typically get between 11-15 minutes usage in an 8 hour period. However, what I noticed was that during my cycle to and from work there would be a dramitc rise in usage.  I would see an additional 40 mins usage during the 1 hour cycle. I also noticed that during the night I would get approx. 3 hours usuage over the 8 hours that the phone was on my bedside locker. At first I thought that this maybe due to poor signal strength but my 3G signal at home had 5 bars so it didn't look like this was the problem. Then one day last week I happened to be in an all day training session at work. I had left my phone on my desk througout the day and when I was packing it away ready for the cycle home I took a quick look and to my horror it had racked up over 3 hours of usuage time (the kind of usuage I was seeing at night). A crazy thought hit me, the only differnce between this and other days was that the phone wasn't in my jeans pockect all day. So for the last week I have been carrying out tests. It appears that when the phone is in my pocket the phantom usuage is low but if I leave it out on the desk I get 20-30mins usage for every hour it sits there. I know how crazy this sounds and I have been reluctant to make this post but for me there is a definite correlation.

I went back to build 9A405 and have verified that the phantom usuage is there constantly (regardless of where the phone is) but when I load 9A406 it seems that I only get phantom usage when the phone is not in my pocket.

I think there are many issues to this whole phantom usage/battery drain issue and many people may not observe the same phenomena that I am seeing but if those of you with phantom usage want to experiment with what I have observed I would appreciate your feedback.

Note: I have no apps, music etc installed on my phone so this is not phantom usuage from a misbehaving third party app. Location Service Off, Auto Date time off, Bluetooth off, No email configured, No iCloud configured

Would make one believe that the constant movement is preventing some behind the scenes process from kicking off.   Maybe some sync, or info transfer that would normally run when the phone is idle?   Not claiming to know what it might be, just a thought........

bright raven wrote:

 

I have had varying success over the last few months to try and elliminate my phantom usage (and thereby improve my battery life). My usage now seems to be in a much better state but I have noticed something quite bizarre over the last few weeks.

 

After upgrading to build 9A406 of 5.0.1 (in Dec 2011) my Phantom usage in standby appeared to happen less frequently. However, I did notice that there were periods when the Phantom Usage seemed a little high so I decided to monitor it.

 

I noticed that during the working day I would have little or no usage being registered on my phone. I would typically get between 11-15 minutes usage in an 8 hour period. However, what I noticed was that during my cycle to and from work there would be a dramitc rise in usage.  I would see an additional 40 mins usage during the 1 hour cycle. I also noticed that during the night I would get approx. 3 hours usuage over the 8 hours that the phone was on my bedside locker. At first I thought that this maybe due to poor signal strength but my 3G signal at home had 5 bars so it didn't look like this was the problem. Then one day last week I happened to be in an all day training session at work. I had left my phone on my desk througout the day and when I was packing it away ready for the cycle home I took a quick look and to my horror it had racked up over 3 hours of usuage time (the kind of usuage I was seeing at night). A crazy thought hit me, the only differnce between this and other days was that the phone wasn't in my jeans pockect all day. So for the last week I have been carrying out tests. It appears that when the phone is in my pocket the phantom usuage is low but if I leave it out on the desk I get 20-30mins usage for every hour it sits there. I know how crazy this sounds and I have been reluctant to make this post but for me there is a definite correlation.

 

I went back to build 9A405 and have verified that the phantom usuage is there constantly (regardless of where the phone is) but when I load 9A406 it seems that I only get phantom usage when the phone is not in my pocket.

 

I think there are many issues to this whole phantom usage/battery drain issue and many people may not observe the same phenomena that I am seeing but if those of you with phantom usage want to experiment with what I have observed I would appreciate your feedback.

 

Note: I have no apps, music etc installed on my phone so this is not phantom usuage from a misbehaving third party app. Location Service Off, Auto Date time off, Bluetooth off, No email configured, No iCloud configured

Tamarillo Munich

You still don't WANT or FAIL to understand the issue - of course i will turn light off if i don't use it - BUT I GET CRAZY IF AFTER TURNING OFF THERE IS THE SAME CONSUMPTION AS THE LIGHT IS ON!

You get that old man? You need more input? THIS IS WHAT WE ARE WRITING ABOUT!

BINGO! That is why I give such an importance to Standby Time.

With high values it means that the phone is always working, when it shouldn't. It spends the same amount of energy whether it's on (when I'm actually using it) or "off" (when I'm not using it and it's in standby).

I've experienced different things along the way.

Usually the waiting time rises in a constant way. Only noticed a difference yesterday - it had periods where it didn't rise, and others that ir grew BIG TIME...

For instance, I just disconnected the phone form charge, and I'm already on 12minutes of Waiting Time and 10minutes of Usage Time. It has been STILL on the desk!!

P.S. How on earth do I do a quote???? lol