The iPhone 4S battery runs down very quickly. Does anyone else have this problem?

Pappasbike wrote:

Sebby* wrote:

It's just strange that never, ever - not even once - did it happen on my iPhone 3G or iPhone 4.

I've had all iPhone versions and this is the first time that my battery indicator showed something less than 100.

Then you have been very, very lucky. Possibly the only iPhone owner in the world who has NEVER experienced this 😉

It will happen to every phone sooner or later, unless you have no apps that use power when the phone is on standby. It's the way the charging circuit works. It shuts off at 100%, and doesn't turn back on until the phone is a couple of % down.

Well no - not myself, my family, nor my friends have never had this on any previous iPhone. I love Apple, but I'm not going to say a new problem is common and normal when it's not.

This is happening to me too. I used all of the exact same settings on my 3GS running iOS5 but got a longer battery life. My 4S can't even make it through the whole day. Tried all of the suggestions mentioned above, but to no avail.

URGH! Please Apple, fix this!

Lawrence Finch wrote:

Pappasbike wrote:

Sebby* wrote:

It's just strange that never, ever - not even once - did it happen on my iPhone 3G or iPhone 4.

I've had all iPhone versions and this is the first time that my battery indicator showed something less than 100.

Then you have been very, very lucky. Possibly the only iPhone owner in the world who has NEVER experienced this 😉

It will happen to every phone sooner or later, unless you have no apps that use power when the phone is on standby. It's the way the charging circuit works. It shuts off at 100%, and doesn't turn back on until the phone is a couple of % down.

My wife has had all versions as well, never had this happen. I've now realized that it does not happen if I turn wifi off before plugging it in overnight. This could be a joint issue with wifi and iCloud backup or just wifi alone. But so far not once has it happened when wifi is off. And again, in addition to my wife's phone I have at least 6 friends that have had and still have various versions of iPhones and so far none but the 4S has exhibited this behavior. So I'm definitely not the only person nor the luckiest iPhone owner. Also it has never happened with my original iPad which has wifi on all the time and does an iCloud update overnight with no issues. From an article I just read, Apple engineers are getting in touch with some 4S posters to install some diagnostic software to check battery issues so perhaps this will also be addressed.

From studying the issue, the battery seems to drain faster when the phone is not actively being used. My 4S used to lose 20-25% overnight while I was asleep whereas my iPhone 4 hardly lost any charge. This led me to conclude a background process that gets suspended during active use is what is draining the battery. Push notifications are not so resource intensive but polling a server is. Looking around, I saw this:

Settings/Store and turned off NYTimes "Automatically download new content when on Wi-Fi" . Uncheck it.

I theorize that either the NYT is doing polling and/or they update their content so frequently that the phone is constantly fetching data.

I have not turned off anything else like Siri, Location Services etc.

Since then, I lose 4-5% overnight and can go 1.5 days before needing to recharge.

Incidentally, I tried calibrating the battery by draining it and then charging to 100%. No effect for me.

Anyway, this is what worked for me. Hope it does for you as well.

You may have something there. That setting "when on Wi-Fi". My less than 100% reading has only occurred when wifi was on overnight and during the day with wifi on the battery drains significantly faster than when off. I'm going to turn that setting off and leave wifi on during the day to see if I can tell a difference.

As I said, it will happen whenever there is something running on the phone on standby. Whether you see it or not depends on when you turn the phone on in the charge/idle cycle. And if nothing was ever running on the phone in the past then you would never see it, because once the phone reached full charge it would shut off charging, then stay there. With iOS 5 if you set up an iCloud account then something WILL run when the phone is idle, specifically email, contacts, calendar and Reminder sync. And if you set up iCloud backup that will also run when the phone is idle.

With earlier versions the condition would only occur if you had Push email or you had Notifications enabled AND you got a notification and associated download after the phone reached full charge.

Does anyone know when an update to iOS 5 is due to be released? just wondered what fixes and updates were included and if anything battery related were in it?

Anyone who doesn't know can't answer you, and anyone who does know isn't allowed to answer you because they signed an non-disclosure agreement.

Actually, prior to any iOS 5 updates one thing you can do is minimize the number of items running on "springboard" in the backround. To check what is running on springboard simply click the "home button" quickly twice and that will bring up a "mini-dock" at the bottom of your iPhone screen.

By touching and holding any one of the items on the springboard "mini-dock" you will see the icons start to jiggle........at that point there will be a red "delete circle" at the top left of each jigging icon...............simply touch the red "delete circle" on any of the items you want to close. I have found that by minimizing what is on springoard for right now - my phone has not gotten to the point where the phone gets very hot and the battery drains at all - for me that has only happened once but not since I have minimized what is running on springboard.

Lawrence Finch wrote:

Anyone who doesn't know can't answer you, and anyone who does know isn't allowed to answer you because they signed an non-disclosure agreement.

Fair point, but usually someone can say, there is an update out 'on this date' even though they dont know what is in the update, even if they have stumbled or seen something on the web about a possible or potential release date, or even if the web site states 'an update to iOS5 is due to include a fix to the battery issue'. Doesnt mean they are part of the Apple team.

And most of the time, they're wrong 😉

The BIG one this year was the announcement of the iPhone 5, complete with a feature list, by the Wall Street Journal, which eveyone picked up. And was far off the mark. Most of the updates this year were not anticipated by anyone and caught the pundits by surprise.

There will be a point release in the next few months, but my prediction is it will have nothing to do with the battery problem, any more than any update over the past 4 years (see my post in the middle of page 5 of this thread) has ever addresssed the purported battery problems that have appeared after every other major (and minor) release. And that fade away after a few weeks.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3391947?tstart=0

Chris-King wrote:

Lawrence Finch wrote:

Anyone who doesn't know can't answer you, and anyone who does know isn't allowed to answer you because they signed an non-disclosure agreement.

Fair point, but usually someone can say, there is an update out 'on this date' even though they dont know what is in the update, even if they have stumbled or seen something on the web about a possible or potential release date, or even if the web site states 'an update to iOS5 is due to include a fix to the battery issue'. Doesnt mean they are part of the Apple team.

And like Lawrence said they are usually wrong or just spreading more rumours that are not true. Apple will release and update when they are ready. My feeling on this issue affecting the 4s more than the 4 is that ios5 was tested more on the 4 than the 4s and there is some hardware/software conflict on the 4s since they only had time to flash the phones before shipping them out. There was no real beta testing done on the 4s and that is the reason why we are probably experiencing this problem. Remember the 4s is completely new hardware so there are bound to be problems between the OS and the hardware without extensive beta testing which in my opinion wasn't done.

Also to add remember the lost iphone 4 fiasco? Apple probably held tight reigns on the new iphone 4s and it probably wasn't tested as much out in the wild as the 4 was.