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

Yep! I think every 4s owner is having battery issues. I am! About half as long as my 4 was. With the usage I go through.

KC7GNM wrote:

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.

Indeed and agreed. Even Siri is beta, as outside the U.S you cant use the maps/business look up or anything, so it can do things like weather, SMS, emails, reminders, play iTunes etc. but outside of that it still needs upgrading. As long as me charging it roughly every 24-36 hours is not going to mess up the battery too much!

Frankp4414 wrote:

Yep! I think every 4s owner is having battery issues. I am! About half as long as my 4 was. With the usage I go through.

Well, no. I'm a 4S owner and I have no battery issues. My battery lasts about twice as long as the battery in my 3GS lasted. If all 6 million 4S owners were having battery problems there would be hundreds of times more messages than there are about it. I'm not saying there's no problem, but you can't judge how many users are affected by the messages in a support forum, any more than you can judge how many people in a community are sick by counting the number of people in a hospital.

What's clear is that it is not all users, because there are scattered posts from people who say they have no problem. What's also clear to me and many others who have been around iPhones for 4 years is that at least some of the problems are exactly the same problems that have been around for 4 years, and that there are posted solutions for. If people would try some of the solutions that have worked in the past and reported whether they worked (as many have, BTW), we can narrow the problem to ones that are unique to iOS 5 and/or the 4S and then focus on those (or help Apple focus on those).

Just posting "me too" messages, especially without reading the threads posted to, does not help solve the problem.

Chris-King wrote:

KC7GNM wrote:

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.

Indeed and agreed. Even Siri is beta, as outside the U.S you cant use the maps/business look up or anything, so it can do things like weather, SMS, emails, reminders, play iTunes etc. but outside of that it still needs upgrading. As long as me charging it roughly every 24-36 hours is not going to mess up the battery too much!

It won't. I've been recharging overnight, every night, for 4 years. It hasn't hurt either of my iPhones, and it guarantees I start the day at 100% (or 98%, as discussed in another thread).

Lawrence Finch wrote:

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.

The interesting thing is I really don't want my emails pushed to my phone but because Find My iPhone doesn't work unless Push is on I always have the setting on. So I get emails pushed all night to the phone, I hear the vibration/sound during the night but if wifi is off the battery % in the morning is always 100. It's only when I've left wifi on that the less than 100 has occurred. The emails are pushed either way, wifi on or not. I do believe there is an issue with the wifi and/or iCloud backup function. Based on all the news articles in the last day or so about the 4S battery issues I feel something will be corrected here.

Lawrence Finch wrote:

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.

It would make sense if Apple introduced an option on the iPhone so you can schedule a backup to iCloud or do a manual one at the touch of a button, that way users can choose. To have it do one each time the phone is idle would really drain the battery fast. All these options should be configurable.. makes sense if you can do that 🙂

Lawrence Finch wrote:

Well, no. I'm a 4S owner and I have no battery issues. My battery lasts about twice as long as the battery in my 3GS lasted.

Just posting "me too" messages, especially without reading the threads posted to, does not help solve the problem.

I went from my own phone (bought with my own cash, to a phone supplied by my mobile provider, when I opted for the iPhone (as I originally wanted a Nokia - which was unavailable as it was heavily delayed), I opted for the 3GS since the iPhone 4 was about 6 months away, and I really didnt want to wait for it. Even upgrading to the iPhone 3GS cost me about £70, since my contract was renewed at this time, it was about 24 months before I could re-upgrade again, and it seemed to fall exactly when the iPhone 4S was released, I couldnt upgrade to the iPhone 4 during my contract - unless I paid for it in full - I expected the battery life to be better than the 3GS which was being recharged approximately every 3 days. Since I got the 4S, its started off at 1 day, although as stated before its about 1.5-2 days now. Although I hope software bugs and other fixes will be released soon and sort it, considering I seem to be suffering with not only that, but also problems with Lion WiFi having upgraded from Snow Leopard, I seem to be suffering Apple issues on both fronts! Hopefully both will be fixed soon, although my iMac issues have improved 80%, there is a still a way to go.

You should try letting the whole battery drain and wait about 20-30 min to start a full recharge. I did this and worked like a charm. Hope this helps!

Chris-King wrote:

It would make sense if Apple introduced an option on the iPhone so you can schedule a backup to iCloud or do a manual one at the touch of a button, that way users can choose. To have it do one each time the phone is idle would really drain the battery fast. All these options should be configurable.. makes sense if you can do that 🙂

You need to read the manual. Automatic backup occurs only once a day, and only happens if you are connected to WiFi AND the phone is plugged in to power. And there IS a button to force a bacup, in Settings/iCloud.

Lawrence Finch wrote:

You need to read the manual. Automatic backup occurs only once a day, and only happens if you are connected to WiFi AND the phone is plugged in to power. And there IS a button to force a bacup, in Settings/iCloud.

🙂 wasnt quite what I meant, I do know it does a backup once a day, but would be good if you can configure it (i.e. what time, what days etc). I just suspect that something battery intensive runs in the middle of the night/late at night which hammers the battery, it doesnt happen any other time when my phone is idle on my desk at work etc etc.

Hello everyone,

I was having similar issues with my iPhone 4S battery life, although it wasn't an everday occurance. Somedays it would drain 1% every few minutes and other days it was fine. It seemed like there was some sort of process running in the background that would drain the battery when the phone was in Standby.

Luckily, I was able to solve my particular issue and it solved the battery life issue for me. It had to do with a calendar event running in the background. Please check these two threads and see if this fixes your issue. Hopefully this will help some of you out. A quick way to check is to look at your pull down notifcations and see if the calendar looks "jittery" at all. Also, unanswered calendar invites caused a problem for me as well...

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3407203?answerId=16452965022#16452965022

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3380426?answerId=16456738022#16456738022

- JR -

I will send my iphone 4s this is a good phone but acculess, you can't use it normally, because the battery has an live of max 6/7 hours bij using it

This is not a good situation. Obviously something is wrong.

Tomorrow my iPhone 4S is GOING BACK TO ATT.

I no longer want it.

The iPhone should have been delivered in a PERFECT STATE. A phone, any phone, should be able to make and receive calls with a comfortable degree of reliability. The iPhone does everything well, but only for a short time, and you cannot rely on the iPhone battery to last till the end of the day. Want to make a call? Maybe someone will lend you their cell phone.

The first purpose of a phone is to make and receive phone calls.

If the the phone has no power, if the battery is dead, it's only a pretty paper weight.

I spoke with an Apple Genius when I purchased the 4S last week... I questioned the battery issue. The Genius indicated (without hesitation) that the culprit was the feature that sends diagnostic information to Apple. It was getting into a loop under certain circumstances… and was continuously uploading the data. So... when I first started up the phone I declined to activate this feature. The battery life on my new 4S is noticeably better than that of my 3GS. And now with the iOS updated yesterday... even better! Battery dropped 3% in 8 hours overnight. I don't consider that a problem... given that it was checking for email every 15 minutes. I will monitor it today, as well. If you have already activated the diagnostic feature... it can be disabled following this menu line: Settings / General / About / Diagnostic & Usage - Select Don't Send.

Oh yes, your not along.Very disappointing I got my phone 3 weeks before my wife .Today at 16hrs standby,she has 4hr 25m usage,66% left. Me 16hrs standby,3hr58 mins,17% left .What the **** Both are set up identical. We have cut out just about every thing except siri.Maybe we need to go back to just a bagphone