Iphone 4S / iOS5 - Battery drain / issues - An idea Ihaven't seen anywhere yet (17th October 2011)....

I downloaded a system monitor app, and I noticed that the processor was going at almost 90% when the phone was running hot. Looks like a process is not killing itself or going to sleep when the app is closed. I am trying to figure out the incriminating app, but I guess you are right, we should look forward to the patch that fixes this.

I also had the draining issue with my AT&T iPhone 4S. Through much testing and restoring, I was able to isolate the process draining my iPhone at 16% per hour to the mail app. Particularly when I was connected to an exchange server (2003) for mail. Syncing the contacts and calendar did not cause the issue, but as soon as I enabled mail, the draining began. The only fix was to remove the account and reset network settings. I have repeated this three times with exactly the same results. The mail app also shows up in the diagnostic log whenever the draining occurs.

I currently use the built in mail app with exchange only for contacts and calendar. I am using a separate app for the mail. The draining has ceased, and no errors are appearing in the diagnostic log.

Apple needs to fix the mail app ASAP!

Surely there is an app that will give you this level of detail on the battery usage. Have you tried Boost Magic, free app that tells you how much time you have by application etc. Very Good.

Folks, here is more data:

I was using spotify (an app that i have always suspected) and it froze when I was trying to view album information. I killed it (and then springboard crashed) and looked at the process monitor. The processor was at over 80% and would just not go down even after killing all apps.Had to reboot, and it is okay now. After that ofcourse the usage monitor that tells me how long i have been using the phone since last charge. In any case, looking at people's posts here quoting multiple apps for the problem, I feel that the OS has a problem properly handling a crashing app (any app, not any particular one).

A temporary solution would be to kill all apps and reboot whenevery you see a phase of rapid battery decline, overheating or whenever an app crashes. I know, babying it is a pain, but i hope this helps until 5.0.1 shows up.

And yeah, I got around 24 hours of usage from my phone on a single charge (i plugged it in in the middle, but it charged by only around 1%, had it plugged for just under a minute before i had to leave). It was moderate to heavy usage, some browsing, lots (4 hours) of streaming music, some netflix (around an hour) and some iPod, mail fetching every half hour, and a couple calls.

Ok... Let me let all of you in on a not so secret secret..... iOS 5 uses up a lot of power when you are using iCloud, those awesome new notifications and other wireless things. If you would also like to take a trip to the specs page for the iPhone 4S, you will also see that is only has 200 Stand by hours. (the iPhone 4 and 3GS have 300)

So even when the phone is sleeping, it is still using a lot of power.

the only way to save some power is to turn off a lot of notifications, turn the 3G setting off for iCloud and more. Your probably thinking "Wait... this is iOS 4." The answer is "yes". this i the price you pay if you want the battery life iPhone users are accustomed to.

Same sad issue here.

I have an iPhone 4 with iOS 5 on it, no problems. I got a 4S and restored the same image that was on my iPhone 4 and battery was dead after 7 hours of very light use. I did all the tricks noted on all the threads, even the full restore and firmware reinstall via recovery mode but the battery still sucked. Big time.

So, I got another 4S ("B"), restored it with the same image and ran a head-to-head comparison with my first 4S ("A"). I performed all of the same actions on both devices all day. "A" was dead after 6 hours while "B" had 38% remaining. I think I found the root issue: calendar alert.

With the phones off a calendar alert sounded on both 4Ss. On A, the far right part of the alert text was flickering madly between "in 5 min" and "3:00pm" (the time of the event). On B, the alert only displayed "5 min". I didn't clear the alert. When the alert came in the battery level on A was 42% and B was at 44%. A died about 1.5 hours later and B had 39%.

About an hour later another alert sounded on phone B and this time the flickering happened on that phone. I didn't clear it and the battery quickly died.

I heard that many users just order a new iPhone 4S form Apple paying 29$/Euro for a fast move. I dont want to go this way. When can we expect the update iOS 5.0.1 ?

Delete iCloud, worked in my case, the drain on cellular 3G is overwhelming. my battery life is back to normal.

By Jove I think you've got it! Was getting the flashing notification for calendar notifications (got to be a bug) so have turned off calendar alerts in notifications and now the battery *seems* to be performing much better, and my phone isn't literally burning a hole in my pocket any more. Will give it a day or so and report back...

Plus one for this problem. Mostly overnight, completely killing the battery. Have tried a lot of the workarounds suggested, and would offer that workarounds shouldn't be necessary for such a glaring and central problem. Mostly happening overnight, just since moving to iOS 5 on an iPhone 4.

Delete iCloud??

That's a bit like cutting off one hand because you've got a splinter in the other one.

iCloud is a fantastic feature. We are all of us using 2 or 3 key digital devices to run our personal and professional lives. It is very convenient, and an important comfort, to know that all the devices carry the same information, and that an update to one is an update to all.

Lot's of people have managed to get reasonable battery life on iOS5. Mine (after the initial reset) is around the same as it was before, and I have iCloud running. We will surely find over the next few days/weeks that particular Apps are, in IOS5, running wild. They will be fixed. Don't take the extreme step of removing an excellent feature that isn't the problem anyway.

******** Deleting iCloud from iPhone helped ***********

iCloud is indeed an excellent feature, no denying that. My 3 colleagues too had the same issue, ios5 with iPhone 4 on AT&T , we checked when on 3G( with wifi being turned off) and nothing being running on the phone, the cellular data usage keeps increasing. Phone keeps sending and receiving data on AT&T for no apparent reason. They too deleted the iCloud account and the sending and receiving of data just stopped.

****** This draining of data happens only when connected to 3G ******.

Turning off/ Deleting icloud account on my iphone helped in *my case*. I am not generalizing here but *if possible* give this option a try, One can always turn on/sign back in the icloud account back and continue using the iphone as before. Don't know if it's AT&T issue or iCloud issue.

If and when this is fixed I do plan to move back to iCloud but for now I am glad I found the problem at least in mine and my other colleague's phone and the battery life of course returned to normal. If you are connected to wifi all the time you will never know this issue.

These are the steps to check if iCloud is a issue:

1. Turn off wifi and make sure you are connected to 3G (my case it's AT&T)

2. Reset usage statistics to 0 bytes.

3. check back usage statistics in 5-10 seconds. please note the the numbers don't refresh automatically. Go back to "general" and then back to usage. Give this a try for 1-2 min. If indeed iCloud is the issue you will see the usage increase of the cellular data.

4. Delete iCloud account( you can always sign back in and everything would work like before ) .

5. Reset usage statistics to 0 bytes. You will see the data drain for 10-20 seconds max and then stopped completely.

6. Reset it back to 0 bytes. And you will see it goes back up to 1 Kb and then stops completely.

I was able to replicate this behavior in all the 4 iPhones I saw.

Only option for me is to wait for apple to fix this hopefully in the next version.

Best luck.

Thanks craig415! that seems to help.

THIS WORKS!

I upgraded and restored from backup and have tried various fixes etc that work for a bit and then stop working....

Yesterday I did this SETTINGS>GENERAL>RESET>RESET ALL SETTINGS

DO NOT erase all content and settings DO NOT I repeat erase all content and settings

RESET ALL SETTINGS will erase your wifi settings as well as any personalization that you have made in settings (font size sound alarm settings wallpapers etc and reset them all to the default..... it took me all of 15 minutes to do and reset everything to my preferred settings and my battery is what I expect it to be (ie just like my ip4 did before the upgrade).

I did not disable ANYTHING other than bluetooth-- icloud is on siri is on location services is on everything is on.

enjoy your iphones folks

I have tried all of the "tricks" as well and quite frankly, I find it ridiculous that in order to get a full day's worth of battery power we have to disable all of the features that makes smart phones, well, smart. What's even more ridiculous is that even after I disable nearly everything, my phone still drains power at a rate greater then my tolerable threshold. I can literally hold my phone in my hand and watch its battery percentage decrease. On standby alone, my phone's power reduces by several percentage points in under a hour. I recently switched from a droid (this is my first iPhone) and I can say that my droid had better battery performance while offering the same capabilities. It's hysterical that we have to disable the features that makes the iPhone great such as Siri, location services, Facebook/twitter notifications, and even Apple's "usage and diagnostics" option.

Apple, please address this issue as it is contradicting to the specifications of the 4s (stated battery life: 200 hrs on standby...ha) and your keynote presentations, advertisements, etc.

I have also found Siri to be quite useless. It can't recognize my address even when it is under my contact card and can be found on maps. That is another issue, however, that isn't as vital.

I can live without a location reminder but can't live with a poorly functioning device that requires a charge before the day's end.

thank you.