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

I tested your theory. It will not work.

It works

I was just inside my 14-day exchange time with Verizon and I took the phone back and got the 4 and did NOT let it upgrade to iOS 5. This was after two trips back to Verizon in which the salespeople all tried to talk me out of the fact that the battery was dying too quickly (and after friends at work with iPhone 4's all said they can get two-three days of service out of their phones). Battery power is vastly better on this 4. Came home and charged it to 100% and now five hours later it has barely dropped, after several text messages, three or four phone calls, and some 3G web browsing. A colleague's wife went on a business trip from DC to Philly, forgot her charger, and still was able to use the phone after the third day of her trip to call him. Bottom line: something's off and Apple must address it. What a disappointment after all of the cute, friendly hype from them about Siri etc. My friends warned me to wait. I just hope the over 4 million people who got suckered like I did get some redress on this issue. It's not fair. This is my first smart phone and everyone told me I was nuts to get a Blackberry because they're so obsolete at this point. If this phone gives me trouble tomorrow in the morning it's going back--and I'm doing just that. I'll have to pay another restocking fee but that's better than getting stuck with a lousy phone that can't do what it claims to do throughout an entire 2-year contract. I don't care how supposedly "warm" this company's image is.

Just wanted to add to the thread in hopes that Apple will see it. My 4S drains 10% or so in less than an hour WITH AIRPLANE MODE ON and display off. This is wholly unacceptable performance, and has to be something wrong. I paid full price for this phone to get the upgrade, and Apple needs to fix it. I have tried all the tips in this thread and they really don't help much. 200 hours standbye time? Where????

Hey everyone, don't turn anything off; ignore all that! I had the same issues 2days ago. Had such problems like, lag, system apps crashing, sms delay and the battery!! I tried what articles suggested; turning all notifications off! Even after it was all turned off the battery percentage was still in free fall, it was like watching a countdown timer, i was about to give up! However as a last resort, I booked an appointment at a genius bar at the Sydney apple store and 20minutes later walked out a happy man. The first question staff asked was "did I download the iOS5 over wifi?" and I replied with a "yes!". She explained that for some reason they found that downloading over wifi corrupts some of the files and this is what causes the pain we've all been experiencing. Before going to apple I scoured the web for answers, but all suggestions about turning everything off was useless but restoring my iPhone 4 with a stable iOS5 from the Apple store fixed all we've been complaining about! So solution restore while connected via cable and NOT Wi-Fi or go to your nearest apple store and get them to restore your device with the stable OS they have! A new restore atleast from the genius bar solved all battery, lag, apps shutting down, delay in sms etc etc problems! If you do go to the apple store make sure you back everything up before, even if you don't they'll offer to back-up, up to 5gb in the cloud, but this might not be enough for all. Make sure you advise you're friends who havent taken the leap yet to download via cable and NOT wi-fi!! Hope this solves everyone's woes like it did mine; good luck!

I don't understand why there is not an update. My battery has dropped 4% just logging into the forum and leaving this post... Am extremely unhappy and nothing is being done to resolve. Why?

I should not have to charge my iPhone 4S twice a day on less use than my iPhone 4 which I had for 1 year and the battery performance was better.

Apple this is clearly false advertising stating that performance has been improved on the iPhone 4S over the iPhone 4.

;-(

Hey Ausie,

Do you know if this is the same issue for the new 4s which already comes packaged as an iOS5 device?

Apple is completely unreasonable about this. I called support today and was told to turn off Notifications, Location Services and ICloud. "You are sacrificing battery life for these services", I was told by Robert 38136. I explained that I have had ICloud deactivated and am not syncing over wifi. Otherwise my settings have not changed from what I had configured on my Iphone 3GS. I averaged about 2 days on my 3GS between charges. "The hardware is different between the two phones. The Iphone 4S is newer hardware", says Robert. So, newer hardware means a worse battery life? "If you use all services like Notifications, Location Services and ICloud then it will use more battery power." But, I don't use ICloud. And my utilization of Notifications (manually), and Location Services has not changed. "It's newer hardware so has more functions that use more battery power." So, which services can I turn off that are new. "Notifications, Location Services and ICloud". But, ICloud is not syncing and the other settings have not changed. "You would have to turn off Notifications and Location Services if you want to have more battery life". This went in circles for a bit.

BTW, they would not give me a transcript of our conversation, so I had to paraphrase Robert's responses.

I was finally told by a manager to reset my phone as a new device and see what happens. If the problem persists, they said they may have to replace the battery.

I'll have to reset later on tonight, when I don't need my contacts info with me. I'll update after 2 days of trying with the reset as new Iphone.

I'm surprised that people aren't more upset about this. This should be in the news, like the Iphone 4 antennae issue was.

Not loving the battery life at all. I'm always having to charge!

I noticed significant drops in stand by vs my previous iPhone 4. Happens in the same conditions and location so its definetely the 4S

Why did Apple release this phone before it was ready? I have to carry a charger around with me! HURRY APPLE< FIX THIS BATERY ISSUE ON THE 4S!

I'm at 67% after 3 hours, 5 minutes of usage and Standby time at 7 hours, 43 minutes. I turned off Siri Raist to Speak. Fixed my problem.

Does anyone know what Apple are saying about this issue??I have read that Apple are calling customers directly to download a monitoring software on their Iphones so they can see whats happening, Has anyone been to the Apple stores and seen what they say??

Agree - but Apple are always tight-lipped when it comes to issues. Looking around it seems that battery issues have plagued every new iOS release, to differing degrees.

Looking at all of the threads about this issue, I'm seeing a number of people have solved this, but all in different ways. Others of course have not found a solution.

I set up my 64GB iPhone 4S with a backup of my 32GB iPhone 4 - standard set up, several email accounts (Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo!, Mobileme, iCloud and a work Exchange account - with calendar). I've solved my dreadful battery drain (not helped by a very unuseful Apple Care call to switch off what I'm not using) by switching off my work Exchange account.

Once I deleted the work Exchange account the battery has been performing admirably. With average to light use today after 12 hours it's currently on 72%. While this may not be the solution for everyone, it certainly 'solved' my problem - at least until Apple fixes the issue so I can put the Exchange account back on.

As another poster said (on this or another thread) I had noticed that an appointment notification 'due time' was flickering madly. Therefore in this particular instance I think there's some sort of conflict going on between iOS5 and Exchange (2003 - I think). I also don't think the conflict is only when iOS5 communicates with Exchange, the problem continues even in airplane mode.

Not a great solution to the problem - actually it's more of a work-around - but you may be able to get some pointers until Apple gets round to solving the problem.

My new 4s shows the same draining "issue"!

I have to charge it nearly every 24 hours. Even my old 3G had a better battery life.

@ LootInTheBoot: Yes i'm using my Google Calendar / Contacts via an Exchange account. (For mails i use a normal IMAP account with a 15min "check for new mails" period)