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

Even though I'm not seeing the serious battery issues with my 4S compared to other people. I have noticed that iOS 5 seems to cause higher than what I was used to seeing battery drain on iPhone 4.

My usage today as been as follows:

Switched 4S on at around 7:50am the battery showed 62 percent.

Listened to music for 25 minutes.

Sent 3 text messages.

The rest of the time the 4S has been asleep.

It is now 5:45 pm and my battery level is now showing 40 percent. I would hazard a guess that my iPhone 4 with iOS 4 would have dropped around 10 percent (perhaps less), instead of the 22 percent I have mentioned.

I'm probably going to return my 4S has I only have till the 7 November in which to return it. Basically I'm wanting to know that Apple has released a software update that fixes the battery problem, then I will reorder a 4S again. I expect Apple will release a software update that will fix the battery issue, but its a question of how long it is going to take for them to discover the cause, then how to fix it.

There is something that keep my phone awake while the screen is on...

10 hour usage and 13 hour standby... I thought its normal in my first week since its a new phone, I might be playing it all the time.. but now I figured out its not.. I actually played with the phone about 30-40% of the time today.. but the usage is around 85% of the standby....

The battery goes down to 13% in 13 hours.. Please note the 62% battery is after charging for about 40min..

The main point I wanted to show is the usage time vs the standby time..

Diagnostics & Usage: Off

Location-Based iAds: Off

Setting Time Zone: Off

Traffic: Off

I also removed Find My Phone app just in case it is retreiving my location all the time..

The solution in my case was related to Location Services. I've posted the details on my blog.

No solution for me. Still lose 25% battarylife over the night without using my iPhone 4S.

In Singapore now, M1-network.

• Location Services (ON for Map only),
• Notification centre (ON for SMS/MMS, Call Alerts, Whatsapp only)
• Siri - OFF
• Setting Time Zone - OFF
• Wifi - OFF
• Data Roaming - OFF
• Push notifications - Changed to "Manual/Fetch"
• 3G - ON

Internet Browsing on Safari in the morning from 10.30am:

10 minutes => approx. 5% battery life GONE

60 minutes => approx. 25% battery life GONE

Additional errors:

if 3G is OFF, applications such as WhatsApp, Maps, Internet Browsing CANNOT work => forcing us to turn on 3G => drains battery life more quickly.

This is totally absurd...

iOS5 make us feel like we have DOWN-graded iPhones!

Message was edited by: Jovin Insurance

Do you read my blog entry (linked above) and enable the status bar icon? It doesn't matter whether or not you use your phone. If an app is hanging up Location Services, then it will remain hung and drain your battery until you identify and clear it.

I assume you know how to double click your home buttome and turn off everything else that is running on your

phone?

this issue has to be tied in to iOS5...my iPhone 4 is having same battery drain issues and I have tried the location services time zone setting "remedy"...still blows through full charge in just a short amount of time1 >:O -- never happened with iOS4, and I did not change any settings or add any new apps after update, seems logical its iOS5 issue, not 4S.

Thought it was due to wireless sync and iCloud backup, but I have since disabled those features temporarily and still have consistent, premature battery drain.

I think I am in the same situation as you. Now my 4S, my girlfriend's 4 and the iPad are all ON and connected to iTunes on my MBP. Only the 4S's battery suffers the most because of this. I have to mention that the 4 & the 4S have the same apps and notifications on. Exactly the same config.

There are two differences to mention:

1 - my problems with my 4S started after the 4th charging cycle. With the first tree the battery lasted a full day of normal use, but now I can go only 6 hours max.

2 - the 4S gets really hot. Again, with the first 3 charge cycles I don't remember this situation, but now is annoying to have a "hot cake" in your hand.

I deleted my Exchange email account now the 4S is cold again, however the battery still goes down fast.

I'll try now with No exchange and No iTunes to see what happens. I keep the notifications On, because this is one of the reasons I chose the iPhone.

Did you guys turn on iTunes wireless syncing?

As mentioned previously, my problem is usage time is almost the same as standby time.

I tried to turn iTunes wireless syncing off yesterday.. and went to bed without charging..

When I woke up, i saw the usage is 2 hours, while the standby hour is 12 hours.

I did use the phone for 2 hours before going to the bed.. so it seems my usage problem has been solved..

I still have to confirm with this fix for seeing how it performs in the coming few days..

Delete iCloud completely ( not just turning off all options) and you will see the difference.

c4am95 wrote:

I noticed this issue the second or third day I had my 4S. I came home in the evening and my battery was well over 50%. I sat and watched some tv, checked the phone about 30 minutes later and the battery had noticebly dropped. I found it odd since the phone was just sitting on my coffee table in standby. So I checked it every 20-30 minutes for the next couple hours, by the time I went to bed it was in the red :/ Rather than mess with it, I just plugged it in and went to bed.

The next day I went on a hunch and turned off everything I possibly could (push, notifications, location services and alerts I didn't need). I gave it a full charge that morning and went all through the day into the next day before I charging it once I got to work, and even then it was down to maybe only 40%. That seems fairly resonable to me, since I often use wifi and bluetooth for a few hours each day.

I think there's some notifcation or location service on by default that kills it in standby, though I'm not sure which one it is.

I noticed when I was driving my location services icon running constantly. It turned out to be the traffic location for the maps was running constantly.

This is starting to get old. Clearly there isn't a *fix* as the problem is completely random, on my 4S anyway. Some days it completely behaves itself and other days it decides to try to and do a melt down. I've tried most of the suggestions here and none make any difference other than reducing the functionality of my phone.

I'm an Apple guy from way back starting with the 128 Macintosh. Been through stuff like this before... But Apple, please hurry and fix this issue.

I'm also having major battery issues. My 3 year old iPhone 3G has better battery life by far. I have to close everything running in the background each time I use the phone and turn off everything I can, notifications, push, and wifi just to last half a day. I now carry a charger in my backpack, and all three cars. I just try to make sure I have a way to charge my phone anywhere I go. This is my second iPhone and while it is an amazing phone the battery life is diplorable. I can't imagine what it'll be like in two years.

I dont understand why we can't turn off 3G and go on edge like we used to be able to. Where is MY control over MY phone?