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

My iPhone 4s and my iPhone 4 (after the update to iOS 5) exhibit the very same battery drain issues you described. I just hope that Apple is aware of this because this is a very serious issue.

That is how I found this post. I have only had my new 4s for two days. Yesterday, I ran my battery down, and figured it was pretty normal. I had done a few things that might have helped drain it (flashlight). I recharged it early last evening, then took it off the charger. I probably texted 5 times since then, and talked on it for a few minutes. Woke up this morning to the battery in the red. I have not tried the list of tips yet, but it seemed like it should have been an almost fully charged battery this morning.

I just hope Apple could introduce the Android's Battery Usage functionality in iOS, doesnt have to be better, just similiar. That is a real life saver feature.

Same problem. Rapid discharge in standby mode.

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.

Same problems. I'm a long time iPhone 4 user and haven't used this one any differently. By mid day I'm down to 20% without making any phone calls on my new 4s! I don't want to talk about all the things I shouldn't be doing, because I'm doing the same things I did before and the iPhone 4 would get me to bed at night and only hit 20% then.

I'm having the same problem with battery discharge. Best example, or worst, I can give is this morning I turned the phone on after charging over night for 8 hrs. I noticed the phone only charged to 91% so I left it on the charger again until I got out of the shower. I unplugged it at around 9:30AM at 100% charge. On my ride into work I listen to music on my subsonic server using the iSub app. The ride was maybe 25 minutes but when I got to work my battery had drained to 90%! It's about 2PM now and I haven't touched the phone since this morning yet I'm already at 78% battery. This can't be normal and if it is it's horrible. I've never had this problem with any of my iPhones and I've owned each model. I plan on taking my phone to Apple sometime this week and putting myself on an exchange waiting list. Worst part is, I just waste a screen protector on this one.

After trying the tips on apples website on battery management, I have reduced the drain dramatically. Turned notifications off, bluetooth, wifi, mail (checking for new mail), reduced screen brightness, ... I have it check for new mail when I open the app. I am sorry I don't have the link at hand.

Yes. Those are all things you can do to reduce the battrey drain but none of that explains why those things being used in the same way on an iPhone 4 would take 2x as much battery on a 4s. That's like saying you'll get the longest battery life if you shut the phone off. It's accurate but it's also not useful. I want to know why this 4s uses battery differently than the 4 to do the same things.

http://themacscreencastguy.com/blog/2011/10/17/iphone-4s-battery-issue.html

I didn't have a 4. You're correct, for my car gets awesome gas mileage coasting down long grades with the engine off. I bought the iPhone 4s as my first smartphone. I am counting on it to allow me to use the internet, get mail updates etc, without having to turn everything on and off to save battery.

It's 9am - I took my 4s off the charger at 6am with 100% battery when I left the house this morning, I have had the phone on Standby the entire time, sent no texts and made no calls i used my work phone for that this morning.

my battery is now at 81%.

I cant accept that - I'm returning the 4S and will probably go for the Samsung Galaxy SII.

I set up my 4S with a backup of the 4, and experienced a 100% - 64% battery drain over two hours with no usage; data and wifi were on, but on my 4 this would usually only drop 1 maybe 2% over that amount of time.

I have done a full restore and deleted and re-applied all of my email accounts, plus reduced notifications to only those that I required. This has not solved the problem.

However, I did notice that as soon as I deleted my Exchange account, the battery drain 'appeared' to improve. I can't say for certain, so my question is:

Of everyone that is experiencing battery drain on the iPhone 4S, does anyone or everyone have an Exchange account set up?

Of, and I've also done the battery recalibration (once; draining completely and recharging fully) - this has not appeared to have any effect.

Guys, relax. I had the same issues with my iPhone 4s but after a couple of charging cycles, things are actually back to normal. I have all data/location/iCloud/etc. services active, display brightness is set at 100%.

I started at 8 am at 100% and used my iPhone 4s for two consecutive hours (display always on) for checking mails, news (apps) and internet surfing. Then, I kept it on stand-by, received a call, checked some mails and installed two larger apps. At 1 pm, 5 hours later, my battery capacity shows 66%. This is acceptable.

I also have to admit that I did a complete recovery (not from backup !!!) of my iPhone 4s two days ago before the battery life started to improve. However, I still think that the improvement has something to do with the fact that the battery just needs a couple of loading cycles to work properly.

The Galaxy S2 doesn't have a better battery life. It is good but still slightly worse than the iPhone 4 battery life. I can't make a comparison to the iPhone 4s yet but trust me, give the battery a chance to adapt, you will be satisfied.

Again: My iPhone 4s is working OK now and I have all data services, location services, iCloud, etc. active. Display brightness is at 100% too.