iPhone 4s doesn't charge to 100%

Although turning off the wifi before i charge is extremely tedious, it does work. Just go to Settings > WiFi > Off before you charge every night, and you should get a 100% Charge. Apple should fix this bug ASAP, it seems like a pretty silly bug.

I think the question that underlies that is: When you turn off wifi, what other services get disabled. Like, for example, the iCloud backup.

I'd bet that what's really running down the battery are those services that run when our phones are idle for an extended period of time and and on wifi.

But, the phone is plugged in, so it should stay charged, or recharge. That's the other problem here.

My iPhone 4S has the discharge/not fully charging problem even with wifi off. I've noticed that it has the problem with the entire phone powered off. That seems to indicate that the not fully charging problem is either hardware or something fundamental to the operating system.

Same problem here buddy. But after reading this thread it eventually charged to 100% while reading it. Clearly a bug like podcasting at 2x speed and then getting a phone call or talking to siri brings the speed back to 1x. Apple is getting fat and lazy.

Bill37 wrote:

My iPhone 4S has the discharge/not fully charging problem even with wifi off. I've noticed that it has the problem with the entire phone powered off. That seems to indicate that the not fully charging problem is either hardware or something fundamental to the operating system.

Bill37, Did you ever run the calibration process? Let it run down until the star circles around and it goes totally dead . Then plug in and let charge to 100% (preferable overnight) but at least an hour or so after it reaches 100%.

Andyman234 wrote:

Although turning off the wifi before i charge is extremely tedious, it does work. Just go to Settings > WiFi > Off before you charge every night, and you should get a 100% Charge. Apple should fix this bug ASAP, it seems like a pretty silly bug.

My situation is a little different (maybe). I plug in when i go to bed, within an hour or less its fully charged. If I look at the phone during the night its at 100% all the way up until about 6:50am or 7:00am. ( i wake up frequently at times and look) Then if I look at like 7:15am to 7:20am its all of a sudden at 97%. So 3 % loss within 20 minutes or so. I can unplug and plug back and by time I am up and ready its back to 100%. It is very consistant that those times are when it does this every day. The rest of day not an issue. And I have plugged into laptop before during the day and it sits at 100% all day long and doent not do this. My iCloud backup runs at like 11:30pm so its not that. I have even turned off iCloud backup to test but same deal. Only turning off wifi make it stop. But you can almost set the clock by it, close to same time every day. And it baffles me when i see 100%, roll over then 15 min later when i get up its at 97%. Anyone else notice these early am times it doing this?

I'm an owner of an iPhone 4s

When I bought it the first charge was completed (100%) in 4 hours with ios 5.01!

After many hard reset,calibrations and one reinstall the iOS 5.01 the phone now charges to 96% in 2 hours and another 1 hour from 96% to 100%.

I was very happy with my previous iPhone 4(2 hours fully charged) and now I think we have an issue...

I hope that apple will fix this bug asap!!!!

Can anybody help with a similar problem but at the other end of the battery life...?! when my 4S 64GB gets to sub 10% (on occasion sub 20%) in remaiing life the percentage is so unreliable that i haver to charge it. It can flick from 20% to 10-9-8% and when i turn it on and off again it jumps up then down. Not ideal for £600 price of kit!

I have let the battery run down (went off at 5% battery remaining) and when it turned it back on it went upto 8%. I want to avoid a full reset as i have about 50GB of storege used so it will take age to restore.

In my mind it should just WORK!!!!!!!!!

The battery meter does not seem to be totally accurate on the iPhone. However, a battery calibration will typically resolve your issue and make it a lot closer. Let it drain until it cuts off with the spinning star. Then plug in and let it charge to 100% undisturbed if possible (preferably overnight). Leave it a while, maybe 1 hour, after it reaches 100% if you dont do this overnight as mentioned. You should see more accurate results afterwards. Apple actually recommends this once a month.

P1LLN wrote:

Can anybody help with a similar problem but at the other end of the battery life...?! when my 4S 64GB gets to sub 10% (on occasion sub 20%) in remaiing life the percentage is so unreliable that i haver to charge it. It can flick from 20% to 10-9-8% and when i turn it on and off again it jumps up then down. Not ideal for £600 price of kit!

I have let the battery run down (went off at 5% battery remaining) and when it turned it back on it went upto 8%. I want to avoid a full reset as i have about 50GB of storege used so it will take age to restore.

In my mind it should just WORK!!!!!!!!!

My iPhone 4S has been at my side nearly three weeks and it was just in the last two days that this issued creeped into existence. Yesterday I noted it only at 95% after being on the charger nearly 16 hours. Again, this morning, after approximately 8 hours on the charger, it was at 99%. In my average day of usage, this percentage loss is nominal; especially given I have a desk charger at work. However, I could see an issue for someone less wired than myself; 5% could mean the difference between calling home and saying you will be late and getting an ear full when you get home for being late and not calling.

Interestingly enough, this charging behavior is actually engineered in some products to protect the battery from overheating and assisting in proper battery maintenance. Motorola uses smart technology in their Impres line of batteries for high-end portable radios. The "smart" battery, paired with a "smart" charger will charge a battery to 100% of it's capacity within a few hours. Once the 100% level is reached, the charger stops charging and monitors the battery until it reaches 95% when it once again "tops off" the battery. Once a month, or after "X" number of charges, the system draws the battery completely flat, thus reconditioning it. It then charges back to 100% and the "smart" cycle continues. As compared to non-smart batteries, I have seen Impres batteries have a service life of 300% longer than standard batteries.

Though rather off topic, I shared above to make a point that manually taking your iPhone 4S, or any battery, to 0% cyclicly, then charging it to 100% will enhance its performance. Apple most likely isn't including a smart charger with our iPhone, but we could view this fault as a lesson in battery maintenance. We should also be thankful we are not seeing the nasty battery draw of our 4G cousins; hoping Apple is taking its time to overcome the difficulties of blazing speed and high-resolution screens. Until then, we await Apple's next update to see if this issue disappears and our iPhones behave more like our iPads.

Folks,

There is a lot of commentary about calibrating your phone, giving a new device time to learn about itself, about circuits that kick in to protect the battery from overcharging... I think these are all bull.

Before my 4s I owned a 3, then a 3GS, then a 4. This never happened to any of those phones, and doesn't happen to my wife's 4 when she charges hers next to my 4s overnight. Hers reads 100% in the AM, mine is in the 93 range. My poor battery life experience with this otherwise incredible phone means that I am "recalibrating" it at least every ten days or so, because I can't make it through some days on a single charge and it dies by dinnertime.

I even check to ensure no apps are running overnight that could be draining the battery in some way and fighting the battery charging process. Mind you, my wife's 4 has a dozen open apps running overnight, and still charges to 100 overnight. In the year plus she's had the phone it has never needed "recalibrating".

Also, I find a distinct difference between starting the day at 100 pct vs 93 or 94. The phone dies sooner in the day when it starts at less than 100, and also seems to die faster when it gets below the 10 percent warning.

Finally, this did not occur when the phone was new, which is when some of the posts imply it should be most prevalent. My phone charged to 100 for months before it started this less than 100 thing a few weeks ago.

I will throw out a question - has anyone noticed a difference between using Apple supplied charging devices and cables vs 3rd party products?

Thx

I'm guessing you haven't had yours long.

Back when the phone was released, people couldn't even get 100%, which is the subject of this thread.

Anyway, even since iOS 5.1 I dont get that sort of battery life; it's absolutely fine.

I don't think it's dependable on brand new phones for all those saying it definitely is. I've had y iPhone 4 for 2 years now and am only just experiencing this problem. My USB cable broke from use and so ordered a new one and borrowed one from a friend in the mean time. I never had this problem before, not even when I first got my phone. It worked fine on my old charger, it worked fine on my friends 4s charger but on the new USB lead, it doesn't charge for 100%. And this is just when I've left it over night. This happens when I'm just charging it while I'm sat on my laptop. Why I have to do to get 100% charge is unplug it and plug it in again and it goes to 100% in minutes. Now while this isn't so much of an issue as I am due for an upgrade, it is still irritating that this makes no sense!

So no, it doesn't mean your phone is new and calibrating. I've never heard of batteries doing that other than the first charge. If that is the case, my 2 years new iPhone is still calibrating.

Hi, I have an iPhone 5 and I'm having issues with charging and the battery. The phone does not charge fully to get to 100% with the full charge symbol, it keeps charging and charging until I unplug it. This is wearing down my battery because it is not coming to the point when the battery is at its full charge. The battery is technically at a full charge because it is charging for over 4 hours but it keeps on charging at 100%. The phone hardware is not indicating that it has came to a full charge. I have went through multiple phones and it has had the same problem. I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the software because 3 phones and a replaced battery and a new cable shouldn't all that the same problem. Any ideas?

Have you allowed it to fully drain until it shuts off totally on its own then recharged it? Leave it for about an hour and a half after it hits 100% (if it ever does) to have a full charge. If this is never done then the battery and software are not calibrated properly and will cause this to occur.

My 4s seems to work better if I turn it off then plug in cable and let it turn back on and never log it back in (its passworded). Also I close all apps beforehand too and then I have 100% in the morning. If i do not do this it will be on like 98% or so as soon as I take of off the charger. Cant figure out what is running to cause this but this process works on mine every time.