iPhone 4s doesn't charge to 100%

I entered this discussion when I was traveling and could not get my phone (4S) charged to 100% when left in overnight. It always got there if I re-charged it during the day. I let it go down to almost nothing and when I charged it the next time, and thereafter, it is not charging back to 100% all the time.

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!!!!

Big problem the new iphone *** is full of bugs , where is 5.0.2 to repair all the bugs ??? Apple without Steve Jobs is going down. Sorry but this is reality.

I found a guide that was useful and had lots of tips to fix this charging problem. Hopefully, Apple will fix this problem soon!

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

Am having this issue as well.