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Argelius Author

Level 2

248 points

If you had battery problems with the 4S AND you fixed it, what did you do?

In browsing the discussions , there are a litany of posts with people posting problems with their 4S battery life...hundreds of pages of them...interspersed with occasional success stories.

Most of the solutions (short of turning of every feature the iPhone supports, such as location services, find my phone, iCloud, etc) involve some mix of:

(1) cycling the battery from full charge to complete exhaustion then charging to full again (battery calibration)

(2) doing a complete restore and setting the phone up as new

(3) turning off one specific feature (such as iCloud).

(4) getting Apple to replace the phone

Rather than starting another thread with people chiming in with "I'm having the same problem", can we limit posts in this thread to the success stories only?

If your phone was having battery problems, what did you do to fix it that worked?

MacBook Air, Mac OS X (10.7)

Posted on Oct 20, 2011 9:10 AM

Top-ranking reply

dimgl

Level 1

4 points

Posted on Oct 20, 2011 9:40 AM

So, I got extremely tired of battery drain and I decided to start from scratch on my phone.

From inside of the phone, I went to Settings > Reset All Settings and Data and waited for my phone to be completely clean. I then plugged it into iTunes and configured it as a new phone.

After removing all the things I didn't need, (like advanced Location Services, bluetooth, etc.), I checked how well my phone was performing in terms of battery. Without any apps installed, just text messages and iCloud, the battery life fared well. I was no longer getting standby drain.

I then started to customize my phone and install a few apps. I was very selective as to what apps would go on my Notification Center and Location Services. I stayed away from Exchange (Google Sync) merely to establish a control for my experiment.

After installing Facebook and not allowing it to use Location Services... my battery drain issue came back. When Facebook was in my Notification Center, I started receiving the same battery drain I was getting before. Even when I took Facebook off of Notification Center, the drain would still occur. I'm really disappointed with the Facebook devs, I have strong reason to believe Facebook is having some sort of issue that is draining the battery.

Since then, I've uninstalled Facebook and I've been using Twitter and installing apps normally. The battery seems to be fine. I haven't bothered adding Google Sync to my phone as I keep hearing that its a huge battery drain. Regardless, this shouldn't be happening. Apple needs to address this immediately and pull apps that are faulty from the App Store. The Facebook app is absolutely atrocious... It's a pain to use and now has a battery drain problem.

I will be leaving more information as I keep toying with my phone. However, I advise everyone to start from scratch and see what works best for you. Not everyone has the same needs and the battery drain issue DID disappear after I deleted everything on my phone.

Cheers.

View in context

25 replies

Oct 29, 2011 7:16 AM in response to Marinades

I ran a log and posted some of the results on this thread. Made an appointment at the Genius Bar and took a spreadsheet with a 4-day log. We backed up the phone, wiped the phone and then restored it.Took about 15-20 minutes. My numbers are significantly better.

32gb iPhone Black

Carrier: Sprint

WIFI: off

BluTh: off

B/G Apps: None

Pass word lock: off

Notifications: Off

Usage:7 hr/32 minutes

Standby:16 hrs/30 minutes

Battery Charge 48%

Oct 29, 2011 8:58 AM in response to Marinades

To be clear regarding the above post, I had asked the Genius to wipe the phone and to reset it as though it was right out of the box.

Oct 31, 2011 10:58 AM in response to Argelius

Well i turned of location setting for time zone and its been working great only issue i have is my bluetooth

doesnt always connect i think its a software issue with bluetooth but battery is alot better🙂

Nov 3, 2011 8:35 AM in response to Argelius

Ok, I got my iPhone 4S to get better battery life. I did all the suggestions listed above... (AGAIN)

i.e. Turn off Location Services for TimeZone, And Calendar Notifications.

I Also turned off the STOCK widget on the notifications pulldown. Run mybattery down till the phone turned off, then Fully Charged it and then Did a HARD RESET. <--- MOST IMPORTANT {I believe to make changes take effect} [No need to do a Restore only a Hard Reset]

Last night I charged it up and then unplugged it at 8pm then When I woke this morning at 6 I checked it it still has 99% !!! yea! (last time I Unpluged it overnight fully charged and then woke up it was at 55%)

Also I am using it today normally and I am still at 98%! (Made 2 Phone calls 3-4 mins each) checked 3 emails, and surfed the web for about 5 mins) and its 11am! Orginally I would have been Down at around 80% or Less!

So To ReCap:ℹ

I turned off the Stock Widget, Turned off Location Services for TimeZone, Turned Off Calendar Notifications & Run the Battery down to Empty, Did A Hard Reset And Its Dramaticly Improved the Battery Life!

I hope his helps afew iPhone owners till Apple fixes the Bug/Bugs in ios5/iCloud.

Good Luck!

Mike

Nov 5, 2011 2:31 PM in response to Argelius

My experience is that turning off Siri vastly increases battery life.

Nov 5, 2011 2:44 PM in response to Bradley Husick

So would turning the phone off. Most of the fixes talk about truncating it's functionality and features. From most of the posts I've read there is no one magic bullet that makes the phone run as advertised. I've gotten used to the phone being tethered to a charger and I'll just wait for 5.01 or whatever.

Nov 5, 2011 3:10 PM in response to Marinades

I deleted my Exchange account, rebooted, and added it back. I leave EVERYTHING on now and my battery life is much better than my 3GS ever was.

Nov 20, 2011 6:31 AM in response to Marinades

Just to add some further observations. My wife and I have the same phones: 4s/black/32 gb/ Sprint. After the 5.01 patch are phones are draining faster, in fact my wife's phone takes longer to charge. I've run tests simultaneously with both phones starting at fully discharged batteries to 100% charged. I've tested the phones straight out with no background apps, wifi, Bluetooth, locations disabled, and ran both phones full tilt with non-stop Rhapsody playing non-stop. I've lurked on other threads and have tried the suggested settings and workarounds. Our workaround is to keep the phones on standby, locked, and tethered to mobile and house hold chargers. Patiently waiting for 5.02.

Nov 20, 2011 6:43 AM in response to Marinades

Did you delete Exchange accounts, reboot, and add them back?

If you restore the phone as NEW, do not install any apps and do not create any email accounts or backup or sync with iCloud does the phone still drain rapidly? If so I would return the phone as it is defective.

Nov 22, 2011 2:56 PM in response to Argelius

Hi there, I have been suffering the same battery drain issues and last night I found a post on these forums that involves shutting down Siri and then hard resetting the phone to turn off the I.R sensor that is visible above the earpiece speaker through the lens of another camera. All you see is a purplish light and I figure that's it because after hard reset the light is off and I have 81% battery left after approx 11 hrs without much use. Hope this helps, I have turned iCloud and everything else back on again without incident.

If you had battery problems with the 4S AND you fixed it, what did you do?