Why is my battery life on iPhone 4S and iOS5 so poor?

Question

Floop1977 Author

Level 1

9 points

Why is my battery life on iPhone 4S and iOS5 so poor?

I have upgraded from iPhone 4 using iOS4 to iPhone 4S with iOS5.

I am seeing considerably poorer battery performance on my iPhone 4S compared to my iPhone 4, which could easily last through a day of general use. This was fine, because I'd charge the phone overnight each night.

My usage pattern has not changed, but the iPhone 4S battery issue is a problem, because it is not lasting the day. I continue to charge the phone overnight, and when I unplug the phone in the morning it shows 100%, but this drops far quicker than before so by about 5pm I am getting the 20% battery left warning, with the phone cutting out around 7 or 8pm. I normally don't go to bed and charge it until about midnight.

To investigate the rate of battery power loss, I did an experiment:

I waited for the phone's battery to be fully depleted, then charged from empty to full. It reached 100% capacity at around 12.30am. I unplugged the phone from the charger at roughly 1.30am and went to sleep.

At 4.23am, I had 98% battery left. Usage reported the phone had 0h 57 mins usage, and 1h 46 mins standby.

At 8.16am, I had 86% battery left. Usage reported the phone had 2h 54 mins usage, and 5h 40 mins standby.

At 9.41am, I had 81% battery left. Usage reported the phone had 3h 36 mins usage, and 7h 04 mins standby.

During this time I didn't use the phone at all. I received no alerts, text messages or calls, and didn't open any applications at all other than 'Settings' to read off the usage data. The screen was off. I used the Home-Sleep button combination on each occasion to take one screenshot of the usage screen. No applications were running in the background as I shut them all down.

Note: I turned Time Zone support, Bluetooth, and Send Diagnostic Reports to Apple off in advance of this. Also the screen locks and goes dark after 2 mins of inactivity.

So I'm not entirely clear why the phone 'thinks' it has had so much usage - when it ought not to have. I do have Push enabled, but this is for Contacts and Calendar updates (which are rare, e.g. maybe one per day, and not usually during the night!). I don't believe Push is enabled for Mail because the phone downloads the messages manually when I open the Mail app, and I don't receive alerts about new email (which is the way I want it).

Any help would be appreciated!

Floop1977

iPhone 4S, iOS 5, 16GB Black, on Vodafone UK

Posted on Oct 29, 2011 11:30 AM

Reply

Answer 1

OzziesMAC

Level 2

183 points

Oct 29, 2011 11:32 AM in response to Floop1977

That's easy.

Start here;

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3391947?tstart=0

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Answer 2

Floop1977 Author

Level 1

9 points

Oct 29, 2011 11:55 AM in response to OzziesMAC

Hi Ozzie,

Thanks for your message, but that link has 123 pages of people trying to solve the problem, and counting!

Lots of suggestions, but no clear answers, and I don't have the time to read through 123 pages of suggestions, solutions, non-solutions, and such. That would take literally hours of time.

What I'd like is a solution that works, or at least a consensus about a solution that works!

I really hope Apple identify the problem and fix it.

Floop

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Answer 3

Oct 30, 2011 10:44 PM in response to Floop1977

The more location services you have on the more it drains. Keep Safari and maps on. This was my answer. I'm back to working great.

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Answer 4

Floop1977 Author

Level 1

9 points

Oct 31, 2011 1:46 PM in response to oasisaliv

Hi,

You've solved it, thank you!

I had turned off the Date and Time setting automatically here Settings-->General-->Date & Time-->Set Automatically

...but that hadn't solved it.

However, when I went into here Settings-->Location Services-->System Services-->

...I found other settings, where I could turn the following off or on:

Cell Network Search

Compass Calibration

Diagnostics & Usage

Location-Based iAds

Setting Time Zone

Traffic

I turned them all OFF except for Compass Calibration, and now I get great battery life!

So thank you for your help - case solved!

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Answer 5

Nov 22, 2011 12:52 PM in response to Floop1977

I , like many others are still suffering for the poor battery life on my new iphone4s x 2. Both fully paid 800bux each.I honestly done believe anyone should compensate on any settings to save battery life. If I cannot use these excellents feature that Apple came out with , why border puting it out onto the market .ios 5.01 did nothing for my black 4s but fixed my white 4s . Both have same settings and usage. Therefore , I am really confused if this is really a software error or both software and hardware problem.i have own iPhone since day one , please come up with a fix sooooooooon.

Thanks

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Answer 6

Dec 11, 2011 9:24 PM in response to kingsorder

until today , with the 5.01 update make no difference to my black iphone4s . yes there are alot of people advising turning this or that feature off , however , i disagree , because those are th reason(s) I brought an Apple product and not an android . you might as well ask me not to turn the phone on at all to mantain 100% battery life at all time lol.

come on Apple people , face your problem and dont ask fate customer to post up here to say this and that will fix this issue .

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Answer 7

Floop1977 Author

Level 1

9 points

Dec 12, 2011 12:27 PM in response to kingsorder

Hi,

The 'features' you refer to are not anything that a customer should really care about, so why don't you just turn them off.

Do you really care about "Location-based iAds" - I've hardly ever even seen iAds!

Do you really care about the time-zone updating based upon your international location - unless you are a very frequent traveller, this 'feature' is pretty useless and can be turned off without losing functionality that matters.

The specific features to turn off are indicated in my post above - they are all in one place, they can all be turned off in about 20 seconds, and your problem will go away, and you will not lose any important functionality.

Obviously I would agree with your point if you had to refrain from using the phone or making text messages, or playing games, or taking photos... all of which are genuinely useful features of a phone.

But I disagree with you that you should deny yourself reasonable battery life on the basis that you need the specific features that made you buy this "Apple product and not an Android one" when these features are in fact not first-line, or even-second line features... they are just 'things' that make very little difference to how a person would use their iPhone at all.

Anyway, that's my thoughts on it. Yes of course it would be great if Apple could fix the bug but as it isn't showstopping, I find it hard to get worked up about it

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Answer 8

Dec 12, 2011 1:00 PM in response to Floop1977

anyway , thanks for your time to reply .

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