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A better iPhone 4s battery life

Since I got my iPhone 4s I was very disappointed with the battery life: it looks like I'm not the only one..


During the last days I found several solutions that really improved my battery life 🙂

You have to read for days to find the good tips among hundred discussions, this is why I'm sharing those here

I'm still hoping that Apple will do something soon to improve IOS5 battery eating disorder


1) Fully charge the battery with the iPhone off

At night -or when you do not need it- plug in your iPhone to the charger , then switch it off

pulling the red tab on the screen and let it charge.

Do not switch it off before and plug in after because

the iPhone will start back automatically


The battery will go to 100% and it will last longer

This is a procedure I have done in the past even with old iPhone and iPad and I always found that works great.

Same for laptop.


2) Turn off Setting Time Zone function

in Locations (system services). It never turns off location searching so it drains the battery.

This setting was draining my battery 3% in one hour with everything off.



3) Turn off Diagnostic & Usage Data.

Settings > General > About > Diagnostic & Usage > Diagnostic & Usage Data.

Another big improvement


4) Brightness at the minimum you can stand


5) iCloud off

I use it to sync when I'm at home and with wi-fi for now: hopefully Apple will come up with some fixes


I had to kill several operations to get a decent battery life: I do not think this is what you need to do when you buy an expensive phone

Everything should work fine and the battery last as long as promised...


6) No iCloud cellular use

Settings > iCloud > Documents & Data > Use Cellular = OFF


7) Turn off Time Zone and Ask to join networks


8) Do not leave iMessage in standby when you do not use it

Quit as soon as you finish sending messages



Thanks to everyone who suggested all these tricks : it's difficult to go back and find them all but

my gratitude goes to all of you !

iPhone 4S, iOS 5

Posted on Oct 29, 2011 2:32 PM

Reply
127 replies

Nov 5, 2011 8:02 AM in response to annabelle

I received my iPhone 4s last week, it doesnt hold a charge for more than four hours. This is my first iPhone and I must say I am a very "unhappy camper" My position requires that I have 24/7 phone/data access, what do I tell the boss... apple battery issues .... LMAO


I have most of my apps shut-down any all the location shut-offs I can do....battery still drains... Now I have started see other issues with opening my email.........


What's a NewYorker to do....not voice/data for longer than 4 hours (thats 4 hrs will two call, 1 msg and email manual push).

Nov 5, 2011 8:33 AM in response to annabelle

Go to annabelle's posting from October 29th - summary of tips are posted. I followed every one of them and it's making a bit of a difference. I too am frustrated - high expectations as a 1st time user. But we are being assured that Apple is working on a fix. I'll be a little more patient, but I am hoping they move quick. Otherwise I will be making the switch as fast as I can to an alternative. Good luck!

Nov 6, 2011 4:53 PM in response to Lawrence Finch

Lawrence


You could be right but he could be

an external developer who signed the development program: anyone can do it

and you do not have any Apple secrecy to respect in this case, I think

He's not been harmful so far but helpful

In case it's an Apple problem... 😉

I always read everything carefully before following anyone's tip and I suggest everyone to do so

Nov 6, 2011 4:51 PM in response to annabelle

Developers sign an NDA that restricts what they can say. It does not prevent them from posting in a forum like this, but it forbids them from saying they represent Apple. Daniel is certainly implying he works for Apple if you read his posts across forums. He does not. But a lot of the responses to his posts assume that he does work for Apple so people are reading him that way.


BTW, Apple employees sometimes DO post in the forum. When they do their avatar is an Apple logo. But they also are doing so as users and on their own time, not representing Apple.

Nov 6, 2011 8:26 PM in response to annabelle

My battery life wasn't lasting more than 4 hours, even when I wasn't using it. I tried shutting off everything unnecessary in settings. That didnt help. Finally I discovered all the running applications that needed to be closed. I thought it was the same as my iPhone 3 and that when you exited an app it was closed. All I did was double tap the home button which revealed all my open applications. I held down an app until they shook then pressed the close box at the corner of the app. My phone doesn't run down the battery do quickly anymore, only about 7% for a full day of light use. Sorry if everyone already knew this, but I wanted to share what helped me.

Nov 7, 2011 5:24 AM in response to annabelle

You are right. We should be discussing how to improve battery life, rather than quirks of people who post. Over a year ago I wrote the following for the iPhone 4: New iPhone 4 battery issues.


Two things to note: First, that battery issues are not something new; the iPhone 4 had battery issues over a year ago. And so did the 3GS, 3G and Classic iPhones in their time. And, I don't think much has changed. The one addition is iCloud; if you use it iCloud will use additional battery beyond what I listed in that post, and the trick of removing Exchange accounts and adding them back should also be tried with iCloud. And, of course, Siri will use battery (but not that much).


Some battery issues are non-issues. The iphone is not a cell phone; it is a powerful pocket computer that can also make phone calls. You can't judge it the way you would judge a standard phone that only needs to be charged once a week. it's closer to a laptop that you charge every day. So if you come from a basic cell phone your expectations will be that you can go for days between charges. That isn't the case. If you are an average user of an iPhone you will have to charge it every day or two. If you are a heavy user you may have to charge it more than once a day. Even if you came from another iPhone the 4S will probably get less battery life than your previous phone because it does more. You can't get something for nothing (First law of thermodynamics).


The only time there IS an issue is if the phone is using a lot of power on standby. This indicates a problem, but it is almost always a problem with an app, not iOS itself. It may be an Apple-provided app, of course (Mail is a common culprit). That Apple can fix. But very frequently it is Facebook; Apple can't do anything about that.

Nov 7, 2011 5:29 AM in response to Jenn53

Thanks for the tip; even if some people know it there's no harm in repeating it. BTW, just because an app is shown as open it doesn't mean it is using power. SOME open apps do, but not all. Closing all of them will certainly stop the ones that are using power, but you could probably narrow it to the one or two that are the actual culprits.

Nov 8, 2011 12:21 AM in response to annabelle

I have a 3GS and also noticed with iOS 5 update the battery life reduced dramatically.


One thing that I think has helped it is turning off the location services in the weather app. I suspected that the weather widget in notifications was frequently using my location and therefore using excessive battery power. Given that I spend most of my time in one area I don't need the app to constantly update the forecast based on location.

A better iPhone 4s battery life

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