Q: iOS 5.0.1 - Made my iPhone 4S battery performance worse!

still waiting

can we please have some sort of reply from apple.

I seem to be having the same problems has many have already stated.

iPhone 4

My normal use is:

6am = 100%, light use throughout the day and by 9pm = 80% - 85% left

After upgrade to 5.1:

6am = 100%, no use (no calls, texts, emails and apps running), 8:30am = 63% left

Turned off iCloud and battery drain has all but stopped. This is not a fix but without it I'd have 0% left before lunch.

Also noted that back of phone was quite warm prior to turning off iCloud, so clearly working hard. Now back to cold.

This seems a strong case for setting up phone as new (i.e. put phone in DFU mode, reinstall iOS 5.1, set up everything as new, AND DON"T RESTORE FROM BACKUP), or at least try resetting all iCloud related stuff.

Not sure what is the criteria but I got a call from Apple and discussed my battery issue for almost 1 hour and we are not done yet, we will continue tomorrow.

I hope you and others will get a call too.

Be ready to document everything what you had done since the 5.1 upgrade coz' Apple would like to know.

Great service so far....

When I updated to 5.1, my battery life plummeted. Rather than restoring my phone, I stopped using the iCloud and my battery life improved SIGNIFICANTLY. 

I also got a call from a very nice representative, Lauren. Answered all her questions and will speak to her again tomorrow. They have been very helpful so far.  We will see what answers they can come up with.

I have read through many many replies, and the issues most are experiencing are some that I could replicate exactly roughly just under a week ago.

After downloading and installing iOS 5.1, I saw my battery instantly decrease in battery performance, and that I was having to recharge my phone a lot earlier than usual.

After doing my routine charging overnight whilst I sleep (10PM - 8AM), I found my phone's battery start to regain it's true performance, as before. After a few recharges, it was like I still had iOS 5.0 installed on it. After a few more re-charges, I started to see a very noticeable increase in battery life. I was able one day, with regular music usage and web surfing on wifi, to last 8AM - 3.30 AM the proceeding morning until I got the 10% battery left warning.

I have been able to reconfigure my settings as I would have liked them now, with iCloud, and see no noticeable suffer to battery life.

Today, with regular usage, rougly 2hours listening to music, periodic texting, a good hour or so playing Temple Run, these are my battery statistics:

Usage: 3 Hours, 41 Minutes

Standby: 15 Hours, 49 Minutes

I have however noticed that 'Setting Time Zone' in Location Services remains on, a bug carried over from 5.0.

You may all want to check this is not on, as it is a major battery drain and it not set to alert you in any way by default.

Settings > Location Services > System Services

Thanks,

Ryan

I usually have location services, wifi turned off and no apps running during sleep. My 4s uses about 15% battery in about 8hrs standby when it is running IOS5.

Yesterday, I have updated it to 5.1 then gone to sleep with 60% battery left. I had a really good sleep because the phone is not going to alarm me in the morning. The phone has used up 60% of battery which it used to be 15% only.

I then checked the settings of my phone. The turned off services are still off. What caused the increased useage of battery? What did the 5.1 do to my phone?

Just an update to my early post. Battery useage extremely high after updating to iOS 5.1 yesterday, and following an early post suggesting that I turn off iCloud.

06:00 = Fully charged

06:00 = 100%

08:30 = 63%

08:35 = Turned off iCloud

09:00 = 62%

10:30 = 61%

14:16 = 55%

16:20 = 51%

So just wanted to confirm that a workaround that has worked for me it to turn off iCloud services and battery use has all but returned to normal. I'll await an fix or additional information regarding this prior to turning iCloud back on. This way I can continue to use the phone as per normal.

Lauren also emailed me ,but has yet to be in touch, I really hope when she does this ends the problem,'

I was in the shop that sold me the phone today and by chance the person who apple have appointed as there on the the spot techo was there ,

he set my phone up for a full restore which I took home to complete .

restore done, no lost data.

But as yet have not done a full charge to see how it has gone.

news as it happens.

Appreciate all the general advice about battery preservation. Good to know. Point however is that there were never any problems and then immediately after the iOS 5.1 update, there were problems, at least with a good number of us. And as far as things like turning off 3G, WIFI, iCloud, or what not, come on. Maybe stop texting and phone calls too. All these things were never a problem before.  I may as well get my Mom's phone, keep it turned off and use only in the event of emergencies. Guess I will need to try the restore. I do hope that designers take time to view all this kind of feedback. Thanks all.

Hello, Everyone! Greetings from Russia)

I am also experiencing huge battery problems with ios 5.1.

I tried everything in order to get some additional enegry from the battery. The thing which is the most helpful for me is to turn OFF iCloud.

Everything else is ON as before.

regards,

Same problem here (Netherlands). Normally i've got wifi on, Bluetooth on, push mail, location services and iCloud and my iPhone would last the whole day. After the update to 5.1 my iPhone didn't even get through the afternoon and died on me around 16:00. Now I have got everything turned of except 3G and I am already half through my battery. While typing this message my iPhone went from 58% to 56%. There are some serious issues.

Since opening this post my battery has decreased by 5%. This is very reminiscent of my android days.  Before the update my wife and I could go a full day, if not longer, on a single charge. Now by 6pm on light usage I'm on 20% life left. This all started when we updated our phones. I'm positive this is not a coincidence.

Pursuant to my experiences and experiments over past 24 hours, Here's where things now stand. I'm thoroughly convinced that most of my battery issues are heaviliy heavily related to phone trying to use 3G in a weak area and look at available WiFi networks.

At start of today, based on some past advice, I did a Reset by Settings/General/Reset all Settings. No worries, all my apps and stuff still there.

While in my office, I have marginal 3G connection, but need it anyway. Here's my settings:

- Email (exchange) set to Push  (I need that for quick email response)

- WiFI is OFF (I also always keep listing available networks OFF)

- Bluetooth is OFF

- iCloud is always off

I recieved a few emails, 2 phone calls, and a couple text mesages from 930 AM to 12:00 AM.

Basically, 20 minutes of usage over 2-1/2 hours On time. Over that 2-1/2 period, I used 3% of the battery.

Although that is very light usage, I know that 3G strains a little bit when I'm in my office. Seeing my battery at 97% after 2-1/2 hours was great news. That equates to an estimated battery life (under that light type of use) of 83 hours. I'll be keeping my eye on things, but so far, a reset via the phone (not I-tunes) did good for me.