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

I've been a user of this forum for quite some time but yet to post.

I've done literally everything on my iPhone 4S to improve the battery life, restore, restore from back up, set up as new etc.

Before 5.1 I went to an Apple store to enquire about it, they swapped mine and my girlfriends phone (4s) on the spot and off we went. (I noticed the battery draining quite fast straight away from even leaving the shop?!)

Anyways, put up with it as I knew the patch was coming soon and hoping it would solve the issues, which it hasn't.

I've turned everything I don't use off etc as you would to no avail.

This morning for example, left for work with 100% and after 1 hour of standy and 27 minutes "light usage" i'm down to 87%, and I mean "light usage". This isn't acceptable for me. I've booked in to swap the phone again this Sunday so if there is no improvement then this shall be swapped for another brand.

Apple simply don't seem to be properly acknowledging an issue, same with my macbook. Replaced the battery in that and researched to see many others suffering and forking out for not even a promised fix.

it sounds like you already know what you need to do man, there is no miracle fix. i dont see how you guys are expecting a software update is going to aid you more than whats already done. let me tell you this, I doubt apple will miss you, and 2nd the grass is not greener on the other side. if its that bad for you go on ebay and buy the thing you put to AA batteries in and the other end has a 30 pin plug. theres your back up. ebay.....$3.00

you should not reply in such way.

Guys, who don't use your phones, who are just  looking at them lying on their tables or in their pockets, please leave your comments with you. you don't even know what your devices are capable of (with regards to the battery), you will not notice any changes.

In this thread we are saying that our phones worked almost one day (not much too) on ios 5.0.1, and after the upgrade we can hardly expect half a day. So we want a fix.

i want my phone during the whole day whithout any charging. if iphone can not offer me this i will look for some extra baterries or simply switch to a 30 bucks nokia for voice calls. with a headset you won't even notice this thing.

we love Apple, we use it's products, we are customers, we need a fix asap

regards,

Has anyone heard from one of the Tech's at a Genius store, or on-line forums, or any reliable source that in fact Apple has even admitted there is an issue ? I suppose my greatest concern is that there aren't enough complaints being heard that it's going make it to Apple central. I suppose our greatest asset is the Apple employees who use I-phones, and experience first hand the attention it takes to manage battery life. If you have any news on this, please post it.

So far, my experience is showing me that my number one cuplrit is 3G trying to connect out (typically for my 'pushed' exchange email) in poor 3G areas. If I'm at hy home, where I have marginal 3G, it will knock 50% off my battery overnight. If I turn my WiFi on, it seems to use that effectively for data retreiving, and doesn't kill my battery.  I'dlike to know all of what happens internally when my phone reies to connect 3G for email push and can't. Is there a time out or retry period ? Does it just keep hammering away until it gets through 3G ? Etc.

I had posted my comments and findings on page 13 on this forum. Here's what i wrote and I am convinced with my findings now :

To all you guys out there who have iOS 5.1 battery issues, here's my findings after an upgrade from 5.0.1 yesterday morning.

With all the notifications / locations services off my battery drained quicker. All I had on was the 3G and wifi on. With a little trail and error I have found that once you are home in your own wifi range, then turn off the 3G and switch wifi on. When you are out then do the opposite i.e turn off the wifi and turn on 3G. Battery life improves dramtically but with both 3G and wifi on all the time, battery drains much faster. Give it a try and post your comments.

You meant to say your offered us solutions before you upgraded your phone yesterday?

About your observation after the upgrade, you and I might have the same observation but it is ridiculous to be switching features on and off as a solution with the battery performance. Having said that, here's what I noticed last night...

from 1:30am to 6:30am, I was home with Wifi and 3G on but Wifi Icon was the only one showing before I went to bed. When I got up at 6:30am, the battery went from 88% to 83%, a 5% drop. When I left my house to hit the road, as usual, no Wifi icon since no Wifi signal along the road, 3G icon was showing, my battery went from 83% to 77%, a 6% drop within 1 hour without using the phone!

Background apps running were Phone, Messages, Settings and location services was on so something was running with 3G on drained my battery so fast. Was it the location services, scanning 3G around, I don't know!

This is right in parallel with what I have been observing. The 'big draw'on the battery typically points to the built in radios, primarily WiFi or 3G.I my case, 3G is the big bad battery killer when 3G signal is weak.

I agree with Astronorick. With the tweaks I mentiones earlier I managed to get 4-5 days of idle-time on areas with good signal. Now I decided to test with poor signal areas and went to a underground car park to see what would happen.

GPRS sign went on and I lost about 20% of battery in something like 10 minutes of light surfing! 5 percent was gone before I found a parking spot! Obviously battery consumption should increase on poor signal areas, but this is ridiculous!

iPhone seems to have a poor quality GPRS -chip.

Hi Mine Iphone 3S  have the same problem... all power gone in a few hours even you are not using the phone.....how can anyone make this kind of SW release !! if this were Microsoft it would have been on the frontpage on all business and IT magasin world wide.....

Hmmmm, I think we have something in common. Hopefully some can make their test and observation then add the result on this thread.

I have feeling it might be related to the update adding 4G...read the article here

That could very well be it. I'm in the Netherlands and we don't have any 4G yet overhere, but at home and in the office on WiFi everything seems normal. Went for a walk outside this afternoon and saw my battery drop 5% within 20 minutes without doing anything. It really seems a 3G issue. Same goes for my commute by car. A 30 minute drive; also 5 to 7% battery loss without doing anything. At home on WiFi everything stabilises.     

Herewith I am posting an image of battery use taken today with all location services / notifications off and wifi and 3G on together. My trial and error as mentioned before on this post was that when you are in your own wifi range at home, then switch off 3G and switch on wifi. Similarly when out switch off wifi and switch on 3G. I am convinced that when both are on, then battery drain is much faster.

Today after a full charge I have switched on wifi (at home) and switched on 3G (outside). I will post another image tomorrow at exactly 13% remaining battery for you to see the difference.

Astronorick has similar views as mine.

Although I'm not actually glad to see others with all these problems at least we might get something developed out of Apple faster in response with the scope of the issue being larger.  My battery drains extremely fast now that I took the upgrade, there is no other variable in the equation for me as I have changed absolutely nothing else.  Minimum 50% degradation in life expectancy.

Apple did contact me. Asked me a lot of questions on my use. They installed an App to track battery performance for the week. They asked me to track anything unusual too and took my notes. Results were reported to their engineering department. I was not expecting them to give me some magical answer, but I cooperated to at least try and help be part of the solution. I appreciate all the suggestions that folks have made here - everything from general conservation tips to more aggressive methods. I don't think it is fully solved yet. I love my iPhone and can only speak for myself, but the negative change was on a dime following 5.1 installation. And for all of the conspiracy theorists and just general nay-sayers, I did get the impression that Apple was truly interested in what was happening. The two folks with whom I spoke would of course neither confirm nor deny 5.1 was the cause, but they did seem genuinely interested in investigating it. And they did acknowledge that Apple does monitor these forums to keep a pulse on what's going on. So it is good to know we are not just putting a message in a bottle here. Thanks again for all those offering constructive feedback and suggestions. Perhaps wishful thinking, but maybe there will be a 5.2 or whatever correction, though this time I think I'll wait and check here before doing the install. Peace.

Yes, I'm short of 3G at my house...when I turn off wifi the battery on my phone drops much faster when I use the Internet.  Personally, I'd be happy to go back to 5.0.1, it worked much better with battery usage on my phone.  But Apple doesn't support downgrades for some reason, I don't know why.  That will make me a lot more cautious moving forward, maybe that's not what Apple wants, but that's what they're going to get.