Iphone 4s Battery life WORSE with upgrade. Anyone else seeing same?

Not yet; I observed the issues overnight and this morning, but now I'm at work and won't have a chance to hard reset for another 7 hours.

With the comments above about the possible implications over persistant overheating on the battery, I'm going to try to hike across town to the Apple Store in my lunch break. I've never been in to one before tho, so I don't know if that will help.

An update; I made an appointment at the Genius Bar and brought the phone in - they took one look and replaced it.

From 6:45am to 1:20pm, the phone has gone from 100% to 6% with only about 1 hours' worth of iPod listening and roughly 1 hours' worth of general activity (checking mail in Safari, not putting it straight to stand by). Email push was set to 15 mins with minimal activity, no WiFi, no iCloud. Still couldn't initialise the camera in the end.

I hope everyone gets a good resolution like this - I'll restore from back-up tonight and *not* apply the update.

I had a battery problem too, I downloaded the 5.1 then reset the phone... everything is back to normal again. No battery drain anymore... resetting the phone is must, only downloading 5.1 would not do anything.. good luck

I went to bed last night after doing a full cycle charge on my 4s running 5.01. When I got up, the phone was at 76%. This is not good

Ok, so now I have had Exchange reloaded and iCloud off completely for over 24 hours. I've fully recharged 3 times already. Unplugged at 8AM this morning, its now 8:47 with NO usage, down to 94% already. I think its time for a trip to the Apple Store.

fouad152,

What exactly do you mean by "Reste the phone"?

Hold power & home simultaneously until you see the apple logo. Do not swipe to power off when you see that option, wait for the apple logo.

macasner,

If by "full cycle charge" you mean you took the battery down to 20% then charged to 100% that will do nothing for you at all.

If that is what you did that is not a process required by Lion-Polymer batteries, it was true for nickel-cad batteries but Lion-Polymers (modern batteries) do not require "full cycle" charging.

For battery tips look on the Apple support site (sorry don't have the link). There recommendation is to just keep, and I quote" keep the electrons in the battery moving" i.e. charge it, use it but don't turn it off and just let it sit for long periods of time and don't leave it on an run down to no charge level and let it stay run down for long periods of time. The last item is one of the worst conditions which is why when you pick up any new device these days they will usually have at least a 40% charge.

In any case Battery Cycling will not fix a heavy battery consumption problem, try the "Restore as new" or delete you email accounts and manually add them back. Those are the only two methods I have used and read about that stand any chance of solving your problem.

gone4arun,

I know that is the procedure for doing a complete or hard reboot but is that what "macasner" did and is calling it a "Reset"? A reset and a re-boot are generally two different procedures.

Also It has been my experience and that of others that have overcome the "Battery Drain" problem "Re-boot" just doesn't fix the problem.

Fixed! Or at least for me. It has to do with push/iCloud.

Since 5.0.1 I have carried out daily tests, exactly replicating my usage exactly - yes I have time on my hands.

I have tried restoring 'as a new phone' and just a regular restore, hard resets.

My tests have taken place in a constant temperature room and the same software run at the same time and for the same length of time.

The only thing that has improved my battery life significantly is turning iCloud push off and setting it to Fetch (1 hour intervals).

My final test (duplicated yesterday and today - to confirm) consisted of six hours use to see what battery percentage I had left.

With no iCloud push 6 hrs use and 88% left

WITH iCloud push enabled same 6 hrs use 69% left

Holman, we know that cycling the battery down to 0% does nothing to condition the actual battery. Running it down until it shuts off recalibrates the battery with the operating system. Has nothing to do with battery conditioning itself.

HolmanGT wrote:

don't leave it on an run down to no charge level

Your above point is not true.

From Apple's battery usage tips:

'Be sure to go through at least one charge cycle per month (charging the battery to 100% and then completely running it down)'

Here's the link to it:

http://www.apple.com/batteries/iphone.html

For what it is worth I solved my battery drain by making two changes.

First I deleted my mail accounts and re-added them one by one. I notced an issue with Reminders not syncing correctly the first time I turned it back on with iCloud so had to delete and start again.

I have always had my mail and calendars set to manual fetch for what it is worth.

The second change I made which was to turn off Wifi Sync may well be better added to "Urban Legends" but until I have a chance to look into it in greater detail it coudl be contributing.

What I noticed is that when I was at home on the same wifi network as my main iTunes machines I was noticing error messages popping up on the Mac screen related to disconnections from my iPhone. My understanding of wifi sync was that the connection was only made when the iPhone was connected to power but this did not appear to be the case. My iPhone seemed to be communication with the Mac even when not connected to power.

Of the two issues above I think that the main culprit was the iCloud mail account but the second is worth trying if you spend a lot of time on your home wifi network.

Went from 100% at 6AM to 73% at 11AM while it was sitting doing nothing. No calls, no checking of email, etc. I've done a hard reset on the phone. I've "conditioned" the battery. You can almost watch the meter drop! Arrrgh.

tal1971,

Thanks for the link.

Quote from the link:

"Use iPhone Regularly

For proper maintenance of a lithium-based battery, it’s important to keep the electrons in it moving occasionally. Be sure to go through at least one charge cycle per month (charging the battery to 100% and then completely running it down)."

First let me clarify that I was saying don't leave the battery at ZERO charge for any significant length of time. And yes I had read the last part of the quote from Apple but if you search the manufacturers of L-ion batteries they and other battery savvy people will tell you that the statement made by apple about the full charge cycle is a Nickel-Cad practice that some people just can't get out of their heads and is just not required for modern l-ion Polymer batteries. Now not to upset you but that part of the statement by Apple is just plain wrong... and IMHO it was injected by some tech writer that just can't let go of that concept.

I am not picking on you tal1971 but this is just general conversation and not meant to start a flaming war. But think about it - if monthly cycles were really necessary to keep the iPhone battery functioning correctly Apple wouldn't be able to keep up with the replacement issues. 20 million iPhones owned mostly by non-technical people... I am pretty sure that at least 19.5 million of them do not put a reminder on their calendar to deep cycle their iPhone battery - they just use it in a normal manner with little or no thought about the last time they "Deep Cycled" the battery.

Like I said this is not meant to be a troll to start a flaming war but if you want to continue this discussion I would be more than glad to chat with you about some of the quirks of l-ion Polymer batteries and their personal hygiene requirements.

Actually this conversation about l-ion batteries is a little like religion, people believe what they want to believe but if you think it is worth the time I will research my opinions and provide some links to what I consider to be the truth of the matter. I really hope you want to just allow this topic to die a quiet death because I am too lazy to start searching up all the links on this matter. 😉