5.0.1 update--even worse battery life

I have an an iPhone 4 and iPad 2. I was running iOS 5.0 and was suffering very poor battery life - particularly on the iPhone which visibly dropped 20% in about 15 mins of use, and also ~8% per hour while on stand-by. I upgraded to iOS 5.0.1 (full download via iTunes) the day it came out and it was the same.

But then, per earlier advice in this thread, I did a hard re-boot (and also synced to iTunes again) - and now the battery life is significantly better on the iPhone: down to 98% after 4 hours on stand-by and it drops much slower while in use too. Haven't monitored the iPad as closely yet.

Your mileage may vary but, based on my experience, this is easy, non-destructive and so definitely worth a try! I had previously tried a variety of other suggestions (switching off certain System Services in Location Services, deleting/re-enabling mail accounts, resetting Network Services, looking for crash logs, etc.) but this is the only one that has worked for me so far.

All a bit odd really... Best wishes tracking down what makes a difference for you.

Andrew / Australia.

No, seriously. Get it. It IMPROVED my battery just like the update SAYS IT DOES. It also fixes many bugs that made iOS 5 users frustrated. Some people are just sore heads.

@ Aviya (Andrew) How did you do that? I tried to restore to the factory setting again (on iTunes) but then iOS 5.0.1 poped up as the iOS option so I decided not to restore...

Went to bed last night with device fully charged and fresh off the charger. Switched to Airplane Mode as always. Awakened this morning and battery was at 81%. Yes, from doing nothing all night! I laid in bed a few minutes longer, and when I unlocked the screen to actually turn it on for the day, it had dropped to 80%. Charged iPhone constantly when driving today, but instead of staying close to 100%, it was in the 60-80% range. Just put it on the charger nearly two hours ago at 42%, a definite low. It's finally made it to 89%. Oy. There's much to love about the 4S, but the battery life is a wee bit odd. FYI, this is on AT&T. I tried out a Sprint 4S for two weeks, but it was plagued with more than just battery issues.

What you mean saying hard re-boot?

This only seems to affect the 4S. My 4 (AT&T) did not have this problem.

Hi smoon3 and Waiting for iPhone 5,

Simultaneously hold down the power button and the home button until your get prompted to turn the phone off (then swipe to turn it off) - as opposed to just holding down the power button alone, then swiping to turn it off.

Andrew / Australia.

That's why I say waiting for iPhone 5 .......lol

I knew it but thanks anyways

It doesn't look like the phone drains that much while in standby under 5.0.1, but it drains faster when the phone is "in use" and by that I mean the phone display is on. I can not being doing anything on the phone besides keeping the screen active and it will drop 1% every 5 minute so (though at times it doesn't drop very quickly)..

What's more annoying is that the phone appears to be active frequently. For example I managed to get to about 1 day and 14 hours of standby time, by barely using my phone at all, but the usage time was around 3 hours and 30 minutes. At that point I had about 24% battery. Currently my phone is at 14%, but I don't know what the usage is since the Springboard crashed and wiped out the usage data.

Since the data was already gone, I did a hard boot and am currently draining the battery to 0.

No worries.

I've just re-read some of this thread - poster Bill Betournay (on page 15) also noted that this technique worked for him, as have one or two others. Obviously not for everyone, but it is encouraging to find things that do in fact help some folks. Two of my friends were helped by the "delete and re-enable Exchange accouts" suggestion - and the one I mentioned here helped me.

Andrew / Australia.

Official Apple Method for the hard reset:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1430

Follow the steps for reseting your device in the article holding the home and power buttons at the same time. Make sure you wait until the silver apple shows up and then let go of the buttons. This means it is rebooting and the reset happened. If you let go of the buttons before that and swipe the power off bar, it will just act like a normal restart and you will not get the benefits of a reset. Sometimes it seems to take more like 15 seconds.

Thank you Avia and Tmksnyder

updated to the iOS 5.0.1 update had it fully charged and went down to 50 percent in two hours.

After reading several hundred of these, I've come to the conclusion a lot of people spend way too much time talking on the phone. Does anyone work anymore? Anyway, today is the second day after update to 5.0.1 on my 4. I fully charged to 100% at 1 p.m., and by 4 p.m., after several short calls, half a dozen texts and check of Facebook, it still was at 100%. After a fairly ordinary 12 hour period, all but 30 minutes on Wifi, with notifications on and 20+ texts, opening 30+ emails and several Facebook messages, my iPhone 4 battery is at 90%. I couldn't be happier. The 5.0.1 upgrade doubled my battery life. So, if it's faulty hardware like I keep reading, I'm not seeing it. After upgrading last month to an AT&T 4 from a iPhone 3G, I'm thoroughly impressed ... and to all a good night.