5.0.1 update--even worse battery life

I've posted earlier about my 4S woes on 5.0.1. Since then I decided to attempt a full reset in the hopes that maybe some artifact setting was causing a problem and perhaps draining the battery (I had the same problem as everyone else).

An aside: before performing the full reset, I received a call from Apple and exchanged a battery logging profile for logs from my phone so they can analyze the situation on my phone. So, they are doing something. I didn't ask a lot of questions, so I know nothing outside of this - I'm only happy to provide help.

Back to my experience.... I work in a building where there is ZERO cell reception. Before the full reset my phone lost 10% per hour in battery life while in standby mode (unused) where there is no cell reception. When in use, add 2-5% on top of this. Last night I reset my phone and set it up as if new, re-programmed cell tower info via Verizon (required), and reconfigured back to the same way it was before in regard to iCloud, email accounts, etc., with one exception: before I used an Exchange account to access Google Calendar, after reset, no Exchange accounts.

This is the first day since resetting. For two hours my phone has been in standby mode, and it is still at 100%. I can't guarantee it will work in the long run, or that it will work for you, but my experience is that so far today I've saved 20% battery life in 2 hours of standby mode operation just by resetting my phone. I'm just saying.

@TPev,

try what I tried: reset your phone and initialize it as a new phone. At least in the short term this has worked for me.

I RESTORED MY PHONE BACK TO FACTORY SETTINGS LAST NIGHT, THEN WHEN IT WAS FULLY CHARGED I PUT IT IN AIRPLANE MODE. USUALLY BY THE MORING I WOLD HAVE DROPED ABOUT 25% OF MY BATTERY, BUT WITH AIRPLANE MODE ON IT SATYED AT 100% THRU THE WHOLE NIGHT. I WOKE UP AND AROUND 8:15 AM TURNED AIRPLANE MODE OFF AND WITHIN 15 MINUTES I DROPED ALMOST 15%. I HAVE EVERYTHING SHUT OFF (WIFI, SIRI, BLUETOOTH AND ICLOUD) AND STILL HAVE A BATTERY PROBLEM. APPLE IT SEEMS YOU CONTACTED OTHERS ABOUT THEIR BATTERY PROBLEM, WHAT ABOUT TOSSING ME A CALL?

I had tried all of the fixes that have been suggested with no success. Being a compulsive problem solver, I tried once again by resetting all settings, draining the battery until the phone shut off and recharging to 100%.

In Notifications, I have phone, messages, reminders, hanging with friends and twitter turned on.

In Location Services, I have Siri and Find My Phone turned on.

ICloud is off for all but Find My Phone.

Push is off.

Email is Inactive.

I am now 3 hours in Standby and still at 100%, whereas yesterday I had lost 20% in that amount of time.

I am going to turn email and push on, and will report back :)

I had tried all of the fixes that have been suggested with no success. Being a compulsive problem solver, I tried once again by resetting all settings, draining the battery until the phone shut off and recharging to 100%.

In Notifications, I have phone, messages, reminders, hanging with friends and twitter turned on.

In Location Services, I have Siri and Find My Phone turned on.

ICloud is off for all but Find My Phone.

Push is off.

Email is Inactive.

I should have mentioned the same in my case. Since I refuse to turn anything off (why have the phone if I do?), everything is turned on, Push, Location Services, all notifications, Siri, etc. Everything. Note, after full reset still 99% battery in standby after 3 hours, a record over the last week or so.

@CDFreet I did that. Set it up ast a new phone, turned off iCloud, turned off location services, turned off notifications. Still drains at a super fast rate. I have a huge problem turning those features off, since they makes zero sense to me. I shouldn't have to turn off pre installed features of a phone in order to make it past noon. But I thought I would try that out, and hope for a quick update from Apple. My next step is to contact Apple about a replacement. My phone is under warranty and due to there software, my phone is almost useless. I would think they would replace it.

Apple, why are you still allowing people to upload 5.0.1? all it seems to do is turn perfectly fine working iphone4 into over-heating, battery draining pieces of junk...while at the sametime completely alienating your customer base. Who is in charge now? did you guys hire someone from Microsoft to take over customer service.

Inquiring minds would like to know

@CDFreet I did that. Set it up ast a new phone, turned off iCloud, turned off location services, turned off notifications. Still drains at a super fast rate. I have a huge problem turning those features off, since they makes zero sense to me. I shouldn't have to turn off pre installed features of a phone in order to make it past noon. But I thought I would try that out, and hope for a quick update from Apple. My next step is to contact Apple about a replacement. My phone is under warranty and due to there software, my phone is almost useless. I would think they would replace it.

@TPev, I fully agree with you that turning off the useful aspects of the phone is unacceptable. Hopefully you can wait long enough to see if 5.0.2 (or whatever) will fix it - I still don't have enough evidence that mine is 'fixed' - before going through the trouble of seeking a full hardware exchange. Good luck.

For what it's worth, I had the exact same problem as all of you. I followed the directions of others on the forum of resetting the phone. The first time it didn't change anything, but then someone posted about choosing a new iphone setup after restore, then once that's complete, restore again, but choose your iphone backup account on the second time. I turned off location services, and altered the notifications to just email, message, phone, and calendar. I also turned off Cloud backup. I have gone from 25% battery drain per hour, to 10% drain over the last 18 hours!! Since this is working I have started turning services back on one at a time. Currently, I have turned icloud backup back on, and have seen no power drain in the last hour.

i have an iphone 4,Well i dont understand why should i turn off feature of ios 5, for me tuning off these features is pointless,i mean then why buy an iphone.....the update to ios 5.0 is really hopeless ...first of all i had problem with battery drain in ios 5.0 now this problem gets even worse as my battery drain superfast when my phone is on standby and an additional problem is it consume lot of ram after updating to ios5.0.1 ....i dont know whom has appled called to review ios5.0.1 ....Apple do try calling me i will let you know the real problem...surprising try hard reset iphone to new phone to solve this,well all the possible thing have been tried with no success. its just like windows if any problem try reinstalling windows .Hope apple solves this problem on top priority as many users are facing this problem..

5.0.2 is still a rumor. No official confirmation. So far no official acknowledgement from Apple that they are working on this and/or when a fix will be available.

hmm it seams like apple has no idea that many of the users are getting angry on this latest update ...i mean they have to come out with a update soon solving this issue....oh god now i am thinking i made a big mistake upgrading from ios 4.3.3 to ios5/5.0.1.ios4.3.3 was really good stable and provided good battery backup.i think apple has lost its way in ios 5, just like microsoft windows does when they release a new os.

Just a quick update: after turning everything off (as suggested in other posts), resetting phone (as new, not from backup) and then draining and charging the battery overnight seems to be working for me so far (knock on wood). Currently at 85% whereas yesterday at this time I was around 65%. Draining in standby seems to have been minimized as well. Not sure why it's working for me but not others. Going to try this workaround fix on my wife's phone tonight and see if it helps her's too. It's really ridiculous that we have to do any of this stuff for such an expensive product.

Chalk me up as a disappointed customer. I got the phone on November 11th. Uploaded 5.0.1 and from the start I noticed the battery die quickly.

I have tried the drain the battery/reset the phone as a new phone. I have also shut off push, notifications (except for the bare minimum I need to conduct business), turned off wifi, location services, and iCloud.

Since this morning with the charge at 100% and the phone in my pocket doing absolutely nothing I'm showing 35 minutes of usage and 1 hour 11 minutes of stand-by and the battery is down to 95%. Down 5% in just over an hour while doing nothing.

This is unacceptable, but what I find more irritating is that I have a smartphone that I have to dumb down by shutting almost everything off, and Apple has made no attempt at acknowleging the problem publicly or a ETA on a fix.

I have seen a few people in the discussion groups mention 5.0.2 But nothing from Apple itself. Very disappointed and angry. I've always told people who asked me that Apple customer service is great, and for the most part I believe it is. But we as loyal customers should be kept in the loop.

They are "investigating" the issue, and they feel that their update has done more good than bad.

Tuesday showed me the worst of the worst with the battery drain bug, after being 100% at 6:30 am my phone was down to 73% by 10:00 am, and my usage was barely 30 minutes. It continued to drop 1% per minute when in use and 10% and hour while in stand-by. Down to 43% after 1 hour of use and 12 hours of stand-by. Flat out unnaceptable.

Wednesday was the day of vigilance in terms of how much I watched and how little I used my 4s. My findings were better at first. My 4s battery did not drain nearly as much as it had during stand-by as the day before. It was at 98% after 6 hours of stand-by and 24 minutes of use. However after a three minute phone call, my battery went from 98% to 92%, but the stand-by drain didn't seem as bad. Later at night after work I listend to my synced up music and watched the battery drain at 2% every 3-5 minutes. Again, flat out unnaceptable, but somewhat better than Tuesday.

Thursday (Today) After unplugging my phone at 100% at 7:00 am, I left for work and upon arrival I checked my battery to see it down to 95%. A 30 minute stand-by car ride drained 5%. At 12:20 my battery was at 89%, as I type this on a CPU and check my phone it is now 12:24 and my battery is at 85%. Looks like the drain is back and in full effect.

I don't accept that any iPhone 4s user should have to go through pretzel logic to correct an issue that Apple caused (it doesnt work anyway). Especially when I payed for my phone out of contract ($700 for me having to troubleshoot Apple's issues?). This phone HAS good battery life, mine was just fine before the iOS 5.0.1 update. The battery life is crap now, and as a result I have shut off most every service my phone has including the 24.95 iTunes match that I was so geeked for.