5.0.1 update--even worse battery life

After upgrading to 5.0.1 my iPhone is draining the battery even faster! Anyone else seeing this problem?

Posted on Nov 10, 2011 11:39 PM

Reply
1,434 replies

Dec 22, 2011 10:13 AM in response to Aykay

Aykay, unfortunately I see this on a daily basis, first hand. "I read this, or, I read that on a website" I've had all iterations of iPhone. And have been updating software since 1.0. This has happened with 2 of the 5 iOSs from what I can recall. And after a few updates and various updates from app developers, it has gone away. If you've noticed over the past week, there have been dozens of app updates. I've had 46 this week alone.


I'm not a kid jamming away at a keyboard just pulling stuff from the net. I've been out of highschool for 20 years so I've been around the block a few times. It's just crazy to see someone make an appointment to bring a phone into an apple store, driving 40 miles one way, because the screen rotates and they aren't sure how they did it.


I'm not saying everyone, and I'm not calling people stupid. I'm just going by what I see.

Dec 24, 2011 4:25 PM in response to toemasuxsempai

I have not had any more problems for several weeks now. Do NOT sell your iPhone. What fixed mine is what was mentioned quite awhile ago. Keep your iPhone on and FULLY drain the battery (until it shuts itself off). Then, make sure you charge the phone, UNINTERRUPTED. Meaning, do not unplug it from charging at all until the battery meter shows 100%. Then do a soft reset (holding the home button and lock button until the Apple logo is displayed).


This should take care of your issue.

Dec 24, 2011 6:18 PM in response to art_in_motion

For anyone new to the thread be sure to go through these steps to address the battery after updating to iOS 5.0.1:


1. Reset all settings (settings app-> general-> reset)


2 a. Go through initial setup steps (lang, wifi, siri, enable location, etc) and choose setup as new phone (don't worry your apps, data, contacts, mail will still be there). Do NOT restore from iCloud or iTunes (It can copy back corrupt settings)


2 b. If you do not get the complete new setup screen with language setup and setup as new phone or restore from iTune/iCloud backup, be sure to go back to #1 and reset all settings again (it should happen the second time)


3. Turn off system location services timezone and iAd (settings -> location services -> system services)


4. Fully discharge battery (until you get the spinning wheel and it shuts off)


5. Fully recharge battery (overnight if possible)


In my experience this improves the Standby battery drain issue significantly in most cases. It reduces drain from 2-4% or more per hr to 0.5% or less. It has worked for many, many users now. If it does not work after a few try's you may have a real battery or hardware issue and should contact Apple. Good Luck!


You can check details on my thread along with numerous successes here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3484755

Dec 25, 2011 2:09 PM in response to ichrislindh

From how I see it, apple has informed us about the situation several millionpost and forms ago. Just imagine if they were to repeat thereself's"X" amount of times in a repetitive fashion that it wouldn't makesense to keep telling us they are aware of the problem. I think they shouldmake a sticky of known issues and links to those issues so we don’t have aclutter of same topic issues. In the meantime all of us have to read eachother's point of view on how they've tackled there battery issues.


For the most part I personally do think it has to do with the software,because I guess there are official claims that some people don't have this"battery" issue. In my perspective it's the following apps thatI'm using I think. There are certain apps that I highly "need"or need to keep, and I have noticed a lot of these apps still bypasses thenotifications system. If you were to turn off a certain app, a lot of theapps apparently can still create a notification even if you were to turn it offin the systems settings.


But as I've owned an iPhone 3gs, and 4 prior to ios5, I for the most parthave not had a single battery issue. Before io5 I felt like god notneeding to recharge my battery every few hours. I swear losing 20 percentor more of battery in less than one hour is just very frustrating. I havea feeling 6 years from now, well receive iPhone 4s recall notices if you stillhave your phone, they'll replace it with the current model!!! But comeon, I really wonder how many people actually claimed a new Nano. I wouldgive or take out of the several hundred million Nano’s they sold, they probablyonly needed to replace less than a 1000 or so Nanos.


I remember I was one of those apple haters, they didn't believe in theproduct until I actually owned one. From the moment I got one, I was inlove and felt that it's a very superior product. However this iPhone 4sbattery issue is just killing me right now and it's making me want to switchback to another os type phone. There’s only so much they can ignore beforeit can cause potential damage to us buyers. In my situation, if I was to claim a bad battery, or battery issues, how can someone evaulate this. if your phone is to work "perfectly" fine if you were to service the phone? And only get a responds back, "we found nothing wrong with your phone"....

Dec 25, 2011 3:30 PM in response to art_in_motion

***People of ASC: Please stop whining and complaining about a lack of response from Apple. We realize this and don't need every new post to be about this. Post usage scenarios, and if we can find a common scenario, that'll be progress.*** 🙂


We're all in the same boat, otherwise we wouldn't be here. Additional complaints won't change anything. There is an issue, we know about it, and of course Apple does. Looking through their history, they are quick to fix hardware issues (the Antennagate conference, flaming iPod recalls, various display and hinge issues with MBs), but they do take longer with software issues.


If you are so annoyed that you want to switch, go ahead. If you're within the refund period, great. If not, sell it and move on. But non-constructive comments won't change a thing. Attacks on Apple won't cause them to fix the problem any faster.

Using the phone as a smartphone, I get about 5 hours. Careful use gets me about 8 hours. I suppose this is better than some people, but I'd expected more. My friend's iPhone 4 can get 12 hours although it is a year old, and I don't know about that early review that got 38 hours of moderate usage. Detailed breakdown below.


  • A full discharge and recharge helps somewhat, but not really.
  • A settings reset does not help, nor does wiping everything and starting over completely (did this accidently)
  • Some apps' notifications will really drain battery—for example, leaving Facebook Messenger's notifications on and Wi-Fi on, I dropped 7–8% overnight. This might have something to do with the fact that the phone turns off the Wi-Fi chip and connects to 3G if it's idle. The 3G chip uses a lot more juice if it's transferring data, but when idle uses less than the Wi-Fi chip.
  • In contrast, leaving it in airplane mode, it can idle for up to 10 hours without dropping by 1%; usage is more reasonable with airplane mode on. Would defeat the point of the phone though (but I use it more for productivity, so it would work out for me).
  • I have all the System Location Services turned off. The only location services I use (launch the apps) are for Camera, Weather, and Find My iPhone.
  • Don't look at how long it takes to drop from 100% to 99%. I've had 100% last for 40 minutes while playing music and reading a book in iBooks, outside, with automatic brightness on. The rest of the charge lasted for about 5 hours.
  • I'm getting between 5–7 hours under moderate usage. This involves some 3G data, iCloud documents, viewing/editing docs in Pages and a PDF reader, some camera usage (photos, not video) and some gaming (Angry Birds, CTR; I usually save my heavy gaming for when I'm plugged in). Wunderlist is the only third-party app in Notifications. I do have all the iCloud stuff turned on except for Photo Stream, and I'm connected to 3G for about 8 hours a day and Wi-Fi for about the same. Airplane mode at night, but I have one alarm on.
  • Any light gaming seems to drain the battery about 1% every two minutes or so. Maybe a bit faster.
  • With a bit more care in my usage (turning Wi-Fi off explicity then on if I need to do some extensive browsing, not turning on the screen too frequently), I can stretch it out to 8 hours. Note that most of my usage consists of the screen being on, so not much is music playback with the screen off.
  • I am careful to keep most background apps closed. Usually I'll only have Music, Preferences, and iBooks running.
  • Current usage patterns result in me charging the phone every other day, by which time it is usually down to the reds.
  • The current 5.1 beta does not offer any noticeable improvements over the previous, or iOS 5.0.1. I did not get the chance to get any proper figures in iOS 5.0.

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

5.0.1 update--even worse battery life

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.