Q: 5.0.1 update--even worse battery life

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.

Hi I also have this battery problem ...... And now I can't conect to my wi fi network on my Iphone or Ipad, anyone else out there with the same problem?

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.

Bump.  Same boat, and all that.

I've conducted a brief test for anyone interested. To set the baseline, yesterday I totally reset my phone by doing a hard reset and configuring as a new phone. Before the reset my 4S battery depleated at a rate of about 10% per hour in standby.  I work in an area where the phone gets no reception, and during this time my battery drain was worst; the test was conducted where there is no reception.

Note, this is mostly directed to Apple - they actually read these things - but hopefully others will find the comparison useful.

Today, after hard reset, I ran the iPod via bluetooth and tested battery performance.  Here are the results - fairly reasonable and comparable to the iPhone 4 I had before this 4S (iPhone 4 ran iOs 5.0):

Tested phone: 4S running iOS 5.0.1

Conditions: no signal, using iPod via bluetooth to a Motorola S9-HD

• usage when NOT in airplane mode:

Cumulative usage: 57 min

Cumulative standby: 2 hr 41 min

battery: 100% to 86% = 14% drop => 0.25% drop per minute

• usage when IS in airplane mode:

Cumulative usage: 2 hr 30 min

Cumulative standby: 5 hr 15 min

battery: 86% to 65% = 21% drop => 0.23% drop per minute

Just got a call from Seth at Apple - we set up a time Saturday to install a logger on my phone. So Apple is apparently paying attention anyway. I'll keep y'all posted.

I updated my 4s this morning to the new OS via my WiFi. Having 99% charge left at 06:00 didn't think much about it. Got work and checked my phone at 08:30 and was at 80%. Seriously?!?!?!?!  It was fine before it was upgraded to 5.1. That's the fix? And from what I'm reading I can not restore it back to 5.0?  When is the fix for the fix coming out? I have turned off all the usually suspects and still drains the battery. Also no 3G data access via AT&T but my work blackberry works just fine. Very very disappointed...

just got my iphone4s 2 days ago. updated to 5.0.1 immediately. i've also followed many tips like minimizing notifications, location services, turn off push email, etc. this morning it was 100% fully charged. but right now without much usage or talk time its down to 65%. as i just watch the screen it went from 67 to 65 % in less than a minute. looks like serious battery issue on iphone4S

Hey everybody...TRY RESTARTING!!!

I did a couple of 'restarts' (no reset)...and now I'm having trouble MAKING the battery discharge. It was AWFUL before the restarts...after the 5.0.1 upgrade.

I know this won't help EVERYBODY, but if it helps on one, it might help a few others.

Best wishes!

Hi everyone,

after reading all the tips I tried the following, and it seems to work fine for me:

• I switch of wifi (wifi also causes a huge battery drain on my ipod). I have a fine 3G offer from my provider, so in the end I don't really need the wifi to be switched on all the time, and if I need it, I can of course still switch it on again
• I deleted all the apps that I don't really need (games I was curious for but in the end I never play). However, I kept like 20 apps that I do like, so I still hold a lot of them
• I switched off the option of sending data analyses to Apple (indeed I found that tons of those analyses have been sent to Apple in a short time)
• I switched off location services (all of them)
• After making a call I push the top button to put my Iphone into sleep mode (I mean, I don't just put it aside, but really put it into sleep mode)
• I close all the apps running in the background that I don't need (a game I was playing a few days ago, Ibooks while I'm not reading any Ibooks at all, etc)
• Finally I switched off all notifications that I don't really find useful (especially the Facebook one). After all some of those notifications started to irritate me as my Iphone didn't stop showing me messages while I prefer to concentrate on what I am working on during the day. If I'm curious what happens on Facebook, I check Facebook, that's it. I don't want to be annoyed with it the whole day long.

It are just a few minor things, and the Iphone stays a magnific phone withouth all those things activated. While I really was having the battery drain problem before, this helped. I use my Iphone intensively, and the battery now went down with 25% over 12 hours - which I find acceptable. Knowing that I won't use it when I sleep, this way a full battery recharge should take me through 2,5 days.

I will now switch on some things that I switched off before to see how the battery behaves. I will keep all of you updated.

Enjoy your Iphones!

Peter

Hello misterbs1,

could you specify what you mean with 'restart'?

Peter

I dont understand what is the point in switching off this, turning off that.. in order to preserve battery life? It came with the phone and we are supposed to use it and Apple must have tested with all those on/off right? so what are we trying to say here by turning them off.. all we get is a costly paper weight or brick!!!!

Sure thing, pitchymaroc. I really didn't have much hope. And didn't expect something so simple to help at all. I have not changed any other settings or usage patterns. I know this might seem really dumb. But I almost never turn off my iPhone. And I realized that I hadn't done a manual restart since upgrading to 5.0.1...didn't think it was necessary since the phone turned off and restarted in the upgrade process.

Here's the restart I'm talking about:

http://www.apple.com/support/iphone/assistant/phone/#section_1

Thanks misterbs, I'm gonna try this also!

Well, honestly Aykay, I don't agree! In anything you buy that's working on batteries, why would you switch on literally all the functions, knowing that this will drain your battery? I don't even do that on my computer in order to keep it speedy...

No doubt.