Is this the problem with iPhone 4S battery life?

I too have very similar usage vs standby time. The best I got out of my phone was 18 hrs standby and usage showed almost 18 hours also. I am showing about 95 % usage vs standby always. I went to the apple store today and the guy helping me was not helpful at all he did notice the problem I was having, did a restore and no difference, except all the time I wasted going and reloading everything. FRUSTRATED, my 3G would easily get 2 days on a charge and my 4s won't go a full day even with no use. I have to believe that whatever is causing the usage with the phone sleeping is also the battery culprit.

I posted earlier that my standby time was down to six hours. My 4S was becoming virtually unusable. I was having to charge it three times a day and had tried hard resets and many other setting changes with no luck. The only thing I hadn't tried that had been suggested was a restore but I have seen from others that this doesn't always fix the problem. Yesterday, based on some posts I read in some other threads I turned off the Location Services settings and it seems so far that my standby time has reverted back to the original time when I first got the phone. Obviously this isn't the best solution as the Locations Services are a big part of the value of the phone but it may be some temporary relief for those of you struggling with these issues. This could be an issue within iOS or possibly some ill behaved apps that are using Location Services. I haven't had time to turn it back on and turn off indivdual apps and then turn them on one by one to see if one might be causing the issue or if it is just Location Services in general. Something Apple obviously needs to test more closely with apps and their iOS releases. Hope this might help some of you.

The location-based apps were the precise apps that had the corrupted software, thereby causing my battery drain problems. Once they installed new,. non-corrupted location-based apps, my problem was solved.

What good is the iPhone 4S if it can't use location-based services? You might as well buy a cheap, pay-as-you-go phone, rather than a premium Apple product. If they correct yhe corrupted location-based software, all will be fine and you will be able to use your iPhone as Apple intended.

Of course, you can always turn off the entire phone to solve your battery problem!!! :-)

Unfortunately, you often find yourself at the mercy of the "genius" who is assigned to assist you. It sounds like your "genius" was far from what the title implies.

When I took my 4S in, they ran a diagnostic (not available to us common folks) that they had developed to distinguish software problems from other problems (e.g., defective battery, other hardware issues, etc.). The diagnostic showed the culprit to be corrupted location-based software that was causing my GPS to run constantly, with no outward indication that it was doing so. Once that software had been uninstalled and reinstalled from a computer that the Apple store knew to have good software, the problem was resolved. The "genius" helping me then ran another diagnostic to ensure that the problem had been fixed.

Sorry to hear about your experience, but others should not give up or go without features that make the iPhone such a great device.

So, I performed a reset all settings last night, charged it over night, turned off wifi for the morning and my battery is still at 88% at 1:00 pm from 7:00 in the morning which is better than before but I also have not used the phone at all. One thing that is weird is now I cannot choose specific location services like before, it just has a toggle for on or off any ideas ??

The battery life is teeerrible!!!!!! I hate it so much

(I solved my particular case on another thread, and I'm trying to share my solution, so please, pardon my copy-and-paste post)

It is a syncing error loop. My contacts are syncing flawessly again between my devices and iCloud, and yes, the battery stopped draining, which is the main topic here.

I followed instructions from buxbuster (look for his workaround in the thread link below) and an additional BIG step to restore contacts and syncing, as seen in a MacRumors forum.

This is what I did:

1. Make a backup of your Address Book, using the vCard option (or both, it doesn’t hurt). Save it for later.

2. In your iPhone, delete iCloud account. When it asks, accept both: delete AND delete from my iPhone.

3. Reset network settings. The iPhone will restart, then will ask you to unlock the SIM card.

4.Turn Wi-Fi on.

5. Add the iCloud account again.

That’s for Buxbuster’s workaround. For some, it might work just like that. My iPhone repopulated from iCloud after step 5, but I still had that “server error” on iCloud. I had to do some extra steps, since my Mac was not syncing to iCloud and couldn’t edit anything on my Mac or iCloud. Syncing back had to be fixed, too. If not, the syncing loop would continue from my iPhone, and the battery would drain awfully again.

1. In System Preferences -> iCloud, I turned Contacts off. I chose “keep on My Mac” those contacts, but I got an empty Address Book after a while. And a few minutes later, iCloud contacts were empty and my iPhone also. It is scary at first! Now, before importing that vCard backup…

2. Turn Wi-Fi off. This is important, since your contact-empty iCloud will attempt to wipe your Address Book from your Mac in seconds after importing.

3. Import your vCard backup to Address Book. Just drag it to your blank Address Book window; it asks if you want to import “x” number of cards. Of course, say yes.

4. Turn Wi-Fi on, and then iCloud contacts on again (System Preferences -> iCloud). It will offer to merge your newly populated Address Book with iCloud (which is empty at this point). It should upload every single contact to iCloud, and then to your iDevices. If not, a fifth step would be to import the vCard file to iCloud, but it shouldn’t be necessary.

So, with iCloud syncing working correctly, there is no battery draining! Again, that was my particular issue.

I can’t tell if this is the single answer to the widely spread battery draining problem, but it sure can be fixed with these workarounds, and yes, Apple should address the problem with a future update, for we affected customers don’t need workarounds in the first place 😉

This is the MacRumors discussion:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1256807

And the other thread:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3391947?tstart=0

Dont’ forget to check buxbuster’s fix, video, and THANK him!

Hope it helps some.

Yes there is a problem. I haven't tried every workaround yet, only the low geek-factor ones. With full charge, everything off, 5.0.1, push, location, apps, wifi, screen dimmed and asleep the battery drains about 12% per hour. That means a phone on standby for an incoming call only will go dead in 8 hours. this is not what I got an iPhone for and is worse than any smart phone i know of by a wide margin. Carrying an extra external battery or charger along, to me, is not a solution. Certainly I am in the majority of users: this is a major defect and this product is not up to Apples high standard.

Apple need to get on this quick!...Really whats the point of getting this 2011 iPhone 4s with this battery issue iPhone 4s is worse smart phone!

My iPhone 4S has the usage time = standby time problem too, reboot and hard reset didn't resolve the problem. I only able to get it resolved after perform the Reset All Settings from Setting > General > Reset > Reset All Settings. So frustrated, we paid premium price to get the iPhone 4S, and yet we have to try to resolve these problem ourselves by try-and-error!

The issue is in the antenna assemblies: the only common theme is that the battery drains rapidly whenever the phone uses any of the antennae to communicate. So far the only way to keep the battery going for 8 hours with minimal usage it to turn everything off. Why did I buy a $565 smartphone to make it as dumb as a brick?

They have built into the US iPhone the ability to communicate with CDMA on two networks (Verizon/Sprint) and GSM (AT&T). In addition, Apple has redeisgned the antenna that goes all the way around the phone into TWO assemblies to boost reception and minimize dropped call complaints.

This is the issue as the new batteries are not able to match the draw of the antenna assemblies. Jobs would have never let this get out the door.

For me a big difference when in the Netherlands using T-Mobile or KPN as a provider.

With T-Mobile we're loosing 15-20% overnight with a fully charged battery. With KPN only 3%.

The question what is the network of T-Mobile doing? I'm glad we are not using T-Mobile anymore.

Did the Genius tell you which applications were causing the problem? Part of the OS? 3rd party Apps? Apple Apps?

bppump911 wrote:

The diagnostic showed the culprit to be corrupted location-based software that was causing my GPS to run constantly, with no outward indication that it was doing so. Once that software had been uninstalled and reinstalled from a computer that the Apple store knew to have good software, the problem was resolved. The "genius" helping me then ran another diagnostic to ensure that the problem had been fixed.

Just adding my wee bit for Apple's benefit - if anyone from Apple actually pays any attention to this, that is? I'm an IT Manager for a publishing company using Apple laptops, desktops and servers, as well as iPads and iPhones. We recently received 4S iPhones and most of them cannot stay alive for more than 12 hours even if every possible thing is turned off (bluetooth, location services etc etc) and if no apps are running. Heck if I leave mine sitting on the desk doing absolutely nothing, no apps running, every possible piece of functionality turned off too, it is dead flat inside of 10 hours.

Absolute rubbish.

My old Nokia E75, by contrast, still wakes me up each morning after being cast aside for a month!

Apple seem to be backing away from their excellent server systems and most other types of business product (eg even the new version of Final Cut Pro is rubbish and heading towards being just another consumer-level toy rather than a professional thing) and they seem intent on becoming nothing more than a hi-tech toy shop.

If the 4S battery issue, and their lack of response to this immense problem is anything to go by, I'd say they may be on a slippery slope to oblivion if they're not careful...

They have alienated their traditional commercial market already (video & publishing) by discontinuing X-serve etc and are now evidently doing their best to alienate and anger their consumer market too. i i i...