After installing the update make sure you reset all setttings. I have done a few updates now and have had much better sucess after settings reset all. Standby drain has been virtually eliminated from 2-4% hr before update. It is located in settings/reset//reset all settings. You loose some wifi and desktop settings, but data, apps, etc remain intact.
BradSK wrote:
Hi all, just posting for some advice regarding a system restore.
It seems as though most people have had success after doing a system restore and setting up as a new phone (when I updates to 5.0.1 I needed to restore but chose iCloud backup instead). I am reluctant to lose too much info, so could someone advise me as to what kind of data would be lost a d what could be recovered from the cloud (not via restore but from my old phone)? I know things like apps and music would have to resynced but that's not a problem.
Thanks
Before doing a system restore, try the steps below. Corrupt system level settings created by an iOS 5 bug in the original release that caused battery recalibration issues, etc. Just installing the update does not fix the issue in most cases (sometime it initially can be worse). You need to clear out those settings and recalibate the battery. For those still having the "standby battery drain" issue follow the procedure below in order. It does fix the problem in most cases.
Go through these steps to address the battery after updating to iOS 5.0.1:
1. Reset all settings (settings app-> general-> reset)
2. 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 photos, will still be there). At this point, Do NOT restore from iCloud or iTunes (It can copy back corrupt settings)
3. Turn off system location services timezone and iAd
4. Fully discharge battery (till it shuts off with the spinning wheel)
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!
I want to say something that helped me a few days...
Battery on my iphone 4s was really bad, i bought it new and had a blackberry, so, no itunes before or backups. But i did the restore and disable PING, itunes and reset the mail accounts, battery improved. BUT Something really weird, i don't use icloud since i don't like it, never used it before, but when i reset, icloud auto-activate with my apple id... So i just deleted the iCloud, and battery is awesome (well, not as awesome as iphone 4 from my bro) but really good, like 1 day 10 hours standby and 5 hours usage still 15% left. (siri on, locations everything on, mail exchange and hotmail every 30min, pretty much with its whole functionality)
But now im facing a phantom usage time, on standby. 10 minutes per hour. O.o
miteglia90 wrote:
You think I need to do the reset all settings thing again?
Question:
1. Is it better to charge it in a wall socket or a PC?
2. I'm not sure if this makes sense:
Is there any difference if after the reset-drain procedure that I leave the energy-consuming stuff like wifi, BT, LS in a chance that the battery will get used to these things being left open and perhaps the battery will drain less? Weird question right?
I'm just basing it to what happend before i appied energy saving methods the battery drain was not significant but after applying energy-saving methods the battery drained more!!
This is sooo weird :/
Or is it better after the reset that I apply all energy-saving measures so that the bettery will somehow not drain faster?
It's like my battery has personality or something.
Here's is my usage: my only activities were: downloaded few, check out facebook, took some pictures, but not really extensive usage in my opinion
Remaining 83%
Usage: 1 hour 26 minutes
Standby: 14 hours, 11 minutes
Is this acceptable?
Thanks in advance for the response!
mitegelia... good to hear it is working for you and your welcome. it will not hurt anything to perform the process but it should work after a few trys. if not, you may have another issue. as far as you questions go:
1. a wall socket will typically provide better consistency than a PC, but either should work
2. wifi tends to use less power than 3G, so if wifi is off and an network type app tries to connect to the network, it will default 3G which may consume more power than when the wifi is off. bluetooth off will reduce power somewhat, but should be minimal. iTunes wifi sync off should also reduce power.
apple 4S specs are 200 hrs Standby or 9 hrs WIFI Data or 6 hrs 3G Data (mix of WIFI and 3G would be 7.5)... so approxiamately with you info:
standby -> 14.18/200 = 7%
mix 3G/wifi data -> 1.5/7.5 = 20%
so 100-(20+7) = 73%, so it sounds like at 83% you are doing fine... 😀
First of all thanks davidch for starting this thread and offering advice. Here is my experience for what it is worth. This is the second time an ios update has totally ruined the battery life on my 3gs - first an upgrade to ios 5.0 which eventually required a new phone from Apple, and now an upgrade to 5.01. In the latter case I have tried everything to sort it (including the advice in this thread) our but failed and so have just upgraded to an iPhone4 as I was almost at the end of my contract (and tether). Now a few of my own observations:
- The heating of the phone is absolutely a symptom of this drastically reduced battery life. The phone is clearly repeatedly trying to do something which is destroying the battery life..
- Going abroad and disabling data roaming helped, but only partially.
- Now that I have decommisioned my old 3gs, battery life on it is now completely back to normal. Dropped 11% in a day. So the only things I have done are to take out the sim card so I'm not making calls on it, and remove my exchange account. I've effectively been using it as an iPod Touch all day on wifi, playing games, apps and music etc. It is stone cold. This makes me think that the people who say that ios 5.x has synch issues with mail accounts may be correct. Thus one way forward may be to delete and then reset mail accounts.
Now that I have 2 phones, I'll try to replicate the problem again on my old 3gs by separately putting in my daughters sim and re-activating my Exchange account. I'll let you know how I get on but I'm betting its the exchange account that is the issue...
Peter, I finally came across at least one app that was reported by 1 user that was causing him an issue. It was in another thread in these forums. As stated earlier any number of apps 'could' cause battery issues and this particular one may not cause issues for others. The point was an app either poorly written or just corrupted install can create issues on your iPhone including poor battery performance.
Re: iOS 5.1 - Made my iPhone 4S battery performance worse!
Nov 30, 2011 9:21 AM (in response to Sky9t_mik)
... I guess I found the error. 🙂
The only thing I changed was the installing of the WIKIPEDIA-App on saturday; and the loss of energy was huge.
Today I removed the app, fully reload the battery and now it seems to be good again...
Dont know what the App is doing in the background, but i won't install it again !
Cheers, Mik
I have heard of that quite a bit. If you can set youe exchange acct to fetch instead of push I understand that helps. Also actually you can set for manual unless you have to have your email sitting there waiting for you when you want to read it. It only takes a moment to download new messages when you open your mail app so you may want to consider manual.
Have you installed a lot of apps since then? Perhaps sone of those have insisted on location and notification services. I would turn off any location services you really dont need as well as any locations services you may not really need. While all those are a little handy, its not really worth the battery drain having all apps use location and notifications (IMO). Certainly you can run the reset process again as that does not destroy data but I would look at the other apps you may have installed first.
Hi @ll!
After i Update to the New Build 9A406 5.0.1
I have a Standby about 3 days 10 hours .
With activ 3G and Wi-Fi i lose about 1% per hour. In Airplane Mode 1% in 5 hours.
Check your IOS Build. If you have 9A405 installed make a update.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4148
Did a restore as new phone via DFU mode then sync to library. Battery improved tremendously, After 14 hours of heavy use, I'm at 43% I hardly lose any power in standby. Who knows maybe the preinstalled carrier software settings were to blame or maybe it is a fresh uncorrupted update of ios 5.0.1 9A406 that did the trick..I dont care as long as it's working.
What up guyz,
Yesterday, after reading looots of comments and advices, I restored my whole system,
Reset the settings, put all my data back up on device, configured as a new phone,
since then, notifications off,location services on but all apps off including siri,
emails as push manually, I used all day on 3g mode, just so you know now it´s 4:50 pm
in Brazil, and I still have 35% of battery, it definately got better ( of course i didn´t not expect
to have all these problems and go through all these different methods to have a little
bit more of battery life).
I didn´t wait intil battery was 0% yesterday so I could recharge to 100% but I´ve seen improvement.
I recommend you guys to try the same until apple becomes real mobile company and updates the current
system.
At least, after one day of restoring the whole system, I didn´t even need to recharge it yet!
Best reagards,
farlleidrums
Recently got the 4s and experienced the same battery issue everyone else has. Well first 4s had a defective volume button so I had to return it. When I got new one from Apple store in Richmond, VA I was told by the genius bar to follow the same directions as "davidch" has on here. After the reset and 2 full discharges here is my battery life right now:
84%
Usage - 1 hour
Standby - 13 hours 30 min
Just a little over 1% per hour! VERY satisfied!
Thanks davidch!
Ok well I am finished with my test on 4s battery after rest and full discharge/charge. Too tired to stay up til it got down to 1% again so here are my results:
Battery 14%
Usage - 5hrs 15min
Standby - 2days 13hrs
I am very pleased with the results. The phone was used with a mixture of 3g and WiFi, texting, calls, web surfing, etc. Also, noticed that at night while sleeping the phone was only losing about 3-4% over an 8 hour period.
Thanks again davidch!
anastasiosfromcincinnati wrote:
Hello guys! i tried the method of davidch and on day 2 i have these results :
43%
Usage - 3hrs 38min
Standby - 1day 8hrs
Does this look good???
per spec, 20/200 -> 10% for standby usage, 3.63/7.5 -> 48% for even mix wifi/3g data usage, 10+48 = 58% expected usage or 42% remaining. 43% > 42%, looks good... enjoy your phone... 😀
richardfromcobham wrote:
Is the same true for the iPhone 4 (not an S)? Sorry coming to this late but have a handset that is practically useless...
process will work for any iPhone/iPad that can run iOS 5. this includes the iPhone 3GS, 4 and 4S. this also includes the iPad 1 and 2.
Nathan91 wrote:
Hi David,
I have a question. Does the battery need to be full when you do the reset? Or doesn't it matter
Regards
nathan,
it does not need to be full when you reset. just make sure after you reset you drain battery completely and then recharge completely.
good luck!
jrez wrote:
I have tried this reset approach a couple of times. The best result I have seen was 7 hrs usage and about 25 standby. Does not seem like very good numbers since I have everything turned off. And I do mean everything. The only difference between this and my iPod is a can make Phone calls. I have read several replies of people updating to 9a406 version due to an issue with the SIM card. I am on Sprint and to my knowledge there is no need for a SIM card on there network. Does anyone know if there would be an issue with just removing my card since its not needed. I'm up for anything right now. As long as it involves not taking the phone to the Apple store so I can be there for 3 hrs and not get anything resolved.
jrez... 7 hrs of usage combined with 25 hrs of standby is good and well within specification. apple official specification is the following:
note that those are independent maximums which means you will get 200 hrs "or" 6 hrs of 3G data usage not both, etc. so, according to spec and asumming you had an even mix of 3G/Wi-Fi data usage i get the following:
for standby, 25/200 -> 12.5% standby usage. for 3G/Wi-Fi (i.e. 7.5 hr average), 7/7.5 -> 93.3% data usage. 12.5 + 93.3 = 105.8%. that suggest that you ~ got 5.8% better than the official specification which is very good. sure all these are estimates, but that is still very good.
iPhone 4S 5.0.1 Update Improves Battery w/ Settings Reset
