Q: iPhone 4S 5.0.1 Update Improves Battery w/ Settings Reset

Hi Davidch,

The new phone I have now is still on OS 5.0. I did a fully discharge yesterday morning and I got 5 hours 19 minutes usage with 23 hours 28 minutes standby. The first fully charge I charged it through wall charger. Then I let the second full discharge today at noon and fully charged the second time through PC. i will see how long it will last this time. I have most of the stuff on except iCloud. I have email fetch manually, location service on except some off in system. Wifi off, Bluetooth off. Siri on. Notification center on for mail, calender, reminder. Find my iPhone is on too.

Should I update to 5.0.1?

Hmm so my last post might of been incorrect, seems like the first 30% goes down pretty quick, but looks like this so far:

48%

4hrs 35min Usage

12hrs 9min Standby

Thanks

After 2 days of charging my phone to 100 both times and both times the phone discharged to 5% in less than 5 hrs with mild usage, I called Apple and ended up getting another phone sent to me. After the ensuing fiasco that is a whole other story, I got a new phone. I am beginning my third charge on my new phone and here is my info. I DID NOT update the new phone to 5.0.1.

24 hrs 11 min stand by

4 hrs 35 min usage

Phone discharged from full to 1%.

Think I will stick to 5.0 til Apple can prove they have fixed the problem. The battery issue was the main reason I went from Android to Apple. Apple better get going or people will jump from this sinking ship. I hope my problems are behind me with this iPhone I have now. The other one was definitely junk.

jrez wrote:

 

After 2 days of charging my phone to 100 both times and both times the phone discharged to 5% in less than 5 hrs with mild usage, I called Apple and ended up getting another phone sent to me. After the ensuing fiasco that is a whole other story, I got a new phone. I am beginning my third charge on my new phone and here is my info. I DID NOT update the new phone to 5.0.1.

 

24 hrs 11 min stand by

4 hrs 35 min usage

Phone discharged from full to 1%.

Think I will stick to 5.0 til Apple can prove they have fixed the problem. The battery issue was the main reason I went from Android to Apple. Apple better get going or people will jump from this sinking ship. I hope my problems are behind me with this iPhone I have now. The other one was definitely junk.

4 and 1/2 hours is pretty poor to get by 1%.  It is pretty far out of normal than I or most users get (7hours).

What are you doing with your phone? Not all activities consume the same power. GPS, camera, LED on is by far the worst.

Having the screen-on itself is just like browsing the web...for any OS or phone (I learned this with  non-smartphones) the screen consumes power. I make sure to have screen Auto-Lock on to 1 - 2 minutes, tops, and lock my screen when I'm finished with the phone. No password needed. Having the screen on while you read or flip around...it is normal to watch the meter deplete in front of your  eyes...you are using a bit of power there.

Some examples 'usage' time for a fully charged phone:

8 hours of ONLY 3G talk time

6 hours of ONLY internet on 3G; 9 Hours on Wifi

40 hours of ONLY music (ipod), assuming the screen is off

3.5 hours of ONLY camera or video recording.

2-3 hours of ONLY GPS usage.

2 hours of ONLY LED on (like flashlight)

4 hours of ONLY Facetime.

4 hours of ONLY playing a 3D game.

10 hours of video playback (7 hrs of youtube playback)

What you actually get is a mixture of these, with 7 hours being a good average (for most people) before you deplete the battery. Even with davidch's fix, I think there are still some problems, but davidch's got me back to a normal range.

So if you are still getting only 4.5 hours with your 2nd phone, I'm curious as to what you are doing with your phone? For example someone only using it as an iPod will have larger usage time ( 15 hours or more), but someone making videos all day with get just a few hours.

I only get about four hours of usage as well. I'm very upset. I've currently used the phone for 30 minuets, and the battery is at 89% -_-

@davidch - You are right about the drain and recharge.  I ran my phone down to 12% last night by the time I went to bed at midnight and plugged it into the charger.  I'd have run it down further but I was tired and it was late.  At least I managed to get through the day without a recharge.  But I was pretty cautious about how much I used my phone.  I shut down all the apps in the multitask tray and started Battery Doctor Pro when I plugged it in.  I then shut the phone off to make sure it would get a full charge.  Took it off the charger at 6am and was at 100%.  an hour and a forty minutes later with normal use, i.e. checked email, twitter, facebook and Free App A Day and still sitting at 100%.  Yesterday just driving to work with the phone locked and in my pocket it dropped over 10% in about 30 minutes and was losing at least 5% an hour with no use.

Hopefully draining and recharging the battery helps to get the battery meter to do what it is supposed to and I won't end up with a dead phone by noon.   I plan on using it normally today to see what happens.  This is my third round of Reset All Settings so hopefully third time will be the charm for me.

P.S. Thanks for the encouragement.  There is so much negativity in these threads lately it is nice to see someone with a positive attitude.

Thom_D wrote:

 

Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!  I was getting better battery life losing about 3% an hour with no use and most everything turned off.  I saw a post where the poster mentioned getting much better battery life after his 3rd Reset All Settings reset.  So I thought I would give it a try and do one more Reset All Settings.  Once I got everything back to where is was, i.e. locations turned off, notifications other then messages turned off, Mail set to manual fetch, Siri Raise to Speak turned off etc.etc.  You know all the things we wanted our new iPhone to do but can't because in combination they suck the life out of the battery.

 

Then I did a network reset and turned off the WiFi and Bluetooth.

 

Anyway, the battery is dropping at at least 8% an hour.  I will let it drain and recharge over night to see if that helps.  I really think that there is a problem with the battery meter algorithim on new phones that doesn't settle down until the phone has been run through at least two full recharge cycles.  That is just my oppinion.

yes... you need to not only "reset all settings" but also drain the battery completely and fully recharge for this process to work correctly.  read my recommendations carefully and follow step by step.  good luck

davidch wrote:

 

viewfly wrote:

 

So if you are still getting only 4.5 hours with your 2nd phone, I'm curious as to what you are doing with your phone? For example someone only using it as an iPod will have larger usage time ( 15 hours or more), but someone making videos all day with get just a few hours.

 

but getting 4.5 hrs usage AND 24 hrs standby is fairly normal depending on type of usage.  remember, apple's specs are OR scenarios.  so the max they are specing is 6 hrs 3G internet (or 9hrs wifi internet) with no standby included. of course, that would also come under typical internet usage pattern

True enough, I agree.

I guess what I would say to the poster (who gets 4.5hrs/24hrs), if you are doing what you wish to with the phone during the waking hours 7am to midnight, or 16 hours...I would be happy and would just place my phone on the charger at bedtime.

Thanks again David.

Round 2 update:

1%

7hrs 21min usage

1day standby

I think this is about average, and decent battery life.  I figured after reading all these posts, and what I've seen so far if you are around 3-4hrs at 50-60% battery then you are about average. 

I'm not sure if it's worth another charge cycle, so I'll probably just now keep it charged as much as possible and do a monthly drain.

Thanks

I followed the original directions and have the following results:

30% battery life remaining

Usage: 5 hours, 13 minutes

Standby: 20 hours, 38 minutes

This is DRAMATICALLY better than it was before (I was loosing 10% per hour).  I'm going to run this charge down completely and do the same on the next charge.  Thank you all SO MUCH for your help!

Old_Mac_User wrote:

 

I have horrible battery life with my 4s ... Reset and am now draining the battery prior to doing a full charge.  Will let you know my results.

I can only get about 4 hours of usage per day. Really frustrating when some people get 7-8.