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

David, I did the steps summarized in your post on page 33 (Nov 25, 11;25am) sightly differently but got the same result. This worked! The battery after 28 hours is still at 60%. This is with my normal usage. I bought my 64GB unlocked 4S directly from Apple last week and I was unable to get through even one day with minimal use. It lost 5% per hour. The max life I got was 10 hours 15 minutes from 100% to 0% and auto shutdown. I tried all suggstions - turning off location services, Siri etc, but nothing had helped.  Here's what I did:

1. Restored from iTunes.  Interestingly, even though the phone was on 5.0.1 out of the box, it asked if I wanted to upgrade.  Not sure what it upgraded but I let it do so.  Perhaps your reset would have accomplished the same.

2. Did the initial setup and asked iTunes to Set up as NEW.  Did not restore from a backup.

3. Changed settings as follows:

- WIFI on and connected to my home network.  I leave it on always.

- Notifications - removed Stock Widget and Game Centre

- Location services ON - Allow only Camera, Maps.  Turned off for Siri (can't find anything in Canada anyway) and Weather.  System Services ALL off.

- General Settings:  siri on; network>cellular data on, data roming off; bluetooth off; WIFI sync off (I'm old and prefer the wired connection); spotlight search> delected podcasts, videos, audiobooks (I don't need these); date and time>set timezone automatically is off;

- iCloud - don't use it yet

- Mail, contacts, calendar - I have mobileme, 1 pop, and windows live.  Fetch new data> Push is ON; Calendar TimeZone Support is OFF

- Facetime is on

This seems to be working now after 2 days.  I will let the battery discharge to zero today and recharge.

Thanks for the tip.  It is good into the second day now.

I've found that with itunes wifi sync enabled the drain is 1% per hour. Without it that goes does down to 0.5%, anyone notice the same??

Daivdch,

I used your recommended settings reset, battery drain and recharge method and it seems to have made a marked improvement in the battery life of my 4S.  I am now getting a full day of heavy use out of one charge as I believe I should and probably would get two days with light use.  There is little standby battery drain any longer and what  drain I do experience is in line with phone usage as opposed to standby time.  In effect I am getting battery performance on par with my prior iPhone 4 which is all I ask given all the new battery intensive features rolled out iOS 5 and iCould.

My only comment (and it has been identified by others) is that it seems to take two settings resets before you are given the choice to set the phone up as a new iPhone.  The first time through the proceddure I was not given this opportunity and was also not asked about region or language.  The second time I performed the reset the phone truly took me back to the setup as though it were new out of the box including aking me about region, language and giving the choice to set up as new.  It seems that the first time through iOS does not give you these choices but doing it twice sets it back to original.  Just a heads up.

Thank you very much for your insight and patience with this and other strings on the topic.  Your input has been invaluable and has given me the phone I expected when I bought it and can be proud of.  I was really getting discouraged otherwise what with having to plug in for a charge at every opportunity.

Nicely done and I appreciate your efforts.

Best,

Doug

I think it's because it keeps wifi active when the phone is suppose to be in sleep mode. When wifi sync is off then wifi turns off when the screen turns off and you see 3G then the wifi icon once you wake the phone. I think Apple needs to look into it.

This is what I've noticed:

Wifi Sync Enabled:

*Phone keeps wifi active. regardless if charger is plugged in or not.

*Extra drain because both wifi and 3G is active during sleep mode(screen off).

*iPhone shows up in iTunes when off the charger. Ejecting from itunes only works for 3mins or so until it reconnects automatically again.

*Battery drain is reduce a bit once iPhone is ejected and iTunes is closed.

Wifi Sync Disabled;

*Wifi goes to sleep once screen goes off.

*Less battery drain, but not by much.

I think it should work like this:

*If unplugged, behave normally and let wifi sleep

*plugged in, ping iTunes and sync, remain connected

*plugged out after sync, remain connected until user ejects iPhone from iTunes.

*plugged out after sync, still connected, allow user to manually push sync until ejected

*plugged out after sync, once user ejects iPhone then resume normal wifi sleep mode.

Anyway yesterday I got 5 usage and a day of stand by with this enabled. I was only on wifi for 7 hours total. I mainly read some news for a hour, music for 3 hours, download a app on 2G(1x) in a poor area it was around 2mb, terrible signal area for a hour. Got home with 34%, went to sleep for 5hours and woke up to 29% with wifi on. Normally with wifi sync disabled I'd only loose 3% or so.

Davidch,

You just triggered a thought based on my anecdotal experience that further validates your approach and logic.  I have not experienced any unusual battery drain since updating my iPad 2 to iOS 5 and 5.0.1 and was puzzled when my new 4S had such poor battery life and yet the iPad remained exactly as is was prior to iOS 5.

I recall that when installing the iOS update to the iPad 2 I fouled up the backup and was unable to restore my data (and thus settings) from before the system update.  This forced me to manually sych all my apps and reestablish settings manually once iOS 5 was installed.  In effect, I was treating it as a new device and not porting over any corrupt settings, files, or other nad news.  The iPad has been flawless all along including after updating to iOS 5.0.1.

The iPhone 4S on the other hand was set up by porting over from a backup of my iPhone 4 so all the ills were brought along with it (or initiated as a result of the beckup/restore).

Given your hypothisis and the success I have had with your solution it is very plausilble that something is being corrupted in the backup/restore process that is causing the battery drain.  I wonder if the same battery drain has been true with new, out of the box 4S's that have never been synched to or rerstored from any backup?  Do they also experience the drain or is it just with the restoration of backups?

Just more food for thought.

Best,

Doug

Davidch,

And lastly you mention in your first response to my post that you had experienced similar battery calibration issues in Macs as well.  I have a Mid-2011 (current producion) MacBook Air that seems to have developed a tendancy never to show a full charge though it spends much of its life plugged in 24/7.  Will a full battery drain and recharge recallibrate the MacBook battery and give more accurate charging status as well?  It makes sense to me that it would.

Curious,

Doug

Hi davidch,

I have initiated the process you've described that is supposed to help with battery life and I am waiting for my battery to completely discharge before I charge it.  However, now when I go into my messages, there are just numbers and no names.  Do you know how to fix this without resyncing the phone (as I know you warned against this because it may put the corrupt settings back on the phone)?

Thanks for all of your help!

Yep! I'm on Verizon.  Will try to disable iCloud contacts and re-enable.

To fix the contact issue just dial *228 then hit 1 and wait until the call ends and it says update complete.  Once done double tap the home button and close Phone and Messaging. Wait 3mins then reopen your call log. It should be fix. If not completely then reboot.