iPhone 4s Battery problem maybe found!!

Turning raise to speak off and rebooting does keep the infrared sensor from staying on, but sometimes I notice the sensor eventually starts staying on all the time again. I think it might come back on after another reboot or two? I just checked my sensor and it was on permanently again, and rebooting is the only thing i can think of that would have caused it to start staying on constantly again. Anyone else notice this?

THANK YOU!! battery life was terible until I followed these instructions, battery life is vastly improved now.

Yeah So this is my first Iphone (4S). I have been an avid Droid user for years and always had great luck with them (battery, OS, ect). So I decided a week ago March 25th 2012 to take the plunge and get an iphone family plan with my significant other, assuming "what the heck, everyone says the battery life is the best thing about the phone". From day one this phone has been dog**** battery-wise. Not only is my phone affected, but my girlfriend's same model phone is the same exact way. So let me get to it already:

I consider myself a tech-savy person and thought hey I can figure this out, man have I been wrong, along with 98% of 4S users. So the phone came stocked with iOS 5.0.1 I think. After suffering bad battery life for two days, with realistic/perfect charging to condition the battery, I assumed it was either a bad battery or iOS issue. I realized there was an update due for iOS 5.1 that noted bugs and fixes for battery issues. I proceeded to DL and Install once I had a full battery charge, while being plugged in. I thought to myself, "this is great, finally!" but to no avail; the battery life was still terrible... No Gain or Loss compared to before. Let me elaborate a bit...

*Stock Phone out of box iOS 5.0.1 (03/26/12)

-Day 1 with 100% charge, everything set to default, wifi off when not in use. I unplug from charger at 515am to get ready for work and lay the phone on my desk downstairs and continue to get ready for work. Leave for work and arrive at 7am, phone is at 88-90% (not even touched yet). By 12pm I leave for luch and I am anywhere between 35-40% on battery with on average 3 websites viewed and maybe, just maybe one phone call made. If I made it home at 4pm without my phone dying I don't remember.

-Day 2 (same exact scenario for the most part)

-Day 3 (same scenario) except this time I was proactive after reading about shutting off all the extra background services, apps, siri, ect, but nothing seemed to help at all! Literally if I saved 1-2% I didnt notice.

*Upgraded to iOS 5.1 (03/29/12)

-Day 4. Discovered update that noted bugs and fixes for battery issues and dove in as soon as my phone was at 100% charge. I thought I was finally free form the grips of this...nope. Everything back to default running on 5.1 I had no gain or loss in battery performance. I figured I would again try disabling all the background services listed before, but nothing would help. Sometimes it would drain a lil faster than other, but for the most part I was losing 10-15% an hour at least with the most minimal of use.

-Day 5. I called Apple and their Sr. Advisor acted suprised, as if she hadnt heard of this issue really , and set me up an appointment with the "Genius Bar". Sooo I wait for that appointment hoping for a new update or patch to resolve this issue so I would'nt have to drive 2hrs to the closest apple store.

-Day 6 and 7 resolve nothing other than reading forums and trying to educate myself on the issue.

-Day 8. (04/02/12) I go to the Apple Store. The "Apple Genius" does a diagnostic scan on my phone and determines the battery and hardware seem healthy, but becomes aware of the giant loss in battery as we sat there for 10mins and it dropped over 10%. He was shocked and said "this def is not normal". He proceeded with options, such as "I can wipe the phone clean and give you a new battery or I can just give you a brand new phone". I wanted to rule out hardware entirely so opted for the new handset replacement so I could start from scratch. So we moved forward and I went on my way back home with my 2nd iphone 4S with the original 5.0.1 on it. Charge conditioned it and didnt put any apps at all on it or upgrades. I wanted to see what the culprit was. It still was draining after giving it a lil use (10mins of soft web surfing and a 4min phone call). I seemed to be in the same boat again and dissapointed. I was right to feel that way because my battery issue was there exactly the same as before, except I had an empty phone I had to start all over with again...

-Day 9. (04/03/12) Decided to upgrade new handset to 5.1 hoping for the best, assuming it really just needed that bug fix through the upgrade. Pretty much started my work day at 7am with iOS 5.1 on the new handset with no apps or customizations. Battery life still the same. I could not believe it, so again I disabled all the services listed before to see if it would help along with some other troubleshooting I read about over the weekend... Nothing would help. I could not find the culprit! Battery was still draining at an alarming rate.

-Day 10. (TODAY! 04/04/12) Did my usual 7am-4pm workshift. While at work my battery showed signs of no hope once again, but I decided to get over it for a few minutes and finally use the smartphone portion of my purchase and redownloaded my apps one by one and see how the battery reacted; nothing seemed to help or hinder the battery life.

So here I am at 8pm trying to help the cause by giving the steps I have taken. Sorry if I have left out important details, but I am exhausted over it, so feel free to reply with extensive questioning. My only hope is to shed some light for apple and its iphone users. Too many places I have read that people werent doing enough or were doing too much, which annoyed me because I could relate to every single one of the issues and I know you guys can to. So enough from you guys who say try this, try that, stop using the phone so hard, swap it out at apple, upgrade, restore from itunes, restore from scratch, put it in the oven, put it in the freezer, because NONE of that has worked for me on any level as of yet. Same for my girlfriends phone. None of these steps have helped my battery life and I know there are other in the same boat which is deflating.

Currently my iphone 4S is a white 32gb with iOS 5.1 installed.

I am on Sprint and generally have 4-5 bars of service all the time, including 3G.

My serial number is starts with DQGH12V*****

Model MD246LL

Version 5.1 (9B179)

Let's crush this rediculus issue that has gone on for far too long.

Okay, Important realtime update!

-Day 11. I went to sleep last night at 1030pm with my phone unplugged at 93% and just woke up at 515am to grab it at 90% and currently at 6am it is still at 90%, this is huge for me, but actually realistic...

What did I do different? It it basically in tandem with what a few other dudes were saying on here: the 3G.

I looked on Sprint to see my coverage area (work and home) and it looked good, I am even two houses or so down from excellent service. That said, my phones service bars and data service reflect that considering I get pretty quick upload and download speeds.

So to the difference:

Location Services: ON

System Services: OFF (not that this should be a factor because it never helped before)

WIFI: ON

Cellular Data Services (3G): OFFFFF!!!!

-Nothing else dissabled and bam.

So with the culprit pointing to the 3G antenna I am going redirect my focus today, but this is the only positive feedback I have been given in the 10 days I have been hammering away at this phone. Apple needs to put us on their payrolls for this?

With all that said, I have not been able to get any momentum the entire time whatsoever with any troubleshooting tactic until now, with just turning off cellular data (3G). I am even running WIFI and tons of apps to push the phone a lil and it isnt budging battery-wise. Like other have said, this def doesnt "fix" the issue , but it is a slight work around that will set your battery life back to the stone age of good batteries.

Go ahead:

Setting>General>Network>Cellular Data (OFF!)

Now this is redic considering your biggest monthly cellphone plan cost is generally your data, but it seems to me it's better temporarily than to have a totally dead phone. I am pretty sure apple has installed some shotty antennas in some of the handsets that is constantly pinging the network hard and it probably has something to do with iOS 5 being 4G ready... This is EPIC FAILURE for this company I think. I think they know it to, but like the original 4S issue it should get solved, but I am sure the flawless iphone 5 will come out then, since they seem preoccupied by it rather than fixing this issue within 6-7 months. I can only hope they knock off $400 dollars at trade in with this phone for the new one at minimum.

Hit me with any other questions.

Another update!!!!

Thanks, I only want to get to the bottom of this like everyone else...

Another side note. I decided to turn on cellular data (3G) about 5mins ago at work, since I don't have wifi, to see how'd she hold up. Keep in mind I was at 89% at 7am when I arrived at work. I am now at 81%. I dropped 7% in 5mins with cellular data turned back on. This is def the main issue by far.

Any thoughts?

phonytony I have gone through the exact same experience as you (minus the replacement of hardware). Nothing that i have done after reading all the posts has made a differenence EXCEPT turning of 3G!

this morning when i cam to work the phone was fully charged at 99% 8:48AM, i turned of 3G and its at 95% at 4:08PM, this is remarkable improvement! approx 7 hours of standby and only 4% drop! so basicaly apple messed up with the 3G, not sure what it is but the 3G is the culprit! not quite sure if this is going to help cause the main feature is using high speed data, but it would be great to hear feedback from others 🙂 will be back with more results....

My friend has been having the ghost battery problem. He bought the 64GB iPhone from Verizon last year. I bought mine at the same time, same place 32GB and have never had the ghost problem. Finally, he went back to Verizon and they conducted a "battery check" and said nothing was wrong. At the last minute, they decided to get him a replacement. Here's the weird part. His new model number is MD280LL/A, so he started whining about getting a refurb, because the model was lower than his last one. But, no, that wasn't it. Verizon sold him a Sprint model phone, MD381LL/A. So, with the MD280LL/A model, he has no ghost problem. I'm no techie, and I don't understand half the things you guys write, but something tells me that having the wrong model (and Verizon not knowing it), created his ghost problem. Could that be the problem?

Wow phonytony, you've put in a lot of time and saved me a lot of time. The thing is, I'm running my iPhone 4S with iOS 5 on 4G and I'm the SAME issue. So, did they mess up with 4G as well. This make me FURIOUS becaude I'm often blogging from my phone I'm also often in an area that do not have WiFi. If the issue is really with the 4G coverage I'm will not... NOT... be happy camper.

I am not sure what it entirely consists of yet, but you should try something that has dramatically improved my battery life. Take your iPhone and hook it up to your computer and manually backup photos, docs, music, ect; as in open My Computer and open the device and pull the stuff off. Also back up anything you may wanna keep, but don't back it up to anything in the Apple genre (iCloud, iStream, ect.), rather back it up to either your computer, email, or whatever means you may have.Once you have backed up everything set aside about 30mins after your phone has come to a full charge.

First, go to Settings>General>Reset>Erase all content and settings.

This will prompt you through factory resetting your phone for the most part. If along the way it ask you to set up from back up or backup from iCloud, ignore the urge and make sure you always set up as new phone. Once this is complete your phone will reboot. Once it has rebooted, set up your phone in the startup sequence to where you can get to your homescreen; don't forget to always choose set up as new phone.

Second, now that your phone seems fresh, empty, and good to go, youre just not done yet. Now hook your phone up to itunes, but make sure auto-sync is disabled. Once itunes has recogzined your phone, click on the device over in the left pane. Now look in the center where the restore button resides. Click restore if your battery is at 100%; if it prompts at any point to back up the phone, once again, ignore, push through and set up as a new phone if it asks. Itunes will begin downloading the iOS 5.1 operating system to your itunes, which should be about an 800mb file. As soon it completes it will initialize the restore process. Push through all prompts in the same manner you have so far (no backups, just new phone). This will take awhile, your phone is basically being formatted and wiped clean with a fresh OS installed 5.1 from the ground up, not some ******** corrupt update from 5>.

Anyways, your phone will do wierd stuff along the way and seem like it starting over, but its just firmware installation and testing; let it do its thing, it may take something like 10-15mins possibly.

Once it's done, it will reboot and it will ask you to set it up again, just like the second step. Again, set up as a new phone. Once you have pushed through everything you should be able to sync up your phone to itunes.

Thats's it! Now that may seem like something you have tried, but try at least once (I have heard of success on the second attempt for some), but this should fix it. My battery life went from 2-3hrs tops to 2 days. I don't have disable anything if I don't want, although I do disable bluetooth, location services, and system services now so I don't have to think about a culprit, but it doesnt help or hinder, except for maybe bluetooth. I do use wifi when I can, but I use the **** out of my phone now and get at least 40hrs!

I think what is happening is:

1) The 5.0.1>5.1 update is either corrupt or it is having issues updating with all the different setups each phone is using.

2) Resetting the phones settings and content before doing a full format and restore sets a better stage for 5.1 to do its thing.

3) Do this all while at 100% charge I feel sets a threshold in the software.

Now that you have it here, very important, do at least 3 full charge cycles to condition the battery with your new setup. That means you just unplugged your phone at 100%, now you need to run it down to 0%, not 1%, but shut off on its own 0%. Then without using it charge fully back to 100%, then repeat a few more times. It's very unconvient at first because the charging cycles hardly fall on your typical charging schedule, but stay strong. After my second charge cycle I was very very very pleased...

Like I said, this seems like a typical resolution, but the sequence of instructions here is the only thing that has worked for me and my girlfriends phone; don't discount any stage. My way should be attempted considering I have been through two phones and done every trick in the book, from Apple store genius bar, to deep deep deep forum thread searches. This for some reason really worked out the kinks and I think its because the landing strip was cleared for a new OS to land properly. Also, I should mention I had my microSIM card out during all this and have never put it back in. It is only needed for international travel, so I dont need it. The reason I bring this up is because it you were following my other threads and posts youll notice my mention of the SIM slot heating up... You can imagine why I removed it... Now it would be interesting if someone wanted to do a controlled version of my "fix" and do it the first time with the SIM in and see if it proves to work. If it doesnt, try it all again without the microSIM. Regardless it would nice for other users to know that it doesnt seem to be a red flag of any kind.

Everyone be proactive, if you find this works, let me know, then let others know. Don't move on and leave everyone hangin in the same brain-squashing temperment you were once in. Have a heart! If this doesnt work for you at all, please let me know also...

Thanks!

I will try this today as this drainage driving me nuts.

Just got the phone 4 days, and it loses more than 10% overnight in standby.

I own apple products since 1998, but this has been the worst by far...hope it gets fixed.

I would try "Reset All Settings" first. This does not erase any data, only some of the system preferences which doesn't take long to set up how you had them. I have seen this fix those with excessive drain overnight like you have. Good luck. "Reset All Settings" only takes a couple minutes to run.

Erik

Reset All Settings worked for me. But I'm guessing this battery problem will come back again. I bought my iPhone 4S and it does not have this problem at all, then suddenly after 3 months of using it the battery problem suddenly appeared. From a 3 day battery life my iphone suddenly gets drained in just one day! I thought I broke my iphone, but then the iOS 5.1 came and the moment I upgraded the battery problem went away again like magic, my iphone battery was not drawings for 3 days again. However, in just 1 week the battery problem came back, my battery drained in just 1 day, with iOS 5.1 installed. Until I saw this forum, I then reset my phone as instructed and voila!! the battery is all fine again! It's already running half daya nd the battery is at 90% given that I called several people already. I'm hoping this will eventually cure my iPhone, but I'm not too optimistic it will due to my experience.

Jay

iOS 6 was a pain. Now after some adjustments it's just like iOS 5.1.1

Here's what helped me:

1. I switched from "Push" to "Fetch" (1 hour, but it should also work with a smaller update interval)

2. I adjusted the brightness from about 40% to this:

I don't know if this simple steps will help some of you, but personally I did a lot of troubleshooting and now I'm basically back to normal. Calendars is still in in the notification center, I have a reasonable amount of notifications (not too many), I use a few apps with geofencing and generally I use the device quite heavy throughout the day (it's glued to my hand).