iPad 2 rapidly losing battery life

Try tuning wifi off. It may be because the iPad is constantly checking for notifications, new mail ect.......

Seems to make a big difference to me.

Maybe it's an hardware issue then, if it is then your only real options are to try a restore and backup or take it back and get some professional advice on it. You should have no worries if it's still in the warranty it came with.

Best of luck with it.

If you don't already have one, get one of the many systems monitor apps and take a look at what processes you have running all the time. You may discover an app running which is dragging you down, perhaps a new one you've installed recently, perhaps an older one which doesn't play well with iOS 5, or perhaps a version updated for that OS which doesn't work as well as the old one did.

It will give you a starting point, at least. Also recommend looking through these forums to find other threads talking about the same issue; the threads also contain solutions, one of which is very likely to apply to your case.

With ios5.1 a couple of new issues emerged that can affect battery life.

Did you set up for wireless syncing to your computer? If something gets hung up, that will cause the radio to work hard to complete the task, potentiallyfor an extended period. If you have wifi syncing on, turn it off and see what happens.

I read reports of people using the cloud to sync address and contact info are finding an issue called 'irreconciliable addresses' where the system cannot tell which contact info is right to get into a syninc loop with the cloud that never gets resolved, againing, running the radios and battery. If you have that on, turn it off.

Morgans suggestion is great. My favorite in that regard is system status.

The battery is run down by screen usage, radio usage and cpu usage. Eliminate what you can, and what is left is where the problem is.

A good monitor is Process killer which is £0.69/$0.99 but was recentley free (A week or so ago). It tells you wat is taking up RAM eg. wired innactive... and lets you free up RAM. You may want ot take a look at it but it might not help you because kiling processes in the taskbar does virtualy the same thing.

The process killer app,has been pulled, and is no longer available in the app store. Rats.

Unlucky. Apps obviously cant interfere with other apps in the background.

To save a little but more battery goto Settings>Mail,contacts...>Fletch new data and change it to something like 30 min or an hour because apple says this will save battery and turn off some of the notifications you really dont need. No need to make any drastic changes but every little helps.

Prior to upgrading to Ios 5.0.1, my iPad2 could go many days with minimal draw down on the battery. Since the upgrade, it literally ***** the life out of the battery.

I have tried all the voodoo I have seen listed on the various forums out how to "fix" the battery life... something I dont think I should have to do as it wasnt a problem before...

So, as an additional test with all the voodoo that people say to try:

- Full charge on the iPad2.

- no background apps running

- no location services of any kind. (option turned off).

- actually, aside from wifi, everything else is disabled.

...

24 hours later, the battery - which was at 100% - is now down to 68%. No, I didnt use it. No-one else used it either. I can only imagine how fast it would drain if I turned back on all the features I turned off AND actually tried to use it for more than an hour or two.

I would really like one of these options:

- let me roll it back to IOS 5 as it worked perfectly there with no issues at all.

- IOS 5.0.1 needs fixing... so fix it and release 5.0.2 or .3 or whatever, but just fix it.

My iPad is basically a tethered device at this time as it no longer has the battery life to take it on the go like when I first got it. As a tethered device - why bother when I can use my large wide-screen computer.

hahaha! S is just a letter, so is U. Then we have the letters C, K and S. Its not a bad/dirty/vulgar word. A vacuum cleaner does it. Power intensive devices do it to power. Straws do it to the liquid refreshment you are enjoying. It, however, is a bad word here as its been censored. If you are wondering what horrid word I typed that was replaced by those asteriks, thats what it was.

Pragmatic,

I'm having very similar battery-nuking problems for no apparent reason. I'm not new to the Apple environment or iOS at all, and have tried mostly everything I could think of.

Did you find anything out at the apple store?

Thanks!

I took my ipad to the apple store recently. Unfortunately, they only thing they can do is test if your battery is reporting any issues. While my battery drains really fast, it is otherwise not showing problems. The issue is that some process is doing something that causes the faster than normal drain. For me, it seems to be wifi related. If I turn off wifi, I get the expected battery life. As soon as wifi is enabled - with all other notications and location services turned off - the drain starts. The apple store doesnt appear to be able to determine what that process is.

I have told it to forget all network settings as well as doing a complete factory reset (which brings it back to 5.0.1 - not the factory image on it when I bought it) - with no noticable improvement in battery life... compared to what it was before.

Sbrews,

They were unwilling to replace your device (assuming it is under warrenty) ?

Seems odd to me, I love my iPad, use it all day every day, and I am completely aware of a 50% (thats my estimation) decrease in battery life.

Sad days for my iPad haha