iOS 5.1.1 Battery issues Fixed?

I dont particularly understand the hesitation of someone who joined today. I have floated around the forums for awhile and decided to post today. If my Apple "loyality" is in question, I own an iMac, iPad2, and the iPhone 4. I use all three items for work and for leisure.

Tomorrow, if I remember, I will reset my settings to do a screen cap of my battery life issues, since its obvious that because Im new to the forum, I must be lying about the battery drain or it's "all in my head". I had decent battery life before iOS 5. I could use my phone most of the day for various task and end the business day with about 75% of my battery. After I updated to iOS 5.0, I had the dreaded battery drain issue (and did so even after I updated to 5.0.1), where the end of my day resulted in around 40% battery. I patiently waited for 5.1. 5.1 did seem to slow the battery drain down, where at the end of my day I was 50-60% battery.

Now, after updating to 5.1.1, I noticed that during usage, I can literally watch the percentage drop...quickly. Just replying to this forum, when using my phone, it will drop 4-5% battery life (on a wifi connection, I havent tried 3G). During the 5.1 era, if it would drop at all during something comparable, it was 1-2%. I have not added any apps or location services since the 5.1.1 upgrade. In fact, I had 85% battery when I upgraded. When the phone rebooted after the update, it said 82%. Not that that matters, it was just an observation that made me start watching the battery closer.

I just had a 19 minute phone call. My battery went from 67% to 60%. It seems a bit better than yesterday, which lost 10% during a 15 minute call. I am still collecting data to get a more accurate count of how much battery usage I lose per minute while using voice (my phone is used mostly for text, email, safari, and other apps). While I understand that the battery percentage gauge may not be 100% accurate, its the only measure I have to gauge it. To rough it, I lose 7-10% of my battery for a 15-20 minute call. Thats not inluding any other usage, that's just voice. Luckily I dont have to make tons of phone calls, or I'd deplete my battery in no time. With 5.1, a 15-20 minute call would result in 3-4% drop. So either Apple made their battery meter more accurate, or it's draining quicker.

I may be new to the forum, but that doesnt mean that Im here to bash the iPhone. As Ive stated in earlier post (or in this post, which is where others are stating they are having drainage issues as well: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3933510?start=0&tstart=0), I love my iPhone. But, needing to use my phone for business, I cant certainly be around a charger all day, just to make it through. If apple can't get a handle on the battery drain issue, I'll have to find an alternative (as anyone in my position would have to do). Is it what I want to do? No. May I have to? Yes.

If youll look at the linked post, youll see that Im not the only one having issues. Will this be as widespread as iOS 5.0 was? Only time will tell. Simply bashing someone because they "are new" isnt solving any issue. I have an issue with 5.1.1. You may not. Consider yourself lucky.

That looks about what you should expect for the usage shown.

That looks about right for a little over an hour of usage. Was it all 3G, or were you connected to WiFi? What were you doing with the phone during those 3 hours 4 minutes? Games? Internet? Email?

All 3G with no WiFi connections. No calls, a few emails and text messages (I had posted those stats earlier).

Well, you have one or more background apps running when the phone is asleep if you weren't using it for 1 hour 8 minutes.

I want to say there wasn't anything running in the background with the exception of maybe Messages and email. I made sure I closed everything out. I've never gotten great battery life but it got worse after 5.1 despite trying all the various and assorted fixes. I'm going to hit the Apple store this week and see what (if anything) they say but like I mentioned, I've never seen 13 hours of standby on my phone.

Since upgrading from 5.1 to 5.1.1 on my iPhone 4 my battery has gone from at least 1 day of usage between charges to draining in about 4 hours. My phone is now pretty much useless!

Also noted from flat as soon as I plugged my phone in the charger it immediately jumped to 24% charge in about 1 minute.

Despite what anyone says in 5.1.1 Apple has changed something in the behaviour of the phone that causes an issue with the battery (well in my phone anyway).

jtb1965 wrote:

Despite what anyone says in 5.1.1 Apple has changed something in the behaviour of the phone that causes an issue with the battery (well in my phone anyway).

Have you tried restoring your iPhone?

Have you checked for a runaway app?

well, personally this is my first iPad ever. I've had it for a month. it's an iPad 3. Wifi version. awesome device, but after installing this update I have definitely noticed decreased battery performance. it's been charging at work all day. It was charged to 100% when I left, I live only 10 minutes away from work and since I've gotten home I've sent two emails, checked a basketball score, and it's already down to 95%. the only programs that are open are Safari, mail, and notes. the same actions before this update and I would've still been at 100%.

kotoriwam wrote:

well, personally this is my first iPad ever. I've had it for a month. it's an iPad 3. Wifi version. awesome device, but after installing this update I have definitely noticed decreased battery performance. it's been charging at work all day. It was charged to 100% when I left, I live only 10 minutes away from work and since I've gotten home I've sent two emails, checked a basketball score, and it's already down to 95%. the only programs that are open are Safari, mail, and notes. the same actions before this update and I would've still been at 100%.

I have an iPad2. I updated to iOS 5 when it first came out and never experienced the battery drain issue with it. It has performed flawlessly...if I dont use it, the battery never seems to drain. When I do use it, it does go down, but not very quickly unless I am playing a graphic intensive game. I never updated to 5.1 (and subsequently 5.1.1) for fear that the battery drain issue would take hold of it like it did my iPhone4. I will leave several apps running in the background with it for days at a time (WeatherBug, IMDB, etc.), simply because I'll set it down with the intent of coming back to look at the app and not.

My iPhone is acting just like your iPad. When I took it off the charger this morning, no apps were running, I was at 100%. I received a text message and that resulted in a back and forth conversation. Within just a few minutes (maybe 15-20) of being off the charger, the battery had went down to 95%. I lost 5% battery before I ever left my house....something happened in this update and I hope more people come forward. Before iOS 5, I could text message as much to my heart's content and lose very little battery life (not using anything but messages). That's not the case now.

M4Specter wrote:

For me, going to 5.1.1 made my battery worse. When I had 5.1, I could use my phone (iPhone 4) heavily during the day (voice, text, safari, apps, etc) and finish the day with 50-60% battery. I updated to 5.1.1 yesterday and can watch the drain happen.

For instance, this morning I took my phone off the charger (100%). After an hour off the charger with very light safari usage (over wifi) and a text conversation, my battery had depleted to 92%. It has been off the charger for 2.5hrs and I am currently at 80%. So I'm losing battery at a rate of roughly 10% per hour. I'm planning to restore back to 5.1 when I get home this evening, I'll never survive a workday at this pace. I haven't used voice yet, which I did yesterday. I lost 10% battery during a 10-15 min conversation.

So, mathematically, if the drain continues and I use voice for a 20 min conversation, my battery will be completely dead in an 8 hr day. Makes doing business hard. So, if apple doesn't solve the mysterious ghost drain by the time my upgrade comes around, I'm going Android. I've had enough of this. My iPad works great, but the iPhone hemorrhages battery life ever since iOS 5. 5.1 slowed it down some, but 5.1.1 opened the floodgates again in my case.

Have you even bothered to look at the specs on the battery? What you are describing is actually better than what apple says the battery will do.

• Built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery
• Charging via USB to computer system or power adapter
• Talk time: Up to 8 hours on 3G, up to 14 hours on 2G (GSM)
• Standby time: Up to 200 hours
• Internet use: Up to 6 hours on 3G, up to 9 hours on Wi-Fi
• Video playback: Up to 10 hours
• Audio playback: Up to 40 hours

This is straight off the specs page. These are best case numbers and when only using one mode and also if you are using several different modes then the phone will use more power. The key word is up to and if you are getting 8 hours of use then you are actually exceeding the specs in this case.

I just wish we could get one update where we don't have a bunch of complainers thinking they have a battery issue when they really don't.

Hey I'm having the same problem in my 4s I'm using Digi in Malaysia, when I'm Not using and I charged fully 100% then I slept at 1.30am and wake up in morning 7.30am I found that it become 45% battery life! This problem didn't happen before I updated to ios 5.1.1 oh gosh is there any apple personal can explain this please!??

I'm always a bit skeptical, but I guess that's just me. With regards to the 13 hours of standby that's how long it's been off the charger for in total. I do remember I had to wipe my phone and start fresh at one point when my usage and standby were almost the same and my battery drained by 2pm in the afternoon. It ended up being an app (Think it was a Mahjong app that didn't want to quit running even after manually closing all apps). So, I went through the process of a factory reset and put one app on at a time (Didn't load old data since I was trouble shooting which app was the culprit). Once my standby was dwarfing my usage I was back to my typical 6-7 hours usage time. I don't run things like Facebook, Twitter, etc and keep it to music, work & personal email, couple of inline time killing game apps, and internet.

So my standby time usually ranges between 40-60 hours (I know it's a large gap) depending on what I'm using the phone for. This morning it was just checking email and a little web surfing, so less than 30 minutes usage since 5am this morning. Settings like 'Set Time Automatically', 'Push" email, etc eat the batter up pretty quickly. So, I set my own time and 'push' to 'fetch' (Work) & "manual' (personal) so that it's not producing a constant pull on the batter. Also, if you've never completely drained your iPhone since you got it then it would be a good idea to do this as well as it sets the system parameters of knowing when it's empty and full and will give you a better read.

KC7GNM wrote:

Have you even bothered to look at the specs on the battery? What you are describing is actually better than what apple says the battery will do.

• Built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery
• Charging via USB to computer system or power adapter
• Talk time: Up to 8 hours on 3G, up to 14 hours on 2G (GSM)
• Standby time: Up to 200 hours
• Internet use: Up to 6 hours on 3G, up to 9 hours on Wi-Fi
• Video playback: Up to 10 hours
• Audio playback: Up to 40 hours

This is straight off the specs page. These are best case numbers and when only using one mode and also if you are using several different modes then the phone will use more power. The key word is up to and if you are getting 8 hours of use then you are actually exceeding the specs in this case.

I just wish we could get one update where we don't have a bunch of complainers thinking they have a battery issue when they really don't.

While I understand what you're saying, I disagree. I dont think I am/was getting better than Apple's specs out of the battery. Here's why:

Talk time up to 8 hours on 3G....ok, so if I talk for ~15mins, I can lose up to 10% of my battery since the update. That means, at most, I can talk for 150mins with 100%. That equates to 2.5hrs talk time, not 8.

Internet usage up to 6hrs 3G/9wifi: since I updated, I lose up to 5% of my battery just replying to a post (such as this one). While I cant equate exactly how much time that is, to put it into perspective, that means I can post roughly 20 times here before my battery is depleted. I can gurantee you that is not 9hrs worth of useage. Its not even close to 6 hours and Im not on 3G most of the time, but wifi.

Standby time up to 200 hours: provided I am not receiving messages or anything else, last night when I was at home and didnt receive anything, I lost about 10% of my battery in about a 5 hour period. That equates to roughly a 50 hour standby time....a far cry from 200 hours. Once again, I was on wifi and not 3G.

People can say all day long that there are only a "few" of us complaining about battery drain when there is none. Those people are lucky they aren't in our shoes. I am about to leave for work. When I do, I am taking my phone off the charger, reseting the usage, and am going to use the phone like I normally would throughout the day to see what my numbers are vs. battery percentage. I know what my battery was before 5.1.1. I want to see what it will be since 5.1.1.

If its just my imagination, I'll post here that I stand corrected. I don't feel that is the case though and even if it were on par with Apple's specs (which it isnt), that doesnt explain why I was getting better than spec with 5.1 to only lose it and be brought into spec with 5.1.1, when it supposedly doesnt affect battery.