iOS 6 iPhone 4s battery drain

iOS 6.1.2 is now out. Hopefully this will solve my issue. The file is 920.1 MB. 😮 I don't recommend OTA installs. (Over the Air)

wishful thinking, but it doesn't.

iOS 6 iPhone 4s battery drain

452788 Views 2,118 Replies Latest reply: Feb 20, 2013 6:30 PM

That says it all. 452,788 views...really Apple? How many people have to read this post before you get it?

I am an iPhone 4S user for a long time now. Sadly I see my run coming to an end. We say what we will about Microsoft and Google, but there's very little on the part of Apple that sets any particular example.

As a token of good faith Apple should offer every iPhone 4S user with a battery problem a 50% discount on iPhone 5. Alternatively, they should offer every iPhone 4S user an opportunity to upgrade their software back to iOS 5, yes, I said upgrade.

I am reminded once again how foolish it is to put my faith in a company which is so concerned with its own profitability that customer satisfaction should become completely obscured behind its own dollar signs.

While I appreciate the lonks, I should not have to jailbreak my phone in order to fix this issue. Most people will not be comfortable doing it, and it will only allow Apple the ability to point their finger and say we have caused the issue.

Bottom line is Apple needs to step up and fix this. Since the latest upgrade my battery is lasting even less. An idle phone should drain as fast as it is. God forbid I actually use it.

This is one Apple that seems to be rotten.

sqr25 wrote:

I called Apple support, (WHO WANTED TO CHARGE ME $35 EVEN THOUGH MY ORIGINAL WARRANTY IS GOOD UNTIL MARCH 10)

Most Apple products come with a one year warranty but only 90 days of complimentary phone support.

http://www.apple.com/support/complimentary/

DFU is not jailbreak. If you take a look its a method to reload the firmware in its basic level. Apple store would possibly do this when you take it into the store to fix it. It is sometimes needed to reload (DFU) or restore your device when there is an issue. Thats just the way it is and the reason Apple included a "restore" button in iTunes. If your device has corrupted iOS or app or settings Apple cannot "step up and fix it" without performing a restore and reloading the software at times. So either you can do it or take to Apple store and pay them to do it if you are not under warranty. Of course if you dont feel like you can follow the directions then the basic restore option in iTunes should be the option you take. But sometimes that is not enough for whatever reason. Again DFU is not considered a jailbreak as long as you restore the Apple provided iOS back. Just to be clear, I am not suggesting that you jailbreak your device nor would I recommend doing so for any reason.

TimK1964 wrote:

While I appreciate the lonks, I should not have to jailbreak my phone in order to fix this issue. Most people will not be comfortable doing it, and it will only allow Apple the ability to point their finger and say we have caused the issue.

Bottom line is Apple needs to step up and fix this. Since the latest upgrade my battery is lasting even less. An idle phone should drain as fast as it is. God forbid I actually use it.

This is one Apple that seems to be rotten.

DarrylR wrote:

Try replacing the battery to see if it is the OS.

You realize the battery is not user repalceable in an iOS device? Do you even own an iPhone?

TimK1964: Why stop there ? Why not just a free upgrade to a 5, plus trips to Disneyland, all around?

I see a lot of complaining, but not much else.

1st: there is a problem with 6.1.0/1 that causes unnecessary cellular radio usage (fixed by 6.1.2)

2nd: there is a bug causing constant network access when using a calendar account that connects to an Exchange 2010 Server (fixed in 6.1.2)

3rd: there's the fact that the 4S battery gauge training algorithm in the power manager chip (different than that of the 4 and 5) historically has proven to be "slower" (same experience when when iOS 5 came out http://osxdaily.com/2011/10/17/battery-life-iphone-4s-draining-fix-by-calibratin g/).

4th: many 4S batteries are likely pushing 100+ charge cycles (mine is at 217) which appers to drastically exacerbates the already "slower" battery gauge training algorithm (took over 3 battery cycles on mine to regain my normal gauge drain rate.

5th: because there are so many iPhone users, there will *ALWAYS* exist outliers who join any discussion (and likely dominate it) because they have a legitimate problem for whatever reason (there network settings are corrupted, there restore didn't work perfectly, they have a location-based app that didn't restore its settings correctly, or any host of other issues that could cause poor battery performance.)

The popularity of the iPhone is also its undoing, because if everyone simply did an in-place restore to the exact same iOS version they had been running for some time, there would exist enough "outliers" having standard restore issues, that it would fill a thread like this.

The fact remains that these phones are computers, and just like destip computers, upgrades from OS versions to versions sometimes bring underlying issues to light. There is simply too much complexity to account for every possible scenario, and the software is written by humans, who are not infallible.

If anyone believes they deserve an iPhone 5 upgrade discount, please leave the discussion now, as you are not being reasonable.

For anyone who truly wants to get to the bottoms of things, if all else fails, restore to baseline 6.1.2 without restoring from backup (set up as "new phone") then resync from there fresh (like re-installing Windows, sometimes there's just too much baggage in the underlying settings to determine what the root cause is when issues such as drastically low battery performance occurs after upgrade/restore.

Anecdotally, I suspect the slow-to-calibrate battery gauge algorithm combined with aging batteries is the prime culprit for anyone still having troubles with 6.1.2.

Again, good luck.

They should put an auto-disclaimer "Typed from my iPhone" for all text-entry when made on an iPhone, so spelling and grammar mistakes can be overlooked (my "their"s are converting to "there"s more often lately, surely due to my sloppy fast typing here while lying in bed :)

Although I secretly like judging those that attack others for such things on the Internet, since it keeps me from wasting my time helping them =)

You mean "it didn't for you". For tens of millions (yes, read that again, T E N S of M I L L I O N S) this was a real problem that drastically affected battery life.

I cannot afford to have a phone blackout letting the battery drain to 0%...

The reset did not help much either.

Right now, my iPhone 4S is connected permanently to the charger, it drains from 100% to 70% in an hour, idling, no use, no apps open, no apps in the background. This is an "improvement" after the reset, because before it the rate was from 100% to 20-30% in an hour.

The recommendations from ARWillett are good to save battery if you have them ON, but what if you have them OFF already? Besides, before iOS 6.1.2 I had everything working perfectly and had standard battery life according to use.

I get the point that sometimes updates mess with some settings/apps/features (that happens everywhere, in every engineered device/product/system), I know how it is for software developers, but if there are so many people complaining, my only hope is that Apple is already working on it...

"I cannot afford to have a phone blackout letting the battery drain to 0%..."

Then the problem is yours, and not with Apple. You should consider getting a second phone for when you invariably loose yours, since it is so critical for you. I run a business from my phone so I understand the need to reduce potential communications blackout, which is why I have both an iPhone 4 as a backup, and a google voice number that I forward the phone to if I will be traveling with spotty coverage so that I can use other phones that I can gain access to.

Your stipulation that you cannot sustain any inconvenience whatsoever, including performing the calibration required by the manufacturer to see if your problem is resolved, paints you as unreasonable and not really interested in resolving the problem. If what you say is true, then you cannot travel by air at all due to communication blackout?

Again, this doesn't seem reasonable, especially given how easy it is to mitigate the potential "blackout" via several free and easy methods.

For me it did not help. My battery drain is even worse now with IOS 6.1.2.
From different dicussions, I get the picture that for some people it worked, maybe for many people it did work smoothly. But for around half a million people it did not work at all, on the contrary, it got worse.
If you like to gamble, try it, mathematically you'll be in the safe side... But if it messes up your iPhone, there is no easy way back...

Haha... I get your points, Tungsten2k. I am not unreasonable and definetely not against you or Apple. But I've been reading the discussions and since there is no Apple-generated solution yet for those of us who got it wrong with 6.1.2, getting down to partial or "maybe"-solutions is not the way to go... So I am being patient and will wait for Apple to come back with 6.1.3 or maybe 6.2... I am an Engineer, I do know about such updates and post-failure solutions. I have been in the other side as well, so I do know when to wait... Thanks for your comments!