iOS 6 iPhone 4s battery drain

tungsten2k - I don't get your sarcasm. I never asked for a new phone or an upgrade. I asked for a fix or a downgrade. Is that really alot to ask for? My point is there is an issue with extreme battery drain. I see no comments from Apple about how to correct this. The Apple Store has told more than one person that the solution is to buy a new phone. Many of us just want to roll the OS back, something Apple doesn't seem to want us to be able to do easily.

"I see a lot of complaining, but not much else." People are frustrated and we are not getting a solution to the issue that works. I have been told by Techs at Apple that something is wrong but they have not offered a solution.

I have done everything Apple has said as well as the fixes in this forum. My battery was fine before the upgrade, so why would I need to swap out my battery due to a software upgrade?

Hopefully there will be another release. Until then we disable as much of the phone as we can and use it as a basic phone, which makes paying for a data plan a bit of a waste.

Alright. I just find it ironic that I experienced the exact same symptoms as everyone else seems to have, and a full charge/discharge cycle followed by 3 days of normal use (draining all day unlit charging at home in evening) resolved the completely incorrect battery guage readings I was getting.

6.1.2 has barely been out long enough to even perform such a process, so it's hard to believe those immediately comiń back crying "foul" have done due diligence.

I apologize TimK1964, the sarcasm about giving people a new phone was in response to Lassiter(or something) a post above yours.

Regarding everyone's batt problems, other than those that have stated they will not perform battery calibration, who here has done it fully then used the device for at least a few days normally after that, and still have abysmal battery ? (Remember God knows if you're lying ;)

Sorry, wrong answer

wife has a 4s with 6.0.1 - ZERO problems - lasts 2-3 days....we use calendar sync in icloud for our families' activities. she has no problems

I have a 4s running 6.1.2 - had problems since 6.1 - did the DFU reset (new phone) a couple of times, no dice.

phone barely goes 8 hours with absolutely minimal use....

this is a COMPLETE SCREW UP ON APPLE'S PART!!!!!

FIX IT APPLE!

So are we all here to believe that you cannot let your device die then plug in while you are sleeping and allow it to charge back up? Come on. You do realize the device will fully charge in like 3 hrs AND after maybe 3 minutes of plugging it back in it comes back on and can be used while plugged in if there is a crisis that cant wait. I would say if your having a phone is that critical you should have a landline as backup or maybe 2 different phones. Just sayin.

DemonioAzul66 wrote:

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...

No problem tungsten2k, thank you. I also appreciate all the information you provided, things I wasn't able to dig up.

Lots of frustration going on with all of us dealing with this. I for one have been very diligent with following the suggested fixes. I have let the battery drain to the point it is ded before charging it. I don't make it through a day. My phone is at 35% and it was taken off the charger around 9:30 am. If I use the phone I could use that 30% pretty quick.

One thing I have wondered about. Would popping the battery out reset anything?

Part of the frustration for me is The Apple Store tested my battery and said it was perfectly fine.

The only thing I have noticed since letting the phone drain before charging is when left idle, it seems to sit at 100% for a longer time. Once it starts dropping, it starts dropping very fast.

A few of us at work have actually started to document how fast our charge drops as a 'race' to see who wins just to try to laugh about it. Very frustrating.

I will try this and see what happens.

I think one major point you are missing here is that iOS in and of itself is not the culprit. Apple can release 10 more versions and if your underlying cause is a corrupt installation or setting or app its not going to be fixed. Sometimes a restore and hardware calibration is needed to resolve certain issues. In essence if your Windows PC were having major problems you would assume that Windows itself is broken and one of the patch Tuesday update would resolve it? And that reinstalling Windows would not be an option so you would just wait for Microsoft to issue some fix. Sorry but thats not the way it works. I dont mean to be snoddy about it but come on surely you dont believe that your particular issue will just fix itself by some update and you dont have to do anything to address it. I guess look at it this way. if iOS itself was bad and totally the cause of the issues in this forum wouldnt you think that ALL iPhone and iPad users in the world would have the same issues? I mean we all use the exact same IOS so if IOS itself were 'broken' then no one would have working devices correct?

Sorry if this offends you as I dont mean to but its crazy how many posts there are of folks who have a particular issue (Battery life) with iOS x then x.1, x.2 , x.3, x.4 and on down the line and they report its still not fixed. Granted there are some bugs in each release maybe with some hooky option here and there but perhaps the problem is with their device or an app and not the OS itself.

DemonioAzul66 wrote:

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!

I agree my point exactly. If iOS version x was totally at fault then users such as yourself could not solve it by running that process. And other users could not solve it with a restore (getting the same IOS version x again). Still others that never had issues couldnt be working. Now of course there was a particular exchange issue that seemingly would only effect users who use exchange. That happens. I understand and in that case iOS was broken. But I have read countless posts here from users who say they dont use exchange so the exchange bug would not have effected them. So there must be some other issue in their particular environment causing the problem.

hey I know for fact that it works. The reset all settings and battery calibration has worked for countless individules in past iOS versions up to the current. I have experienced one myself probably once in some update. It apprears that its typically an issue with OTA updating that requires the reset deal. Battery calibration is needed once in a while anyway. Apple even states to run it down once a month for optimal battery maintenence and life.

tungsten2k wrote:

Regarding everyone's batt problems, other than those that have stated they will not perform battery calibration, who here has done it fully then used the device for at least a few days normally after that, and still have abysmal battery ? (Remember God knows if you're lying 😉

Curious have you tried it in its native state, out of the box so to speak? That would tell you if there is a device issue or battery or perhaps an app running roque. If it works that way then you can assume that some app you have may be the culprit. May be worth looking into from that angle.

Rory wrote:

Sorry, wrong answer

wife has a 4s with 6.0.1 - ZERO problems - lasts 2-3 days....we use calendar sync in icloud for our families' activities. she has no problems

I have a 4s running 6.1.2 - had problems since 6.1 - did the DFU reset (new phone) a couple of times, no dice.

phone barely goes 8 hours with absolutely minimal use....

this is a COMPLETE SCREW UP ON APPLE'S PART!!!!!

FIX IT APPLE!

Ok, so I've read so many of these posts in the last few days my head is spinning and I have no idea which was is up and what we are supposed to do to try to fix it. There have been so many recommendations, I can't keep them all straight. I confused by the whole reset, reboot, etc, etc. Also, I don't completely understand the whole 1000 charge cycle thing. Is the reset and the charge cycle related? not related?

I rely on my phone for work...I am a health care provider and I do home health...so having a working phone is essential for my job, not just for safety, but to communicate with my office, doctors, colleagues, to schedule my patients, etc. So, it is rather inconvenient to let the battery drain down. I'm not in the car long enough between patients to let it charge to where I can use it again.

OK, so sbailey, I've read all of these posts and you seem to know what you are talking about. Can you remind me (and maybe others) what the steps are again. I have done the back up to icloud and to my computer (though it was a few days ago, so maybe I'll do it again). What's the next step? I'm not technicalogically challenged....just confused and short on free time. 😁

Thanks for your help and your patience!

That's what the DFU reset does - loads new firmware, then the IOS... When you set it up as a 'new phone' - then instead of 'restoring' from a backup - you basically install apps again, songs, photos, etc....

I've done the DFU thing twice to no avail.

Charged my phone overnight - unplugged this morning at 7:30 am - it is now 2:50 pm here - I have 32% left - battery watch app says 3 hours left on battery......

Before 6.1.1 and 6.1.2 I'd get 2-3 days....

This also with the phone barely used at all....

oy..

Tungsten,

Your problem might simply not be yours. 5.x was working, end of story. I am an engineer as well, did the full tests, fresh reinstall from scratch, recalibrating, etc. it simply doesn't fix it. The exchange bug wasn't my problem, was there earlier, 3G is the issue for me. This is purely a bug, get over it.

Yes, I know. Same thing every update. You can lead the horses to water, but you can't make them drink.