iOS 6 iPhone 4s battery drain

Did an OTA update to iOS 6, and my iPhone 4s is draining quite quickly almost a percent every three minutes


Only apps running are Settings, Messages, Phone, and Mail, and Location Servces are on for Google, Maps, Nearby, Reminders, Safari, Siri, weather, and YP Mobile (sames as before the iOS 6 update) All apps are up to date, and restarted the phone twice. On local WiFi, with AT&T cellular service, four bars.


Phone would get warm at times as well.


Maybe it's an anomaly, else, lets see if this post grows...

Posted on Sep 19, 2012 12:39 PM

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2,468 replies

Sep 25, 2012 1:44 AM in response to Greg Bastug1

I Did an OTA update to iOS 6, and my iPhone 4s is draining quite quickly almost a percent every three minutes just like the original poster!!


I have set up the Phone as a new phone from itunes - still draining.


I have reset the phone - STILL DRAINING.


Since my last full charge/standby is 1hr 55 Mins and I am already down to 50% battery and the phone has been in standby mode for most of this time!!


This is really unacceptable and not what I have come to expect from apple products. The main reason fro converting all my Windows PC to Macs and Ipads was for the robustness of the operating system, this just now seems to have gone the way Windows OS was 10 years ago. Keep moving forward Apple and stuff the share holders, without your loyal customers your shareholders will have nothing!


I have downloaded an app called CARAT to monitor os and battery usage might be worth trying and reporting back the results to apple....but in the meantime I NEED MY PHONE and want to downgrade back to 5.1.1 does anyone know how to do this??? please... 😟

Sep 25, 2012 5:13 AM in response to Greg Bastug1

Dealing with the same issues on my ipad2 overnight after being encouraged by online Tech support to upgrade to the crappy buggy ios 6. The reason I upgraded was because I had hoped it would solve the issue I was having with being knocked off Safari several,times a day...

Overnight I charged the ipad to 100 percent and within no time it had drained nearly completely.


I did the suggested fix by going into the settings locations and disabling everything...but why should I have to?

I plan to report on the battery life after I see if this resolved things until Apple creates a universal fix.


Poor Steve J is not resting in peace knowing his company is failing to put out new software that actually improves upon the last as opposed to rendering devices barely usable...


I'm peeved, to say the very least, as this is my second ipad, having had to replace the first lemon, and this one never worked great either.

Sep 25, 2012 5:26 AM in response to theWiseOwl

How come if this is called "Apple support forum" no one from Apple is supporting us?, this issue they would have known about.

I say blame everyone who line up to pay $700 for a phone, as long as people let their ego's run their lives Apple can do as they please. If this was a Microsoft product the masses would rebel. I didn't and will never pay more than $100 for an IPhone and after this being the second time I have been strung out by Apple in the year I have owned this phone it looks like an Android will be my next one.

Sep 25, 2012 5:28 AM in response to Greg Bastug1

Hi guys


I've now done a full restore of my iPhone 4S (while in DFU mode) and once the phone started up again I setup the phone as a new one (through the phone) and then restored from backup in the initial setup on iTunes. Once everything was restored I still noticed abit drain however it had improved from before.


However, one thing I did notice is that when Siri is activated the voice on Siri is very muffled and bad quality as it was the before restoring. In order to fix this what I did was turned Siri off in settings, rebooted the phone by holding the power and home button together. Once it came back on I tested out the voice control feature (without Siri) and found that the voice control's voice was clear like back in iOS 5. After that I synced my phone with iTunes and once complete I turned Siri back on and synced my phone again. Now when I use Siri the voice is clear like how it was in iOS 5. But what's more surprising is that my battery is lasting ALOT longer than it was before now that Siri is sorted out.


I got some advice from this discussion thread:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4310438?start=30&tstart=0


Perhaps Siri is the culprit for the battery drain on some devices like my own?

Sep 25, 2012 6:27 AM in response to Greg Bastug1

It's whether for you guys to believe this or not, your choice.

Well i have to say, iOS 6 improved my iPhone 4s's battery life. BUT NOT FOR LONG.

I've been reading most of the threads regarding about the battery life, as usual, setting the smartphone to becoming a really 'SMARTPHONE' by disabling most of the settings just to prolong the battery life.

So about believing or not believing, I've stopped charging my iPhone via charger included in the iPhone box. Because of the speed charge, it doesn't really give an accurate calibration for the battery IMO. As a result the battery drains really fast. I am now using to charge my iPhone via USB connected to my PC. Though it gives a relatively slow charge, but the life of the battery is much better.

Not to mention, I've restored the phone to factory settings for a number of times as iOS 6 isn't really impressive. Lots of bugs/errors to it.

User uploaded file

It might not* be outstanding to some of you guys, but I'm quite happy with it now.

For the past one hour, I've been surfing safari to read blogs and being here in apple forum, Whatsapp and facebook. Pretty much that's about it for that current usage.

Sep 25, 2012 7:20 AM in response to Greg Bastug1

Having the same issues with battery drain and thinks its unacceptable that i have to sit there for two hours restoring factory settings, restarting as a new phone, rearranging all my info and contacts that have duplicated, downloading all album covers in itunes, etc etc etc

Other issues since i ‘upgraded’ to IOS6 are….
* facebook freezes
* slow browsing
* ‘unable to connect to app store’ every time i visit yet does in a roundabout fashion???


I have 12 of 4S models which i allocate to colleagues and thankfully i have only upgraded mine…


Totally agree with aforementioned comments about poor response to issues and suggested fix’s to turn off funtionality / programs that essentially were the rationale behind why most users purchased in the first place…grrrrrr. Its all about customer servicing, ADMIT theres a problem and find a solution rather than just hid behind the stacks of money you are making.

Sep 25, 2012 7:30 AM in response to Greg Bastug1

MAJOR battery drain here for my 4S after downloading iOS6. minimal website use and maybe a dozen texts (no pics) over a 9 hour period and my battery went from full charge to less than 40% capacity yesterday. I could literally watch the battery percentages dropping. Why does Apple do this every time with new upgrades?? and BTW...I WANT MY GOOGLE MAPS BACK!!! but thats another thread I'm sure! :-)

Sep 25, 2012 7:47 AM in response to Greg Bastug1

I had the same problem with my iPhone 4S battery draining rapidly after upgrading to iOS six. I ended up calling in to Apple support. They told me that I had too many background applications running. I had approximately 40 applications running in the background and I did not know that you can cancel background applications out. You can cancel background applications by holding down that application in the application switching section. I ended up canceling all 40 applications and my battery drainage stopped. It's likely that one of the applications was not appropriate for iOS six and was causing the battery drainage. Now my battery is lasting longer than it ever did.


My guess is that everyone backing up and reinstalling the system is just causing the background applications to be deleted and starting from the beginning. It seems that all that is likely a waste of time. Hope this helps and good luck to all.

Sep 25, 2012 7:55 AM in response to Greg Bastug1

I had same battery problem with my 4S after I updated it to iOS 6. There might be the problem for the indication of battery. it shows 100% battery life within one hour after you plug in to charge the iphone but the battery might be only 50% charged. I notice that I could fully charged the battery within a hour after downloading iOS 6. Normally, It took couple hours to have battery fully charged. I let battey drain to 10% and charged the battery overynight. It works like before now. The number of battery percentages might be wrong with iOS6. it makes you think the battery is fully charged but it doesn't. Charge the battery longer or plug in the power cable before you go the bed. Hopefully, it helps.

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iOS 6 iPhone 4s battery drain

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