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 30, 2012 8:46 PM in response to Greg Bastug1

My wife, my friend and I all have factory unlocked Iphone4s's. We cannot go a full day on one charge. We've brought our phones into Apple and they ran their battery diagnostics on them. Since they couldn't find anything wrong with the batteries, they wouldn't do anything for us.


I found something that "works" but its not really a fix and is really really annoying. If I turn off 3g and cellular data, and then do a hard restart of the phone, we can go all day and only lose about 15% of battery life. Once I turn 3g or cellular data on, even with all apps closed, we'll lose 1% every 3-5 minutes on standby. So, if i'm out and want to use data, I have to go into settings, turn on 3g and cellular data. Do the thing I wanted to do. Then, go back into settings, turn off 3g and cellular and then do a hard restart.. I am thinking it has something to do with the factory unlocked iphones, as my friends who have carrier locked phones don't seem to have any battery issues.

Sep 30, 2012 9:13 PM in response to Resterix

My iPhone 4S is locked and I have the battery issue, so it's not related to both locked and unlocked. However, I might try turning off cellular data while I'm at work tomorrow to see if I find any difference in battery life. Since I've worked every day since the update was released, I will be using it under that same daily pattern of use since upgrading to iOS 6. I'll post the results.

Mar 3, 2013 7:42 AM in response to Greg Bastug1

This seems to be a major problem for all IPhone 4 users, apple will definitely repair this in the next update. For know you can:


Adjust brightness: Dimming the screen is another way to extend battery life. Go to Settings > Brightness & Wallpaper and drag the slider to the left to lower the default screen brightness. In addition, turning on Auto-Brightness allows the screen to adjust its brightness based on current lighting conditions. Go to Settings > Brightness & Wallpaper and set Auto-Brightness to On.


Turn off push mail: If you have a push mail account such as Yahoo! or Microsoft Exchange, turn off push when you don't need it. Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Fetch New Data and set Push to Off. Messages sent to your push e-mail accounts will now be received on your phone based on the global Fetch setting rather than as they arrive.


new data less frequently: Applications such as Mail can be set to fetch data wirelessly at specific intervals. The more frequently e-mail or other data is fetched, the quicker your battery may drain. To fetch new data manually, from the Home screen choose Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Fetch New Data and tap Manually. To increase the fetch interval, go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Fetch New Data and tap Hourly. Note that this is a global setting and applies to all applications that do not support push services.


Turn off push notifications: Some applications from the App Store use the Apple Push Notification service to alert you of new data. Applications that extensively rely on push notifications (such as instant messaging applications) may impact battery life. To disable push notifications, go to Settings > Notifications and disable notifications for select applications. Note that this does not prevent new data from being received when the application is opened. Also, the Notifications setting will not be visible if you do not have any applications installed that support push notifications.

Minimize use of location services: Applications that actively use location services such as Maps may reduce battery life. To disable location services, go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services or use location services only when needed.


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Oct 1, 2012 4:07 AM in response to Daii

***FACEBOOK***


I have been trouble shooting and trying everything to stop this issue on my 4s. Read another post about the new Facebook app so I deleted it and did a reset.


Taa-Daah... My drain immediately stopped. I know everyone is finding some success doing different things but this was clearly "part" of the problem on my phone. Once again I deleted Facebook and then a hard reset.


Lets go Apple... Get this fixed please.

Oct 1, 2012 5:16 AM in response to Resterix

Maybe. I would try to direct the Apple Store rep to this forum so they can see it's not a "one-off" issue and possibly collaborate with Apple's efforts to diagnose and fix. It really sounds like the rep didn't know your issue might be part of the larger problem many of us experienced updating to iOS6 that seems to have had nothing to do with our batteries, but seems to be a software cause that gobbles up battery.

Mine appears "fixed" for now. What I did was reset my network settings, losing WiFi passwords but that wasn't an issue, doing a one-time closing of all background apps, and rebooting phone and router, though WiFi was fine.

It was much better after that, but not great, so I deleted iCloud from the phone and re-enabled it activating only "find my phone" and "notes", two critical things for me. I also left iTunes Match and iTunes Cellular Data on, since I use them both. My phone's not "crippled" but I definately went and leaned it as much as still meets my needs and my power seems a little better than before the update at times. I noticed the battery usage spike when I first re-synched my bookmarks and cleaned them up on computer and phone, and it seems to spike once in a while dropping faster than usual, but for the most part and in standby it's pretty good now.

It seems like Apple may have increased what some background apps can do, which is a little unfortunate unless we can now track usage by app and get rid of anything that uses up more battery or data than we'd like. I really liked the old control of background apps better if that turns out to be the case, but would be OK if we could better track and control the offenders. In particular I don't want facebook doing anything to my phone when I'm not using it.

Oct 1, 2012 6:07 AM in response to Greg Bastug1

I'm using an iPhone 4S and with iOS5 I had to recharge it every 2 days.

Since iOS 6 I need several recharge a day and my wifi is not working anymore (Greyed out - that's another problem). My solution : Deactivate "cellular data" and deactivate 3G. I removed GPS too and SIRI and all options are deactivated. Notifications are turned off. Now it's better but my phone is as usefull as a Nokia from the 90's.

Oct 1, 2012 6:28 AM in response to netsoup

I have been to the Apple store twice, one genius thought it was a software issuea and the other said it was only a coincidance that I was having problems after upgrading to ios6. Nevertheless my phone has been set up twice as a new phone (via DFU when I was at the Apple store), and set up twice as a new phone from iTunes, all to no evail. I have run 3 battery cycles and turned off/on all types of apps (Apple and non-Apple). Battery and heat issues still exist.


Fast forward to last evening, recieved a call from an Apple tech who monitors the boards and he had me install a battery profile on my phone - he admittted that this was a software issue and was also not surprised a genius immediately defaulted to it being a hardware issue. Tonight I will speak to him again and send the file the profile is creating.


Hopefully, this gets resolved quickly.

Oct 1, 2012 6:38 AM in response to Greg Bastug1

My ATT 4S has shown two battery problems since I installed iOS6. The first was a heat issue. It wouldn't happen every time, but often after recharging, the phone and wall plug would be hot. I've had an iPhone since the original and have never had this problem. Second, not holding a charge. This is so strange as many of you have already described. Not only does the battery deplete faster, but sometimes it seems to "rapid" deplete. This also doesn't happen every time. For example, I was home all day yesterday and my battery worked normally. Then, last evening it started draining almost 1% every minute or two. I read an article earlier in the day that recommeded Reset All Settings and force quitting all active background apps. I did that late last evening and still had the problem. I turned off Siri. Still draining. At bedtime I turned the phone off while recharging. This morning the battey seems to be normal again. Like one earlier post said, I'm glad to find I'm not alone with this problem. Thanks to all who have shared your problem and ideas. Now we wait for the software fix. First we had the map problem and now we have "batterygate."

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iOS 6 iPhone 4s battery drain

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