i just found a solution for my iphone 4s. i experienced significant battery drain after ugrading to ios6. i tracked cpu usage and tried a couple things, e.g., disable location services, push notification, icloud sync. i found the culprit is icloud's calendar sync (at least for my case). after i turned off calendar sync for icloud,  the cpu usage is signicant down, from about 50% to about 3% at standby. now it can sustain sever hours of standby for each % of battery. so it's perfect solution for me. and i switched to google calendar in place of icloud. wonder whether this will work for u guys.

this might help

Limit Tracking for Ads in iOS 6

Apple introduced some “features” in iOS 6 you won’t see advertised on apple.com. By default, your iPhone and iPad with iOS 6 use Location Services to show you location-based iAds and it uses a technology called IFA, which basically assigns a unique identifier to your device with which advertisers can track you. Sound like something you don’t want? No problem, just follow these steps to disable tracking for ads in iOS 6.

1. Go into Settings, then into Privacy.
2. Tap on Location Services.
3. Scroll all the way down and tap on System Services.
4. Set Location-Based iAds to Off
5. On the top level of Settings, tap on General.
6. Tap on About.
7. Near the bottom, tap on Advertising.
8. Set Limit Ad Tracking to On (yes: On).
9. Finally, go to http://oo.apple.com on your iDevice to opt out of Interest-Based iAds.

http://mandogmachine.com/2012/10/limit-tracking-for-ads-in-ios-6/

I have 2 iPhone 4s units. Both had normal battery life after upgrading to iOS 6 for a few weeks... until something happened a week ago. They both began draining a full charge in 6 hrs, even with no use.  We tried a lot of stuff, turning off icloud features, notifications, location services, etc. The ususal, with little improvement. The only thing that made a notable difference was turning off cellular data, which is, well, disempowering.

But, I have had a big success with this:  use iTunes to restore the phones to a clean iOS 6 install, not to the backed up copies. I am back to 24hr+ standby times, cool running iPhones, and basically normal behavior. If you are using iCloud services a lot of your data comes back, and iTunes even reloaded the apps... so a little less reconfiguring than I had expected. So, is kind of a hammer, but reimaging with a clean iOS 6 install (not OTA upgrade) has made a huge difference.

Definitely same occurrence here. After DFU reset then setup as a new phone, had a few days of good, then a few days of terrible battery drain; now, mysteriously, the phone has made it since 9am until midnight, using it all day, and still have 52% left!

I don't know; but assume this is due to updates to my most frequently use apps. And haven't seen the cell usage or hot phone!

Agree with enchantedloom. Cannot be any code isues, otherwise my phone would not be as well behaved as it is now. I've done many things to get to here. I'm now going to drop out as I cannot be specific and highlight one thing that works, other than - no push email, no exchange, no location services, no iCloud other than (docs and pics). I will keep looking at replys in this thread.

Hey guys

I wanted to post for the first time as this thread has helped me a lot over the past couple of days.

I had the same issues. After installing IOS 6 I could watch as the % bar on my battery drain down. I was only able to have 4 and a half hours of battery life in standby!

Having a look on this thread i tried the suggestion of looking to see if I had any pages open in Safari and I did... about 6. Which is unusual as i hardly use it as I prefer Google. I rememebered when I used Safari and it did coincide with when the problems began.

So i closed them all and deleted the browing history and then charged up my phone to full. I have now had it on (pretty much on standby) for 12 hours and the battery is STILL at 90%.

By the looks of things this isn't solving everyones problems but it definately worth a go as it seems to have sorted my battery problem!

Just to add I haven't turned off iCloud or Mail services or Location services either. I DID uninstall the free Sat Nav app from Apple but apart from that my phone is set up as "normal".

Many thanks to all who are posting solutions!

Just a lil question..

What is normal for the battery?

Lets say you are in safari browsing - 1% gone all 3-5 minutes - is this okay???

For me, when i take it from the computer it stays long on 100%, but then it goes away..

WLAN only, instagram, safari and twitter and it goes waay..

My 4S battery was draining very quickly.  I was at the end of my warranty period so I called Verizon and they referred me to Apple.  I spoke with the tech and he told me to do a restore from itunes.  I did a back up to computer and then a restore.  This brought my battery back to normal.  There are several battery life tips out there but this fixed my problem and I did not have to change the way I use my phone.  Other than entering a few passwords my phone was exactly the same and I did not loose anything.  The process took about 1 1/2 hours but I have 23.5 Gigs of stuff on my phone.

iphone4s

Battery

Built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery³

Talk Time  Up to 8 hours on 3G²

Standby Time Up to 200 hours³

Internet Use Up to 6 hours on 3G, up to 9 hours on Wi-Fi³

Video Playback Up to 10 hours³

Audio Playback Up to 40 hours³

So just an update to all:

I have has the drain on my 4S since day one of updating to the new iOS. Since then I've been following this thread as the problem seemed to grow and grow and apple said nothing of it. I have true everything, save getting a new handset, listed here and have reset phone 5 times, 3 as a new phone. Nothing helped. Push to fetch, turning everything off, barely did anything. I finally was contacted by apple and got my battery profile logged. Gave then back on Sunday. Since then, my battery has gotten somewhat better in standby mode or if all I'm doing is listening to music in a constant playback. The only thing that bugs me is my phone is saying its in constant use. 7 hrs 5 min usage, 7 hrs 8 min standby before writing this article. However, I also still get a HUGE drain when using safari (as I am now). Just in the 10 min I typed this and checked my email I've lost 7 % which isn't acceptable by any means. And my phone piping hot. Just thought I'd share some more info that I've noticed through my whole experience with this.

On a side note, I wish I knew how to post screenshots to make sure everyone knows I'm legit about the numbers I'm posting about.

FYI everyone: Apple is well aware of the battery issue and they appear to be working hard on the issue. After posting to this board an Apple tech contacted me to install a battery logger on my out of warranty iPhone 4. Upon receiving the log a few days later they asked me to send in my phone because they couldn't figure out why my phone was acting the way it did (same issue as everyone else on this board). In return for my help they sent me a new 4S running (luckily running 5.1.1

Keep hope alive!

Thank you for posting!  I went to the store last night and the first tech tried to make me feel as if I had done something wrong, or didn't know what I was talking about.  I've just turned the phone off when not in use, but I hate to have to do that -- but can't afford to be stranded if the battery drains and I don't have the use of the phone.   Coming from a Blackberry I can say that I am not impressed at all since every suggestion is to turn off every feature that then turns it into a pretty brick.

I hate to admit it, but I really am starting to hate the device all because of the battery life.

This make no sence. I doupt we are the only people in this forum having the stupid battery drain on ios 6. We are not dump, APPLE! There are thousands of Apple's employees. So non of them carrying Iphone with ios 6?.....Apple should come out with a statement regarding this issues. At least Steve Job did on the iOS 5 and he promised there will be a improvement and bugs fix on iOS 5.1

Like many posts, had the same problem with battery drain and phone getting hot.  Took the phone to the Apple Store and suggested a complete restore.  This seemed to work few a few days and then the problem came back. Based on suggestion from several of the posts, I turned off the email Push and went to Fetch for all my email accounts.  Also turned off Photo Stream.  I can now go a full day of work and still have plenty of battery to spare.  No more heat issues.

LISTEN UP ! THIS IS HOW YOU FIX THE PROBLEM!

CHARGE YOUR PHONE ALL THE WAY AND THEN TURN YOUR PHONE OFF WHILE STILL PLUGGED IN AND CHARGING.  LEAVE YOUR PHONE TURNED OFF FOR 15 minutes AND THEN TURN YOUR PHONE BACK ON AND THEN UNPLUG.  Before this my phone would get extremely hot when plugged in for only minutes and now the phone doesn't get hot anymore.  I've been using my phone non stop for 2 HOURS STRAIGHT AND HAVE A BATTERY LIFE OF 93% STILL. If you have any questions about this please contact me via r mail address medic24149@comcast.net

thanks,

Dave