Q: iOS 6 iPhone 4s battery drain

I've been having problems with my iPhone battery for over a year.  My previous phone was an iPhone 4 running IOS 5.1. I tried every single idea I ever read about in a community forum, in a website, and stuff that other people simply suggested. Turning off location services, turning off Bluetooth, disabling or killing every application I was not using. I kept notifications to a minimum. I reset the network settings on my phone, erased and reinstalled all my e-mail accounts, and just plain reset it dozens of times.

Recently in a forum I read about a person that found a corrupt file that kept Safari on iOS running a loop,and therefore maintaining the processor busy and supposedly consuming more battery.  He recommended not using Safari and using any other browser instead. However, this did not help my battery drainage problem. My phone was constantly hot. In order to help out a little I bought a Mophie battery case to help me get through the day with a powered phone. 

I roughly calculated my battery to drain 1% for every two minutes and 20 seconds. So in just under two hours my battery would drain 50% simply being in standby.

I upgraded my iPhone 4 to iOS 6 in hopes that it would resolve my battery problem. I saw no change. About three weeks ago I bought an iPhone 5 and again hoped that this new hardware would not have the same battery problems I've been facing for over a year.

My three kids and wife all have iPhone 4s yet I was the only one having the battery problem. So this past weekend I was thinking what is it that I have in my phone that my kids and wife don't. It suddenly occurred to me that I am using a mail account that connects to a Microsoft Exchange 2003 server. So initially I deleted the account altogether to see if there would be any improvement. 

I noticed very soon that my phone was getting cooler to the touch. And within half an hour I already knew that my battery was now draining at a normal rate. I tested further; I added the Exchange account again but this time I chose for the mail messages to be fetched rather then pushed to my iPhone. Again, I noticed that I was able to keep my mail account active and my battery was operating normally.

Finally, I configured the account once more for mail to be pushed. Within five minutes my phone got hot again and was once again draining my battery very quickly. So voilà! IFinally found the culprit of my predicament. It has to do with mailed being pushed to this account. I also have my iCloud mailbox active which is set to Push by default. It seems to have no problem with this.

I hope this helps people out there with the same problem. I would love to know if other people see the same results I saw.

This was my problem, too. Specifically, my iPhone 4S battery was draining with push enabled on an Exchange account and only when cellular data was also enabled. My phone was also hot to touch. On wifi only, I had no battery drain problems and the phone was cool.

Disabling push for my Exchange account fixed the issue. I still have push enabled for iCloud and Hotmail.

I don't know whether this was triggered by a server-side change or something else, but this issue started at approximately the same time on my new iPad and on my iPhone 4S, both of which had recently been upgraded to IOS 6. I have the same Exchange account on both and on both the issue only happened with cellular data enabled.

Eheheh, they do it on purpose... Why should you use anything from Microsoft on an Apple device?

The issue remains though, thankfully I haven't updated to IOS 6 yet.

Just an update: I tried everything (restoring from backup, restoring as new, OTA, through iTunes, with SIM, without SIM, with apps, without apps, airplane mode etc.) but nothing really helped, some actions just made the drainage slower.

Finally I went to the Apple Store and they replaced my phone (though - of course - claiming that there's nothing wrong with the battery and iOS6). Now I have 5.1.1 and all the problems are gone.

I'm amazed they gave you a phone with 5.1.1. I mean that's good, but I thought 6 was on everything now.

They did the same for me after 5 resets and trying EVERYTHING but I wasn't even getting half a day of battery life. My 4s was still in the warranty period though so not sure if that was a contributing factor.  The new phone came with IOS5.1.1 so I guess not all of the 4s phones are automatically on 6.  I also refused to restore anything except contacts from iCloud and setup the new 4s as a new phone and didn't update to IOS6. I'm now getting two days of good use. I haven't done anything about my iPad (also had updated to 6) but I don't use it as much and it's wifi only so I wasn't ready to grow myself off a cliff over that one.

Sure do miss some things about IOS6 tho like the Siri assisted maps and helpful functions for sending pics and VIP email was great. Hope they release a fix soon. I won't be upgrading till I see some solo feedback that the battery life issue is resolved.

I am on my second iPhone 5 and the battery life is atrocious.  It doesn't last a work day even when it's mostly just standby.  It's worse on 3G but not great with WiFi or no data at all.

jrnet154, I've had on average your usage time on at&t's network since I activated the phone in Q1.  After the update to iOS 6 and following several reccomendations, on average my battery goes for 5.5 hrs until powering off.  I feel jipped.

I've wondered that too. I found this post on how to fix iOS 6 and iPhone 5 battery issues if anyone wants to read it. On my iOS 6 iPhone 4S I was receiving major battery drainage until I started following these guidelines: http://detectapple.com/fix-ios-6-iphone-5-battery-issues/

Just another update to trying to figure out any way to slow the drain down so I can actually make it through a day with SOME usage of my phone. Gonna do a test tonight and see where we are at in the morning. Here is a screenshot of what my phone says has gone on since it was fully charged:

All I have done is listen to 25 min of a continuous podcast and sent 3 text messages in that time. Nothing else. But this still shows up. Anyways, I'm just going to let my phone sit overnight without charging and see how much it drops. Will post results in the morning at 6:30 am when I'm up.

Is apple doing anything to fix the battery drain problem?

Sure doesn't seem like it if they are they are not acnowledging it's even a problem publicly.

This is total crap. Ive had the 4s for 6 months and not a problem. Ive added NO APPS in the last 2 weeks, all of a sudden in the last 3 days, the battery is struggling to last anywhere near as long!!!!
I leave home of a morning (taking the phone off the charger), drive to work, which takes an hour, get to work and the batery level is at 76%!!!!! (yes sorry, maybe i shouldnt make that 5min business call).

Actually Apple, YOU should be dragged into court for suppling sub standard equipment (at top dollar prices)

Okay so here is my update from last night. In approx. 7 hr and 30 min of literally just sitting on my dresser with no apps running, my phone drained 20%. I still find that really fast and am still awestruck at how my phone shows it is constantly in use when I'm not even touching the thing. Anyone else getting something similar?

I have exactly the same problem caleb, couldn't fix it yet!