Q: iOS 6 iPhone 4s battery drain

So I thought 6.0.1 update helped as I was getting about 7 hours of usage time. But with each charge cycle, it's getting worse and worse. It's almost back to 3-4 hours of usage time. Hopefully they fix the battery drain problem.

i tried that.. it seems to only partially help the problem.. ie now when the phone's idle, the battery drain doesnt seem as bad. but when you're using the phone.. it's the same as before...

I tried restoring my phone from backup and the battery life problem did not go away. Today I restored as a new phone and battery life is back to normal. I think an app was constantly running a process in the background. Not sure which one but I have been carefully reinstalling apps one at a time. So far, so good. iOS 6.0.1 doesn't seem to be the problem after all.

Went to the Apple Store - hoping they could help restore to older operating system (my battery life is now on life support after 3 hrs.).  Person insisted on "seeing" my phone - then asked how old it was.  When I replied one year, his comment was "we need to talk".  No we don't!  I am over Apple, and when it is time to upgrade, I will be going somewhere else.  After one year, and the upgrade, my phone is basically tethered to the wall. 

You are leaving Apple because you didn't want to talk to someone or let them see your phone? See ya!

At this point I don't blame him. Finally, I gave in and eventually made an appointment at the Genius Bar. So, I got in today and as I'm writing this I am just now leaving the store. First off let me just say the "genius" that I got did not seem like he wanted to help me at all. He must've thought I was a ******* and didn't know what I was doing with the phone as he suggested to me to do all the things I had already done (and explained that to him; hard reset, reset all settings, push email, discharge and fully recharge, restore, restore as new phone, all that stuff). He never once axtually could answer my question of why my usage and battery were almost identical in stats. That's the main reason I went; my drain is pretty bad and my usage and standby times are practically identical. Anyways, he then took a look at my phone and said I had water damage on the 30-pin connector. That was a shock to me. He tried then to tell me that i probably have more battery than i think i do as "most people freak out when they see 30% battery on their phone." I then asked him what he could actually do to help me, the only thing he said was a DFU restore. I said okay, fine. He took my phone, went in the back, and 12 min later came back and told me that it should work. He then told me that their was water damage I would have to pay $200 for the exact same phone if I wanted to replace my current one. I was honestly livid when I heard that. He then had the balls to say that since he had done the restore the phone had not dropped any percentage so it couldn't be that bad of a drain problem in the first place. So I then took my phone and walked out, as I was done with the "help" I got. My phone was at 74% approx. 26 min ago, now it's at 63%. Give me a break. Screw this apple. I'm selling my phone and buying an SIII like the rest of my family just did.

Yeah, I went to Apple Store India. I think, everyone is aware of the problem, but no one is willing to help . If the battery drainage was not enough, I can no longer sync my phone with iTunes. Got my phone checked, there is no hardware/software issue. I am very disappointed with Apple.

I hadn't been having battery issues until I updated to 6.0.1 the other day. I hardly ever get below 50% charge, but ever since I updated, I've been down below 10% every day. My usage since updating has been the same as usual, if not less than usual! I was checking it once an hour while watching tv tonight, only using the phone to check the battery, and it would drain 5-10% per hour... Without using it!

I wasn't really having any trouble with version 6.0, though!

Man, I know the feeling. The genius who "helped" me basically told me that the reason my phone was draining and the reason that it is in constant use all the time (i.e. Usage: 8 hrs 50 min Standby: 9 hrs 7 min) is because I, apparently, caused water damage to my phone; yet with 5.1.1 I never had any problems. I tried to explain that but he insisted he was right. So fed up with this.

i updated my iphone 4s from ios 5.1.1 to 6.0.1 hoping that my battery prob will be fixed. during the installation an error msg flashed and said that the phone will restore to settings or whatever. after a few moments of clicking several OKs, the new IOS was installed. but all my apps are gone except for the pre-installed apps. and so are all my 1,200+ music gone. it's a good thing my contacts and messeges are still there.

I think (hopefully) that my battery drain problem is fixed. I used to have 40% batt @ 10 hrs standby (5.1.1) to 80% batt @ 11 hrs standby (6.0.1). this is the best battery I have so far since updating to ios 6.0.1 last nov 3. (or maybe this is because of the deleted apps).

This morning I unplugged my phone from a full charge at 8:00am, and barely touched the thing since I'm ill in bed. It's now 12:55pm at the battery has completely drained - all I did was make one phonecall and browse a couple of website in Chrome.

Not sure if this is ois 6.0.1 specific or just the crappy batteries used in 4S, but seriously unimpressed Apple! This is shocking.

I charged my battery and now I am at - see picture

Hi Friend,

Try: Settings >> General >> Reset >> Reset All Settings. I had an overheating, battery-draining iPhone 5 yesterday, and the reset seems to have fixed that. Battery life was reasonable today, and the back of the phone was no longer hot.

A restore would probably also work, but a reset takes much less time

Hope it will be helpful

I had this problem and tried all of the solutions, ie deleting caches, resetting settings, turning off location services etc.  I found a thread that suggested it may be an iCloud issue. I went to settings, deleted iCloud account and then left it for a few hours. Bingo battery back to normal.  I re signed in to iCloud....4 hours later still ok.  Please give this a go!

My 4s will do fine with battery usage until it gets down to 60-70% remaining, and then it's a crapshoot as to how long it lasts before shutting down.  The phone shuts off and won't restart until it's been on a charger for a few minutes.

I don't think I've ever seen the indicator showing 50% or less.