Q: iOS 6 iPhone 4s battery drain

Same problem here. I tried turning off just about everything and my battery drained 1% every 5 mins. I went from charging once a day to 3 charges yesterday after ios 6 update. What i did was just downloaded 5.1.1 for my iPhone 4s and restored it. It worked this is very time sensitive before apple unsigns iOS 5.1.1. I'm so happy now I'm back on 5.1.1. iOS 6 is a fail. Apple needs to address this problem. Plus fix the maps big time. I do have iPhone 5 arriving today, I will have to see how battery life is on it. If it ok I will just get another map solution. But if not I will have to return it because of ios 6. And keep my 4s.

When I go Settings -> General -> About -> Diagnostics & Usage -> Diagnostics & Usage Data -> i have only two entries: FaceTime incident active end error (to paraphrase) and Messages incident error. No clue what either of those mean but both are from 2 am last night. But I have no entries for bookmarks. Should we consider no bookmark entries to be the normal state? I wish I could delete this two diagnostic error entries, if thats what they are.

Hi,

I was having the same problem as everybody else but after messing about with restore and settings for couple of days, i have managed to reduce the battery drain. I updated both iphone 4s and ipad 2 with ios 6 and since day one i had issues. My first issue was with wifi connectivity as it was dropping on both iphone 4s and ipad 2 and apple.com webpage appearing but manage to fix it by reset all settings (Under Settings>General>Reset).

The other issue was significant battery drain on both ipad 2 and iphone 4s, i tried reset, (Holding Home Button and Sleep until apple logo appears) but it didnt work.

However Lastnight i done a restore in itunes and done it as " set up as new iphone" and then restoring from backup after that. My battery wasn't draining as quickly as it was before, however it was still draining 8% to 10% in about an hour while on standby without me even using the phone (Compare to ios 5.1.1 which was much better). However i have changed some settings which has made some improvement on battery drain. Whether its combination of changes or just one change made a difference,  i am not sure;

>Reset all settings (Under Settings>General>Reset).

>General > About > Diagnostics & Usage > SET to Don't Send.

>Siri> Raise to Speak > Off.

>Cellular > Under Use Cellular Data for " All the options are OFF".

>Brightness > Set to Auto.

>Privacy > Location Services > System Services > Genius for Apps is OFF, Location based iAds is OFF, Setting Time Zone is OFF.

>iCloud > Passbook is OFF.

>Mail, Contact, Calendar> Fetch new data is OFF.

>Itune & Apps > Itune Match is OFF.

After making these changes last night and charging my phone to 100% this morning in 6 hours with light use and wifi on, bluetooth on, icloud, photostream on, cellular data on, i have lost 8% which is a significant improvement compare to what i was getting before. This might not be a fix for everybody but it worked for me. I do think there is a bug in ios 6 which is causing a significant battery drain as my battery life was fine with ios 5.1.1. Hope this helps!!!

Hi Az42,

i will try that and report in later.

Best, Daniel

Have the same issue. Right now dowgrading to 5.1.1. Hope, it will help.

Just a follow-up from last night:

- For Location Services, System Services -- I disabled ONLY "Time Zone".

- I performed a "Reset All Settings", which caused the phone to reboot.  The battery was at 100% at this point, and it was approximately 7:45 PM last night.

- I disabled NOTHING else... Full iCloud syncing, Find My Phone, Find My Friends, iTunes Match, Siri is on (although I always leave the option to 'Raise phone to activate Siri' turned off).  Everything is left ON.

I took the phone off of the charger at 8:15 PM last night, and left it off the charger.  At 7:00 AM this morning, my battery was still at 90%, so count me among those that the "Reset All Settings" worked for.

Note that doing a wipe and restoring from a backup won't do the same thing as this -- your backup restores your settings again!  There were a few things I had to reset manually again, but it wasn't that painful..  Wallpapers, ringtones, VPN connection, WiFi hotspots, and Bluetooth pairings.  But in the end, it resolved my issue.

Rick

I am obviously having the same issue, I actually had to turn my phone off yesterday to save battery life and when I turned it back on 2 hrs later I had lost 5% battery.

My 4S is hemorrhaging power, even while idle.

I've done all the typical stuff, like verifying all my settings with the usual culprits (Bluetooth, Wifi, etc).  I've done a reboot.  I'm in the process of fully draining the battery and doing a full recharge.

The only real difference I've found is that the App Store app is actively pinging for app updates.  Where I used to have to open the app and go to the Updates tab to see if there were any out there, I'll now see the badge has popped up at random times throughout the day.  If this isn't the direct cause, it's definitely a contributor.  But I can't figure out how to disable it from going out and polling on its own. Anyone know how?

Chris,

Have you performed a "Reset All Settings"?

Also, the App Store actively checked for updates when it wasn't open in iOS 5 as well.

Rick

Restore and use as new phone.. looks like quite ok now...

These seems to have done it for me so far, thanks for the help!

>Reset all settings (Under Settings>General>Reset).

>General > About > Diagnostics & Usage > SET to Don't Send.

>Siri> Raise to Speak > Off.

>Cellular > Under Use Cellular Data for " All the options are OFF".

>Brightness > Set to Auto.

>Privacy > Location Services > System Services > Genius for Apps is OFF, Location based iAds is OFF, Setting Time Zone is OFF.

>iCloud > Passbook is OFF.

>Mail, Contact, Calendar> Fetch new data is OFF.

>Itune & Apps > Itune Match is OFF.

Have you performed a "Reset All Settings"?

I have not.  I was really hoping I wouldn't have to.    If the full drain and recharge doesn't work, though, that's pretty much where I have to go next.

Also, the App Store actively checked for updates when it wasn't open in iOS 5 as well.

That wasn't my experience with it, but it's also possible (probable) that I was easier able to keep on top of app updates because they were fewer and far between as compared to in recent days with virtually every app updating for iOS 6 compatibility.

Thanks for the reply!

Be sure to share your feelings here, so it's "officially" a problem.  Remember the Jobs interview?  LOL

http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

Since I wanted my phone to perform just as it did when I was running 5.1.1, I chose not to "turn off" anything extra.  After all, why should I change the way I use my phone because they released a buggy iOS??

So, I first did the hard reset, which didnt work for me.  I than let my battery drain from 100% to shut off.  Then I charged to 100% (with the fully charged emblem in the battery, not just the "lightning bolt").  I havent used my phone that much today...currently my usage is showing Usage: 13 mins Standby: 2hrs 27mins and my battery is still showing 100%.

This is a major improvement compared to yesterday.  I had lost 2-3% battery every 15mins while Standby, more for usage.  I have not changed any of my "settings" from yesterday to today (though I did update some of my apps, which Im sure helped as well).  As iOS6 gets some time out there, apps will be updating to meet compatability with it.  I think this causes some drain issues as well, but at least for now, the "full drain solution" seems to have worked for me.

Im 99.9% sure my App store never searched for updates in the background, i had to open the app store first. I believe I had an app or too that sent me notifications that updates were available for that app. Perhaps my ios 5 was broken.