Q: iOS 6 iPhone 4s battery drain

The phone has been great so far.  But it's only been a few hours so time will tell.  I have everything enabled that I had working before the upgrade so I'm not missing anything besides maybe Facebook.  I'll test that tomorrow and see how it goes.  But so far so good. 

Just FYI, I did a complete backup in ITunes.  Then I did a restore which completely wiped out everything.  My contacts are all stored in my Corporate Exchange account so once I added that back I had all my contacts.  I really don't have a whole lot more on the phone besides Pandora and a couple of kids games.  I was able to restore all my pictures from my backups.  Now I'm just moving ringtones back and reassigning them to the particular contacts. 

Had pretty normal use for me in the last 4 hours.  Plenty of text messages and a couple phone calls.  Only lost 5% in 4 hours so I think it's back to normal. 

My phone was better after a couple of days but it seems to be getting worse again. 

There is another problem as well I can't tether my iPad to my iPhone

Unless I use Bluetooth this is not acceptable.

Here's what worked for me. I installed the app "System Status" and watched the CPU usage. It was constantly up to 90%. I tried a few things (while always monitoring CPU usage). This did the trick: I killed Safari from the dock and did a hard reset (holding both buttons until the Apple icon appears). I then also turned he phne off completely and started it again, but I dont think that's necessary.

The battery drain is GONE.

And I know that Safari is the culprit coz every time I fire it up again, the CPU usage goes up immediately and the battery drain starts again - immediately. So it's not enough to just disble Safari syncing or whatever. You have to kill Safari completely (therefore the hard reset after closing it from th dock). Use Chrome instead. It's by far the superior browser anyway.

Here's another thing I have noticed: The CPU usage and the battery drain also went down whenever the battery status had dropped to 20% or lower. Now, what I think I know is that iOS always stops all background syncing (photo stream, icloud, match) when the battery status drops to 20%. Therefore, I guess it is safe to say that there is a software problem somehow linked to Safari and background syncing.

I called Apple support and was told that they are aware of both battery and wi-fi issues since the iOS update and "are working on a solution".

I was told to do a Factory Reset and set up my iPhone and iPad as new devices.

This is the best Apple can offer at this stage. Man...what a hassle.

I've performed this on the iPhone and so far, just a 3% drop in a little over an hour.

Note, I haven't fired up Safari yet so this so called fix may not in fact be a fix...I'll post back a little later.

I am having so many troubles with IOS 6 on both my 4S and iPad 2. I have read at least 300 posts on issues related to this IOS launch and am worried about Apple. I am a serious techy and have been using Apple since 1994 as owner of an ad agency and tech developer on Apple.

I am not saying that the 300 posts are the issue...worse, there are many, many thousands. But I'm finding issues all over. Especially battery drain. My 4S lasts a few hours now with everything turned off. Seems a total new phone reset is the favoured answer to that issue, but now my iPad wouldn't let me change iCal meeting times. Tried three times and wouldn't change. I've rebooted but not fully reset to new on either device.

I am one of the folk who got totally f'd over by updating IOS 4 onto my 3G phone. What a nightmare. I was able to downgrade fortunately. I want to downgrade from IOS 6 more than the 3G experience with the hours and hours wasted reading forums and trying to figure it out. I'm lost with IOS 6. We're early, but wow. This is serious and makes me wonder about the missing oversight of Steve Jobs. Microsoft was said to test with customers. Is Apple there now too to increase profits? I am an evangelist to everyone to not upgrade yet. I'm f'd but my kids, wife and employees don't have to be. If you are reading and considering upgrading, I think you're too early. I knew I shouldn't have been in the front lines with IOS 6, but my excitement got the better of me. Now, I'm back to really, truly wondering about my favourite company. Are they f'd too?

Don't upgrade as of Sep 25/2012. Some people have written of success, but too many have said otherwise. A survey of about a thousand people on some blog site in Canada showed roughly 75% having major issues.

These devices are too integral to my profitability to have them set me back like they have. Not right for such a large and profitable company. Sounds like the old enemy, not like the old friend.

And...it seems to work fine at first and then after a few days caught the flu.

So, I'm having the same problem as everyone else... My battery is draining waaay to fast, when browsing safari it drops 1% every 4 minutes..

Did a hard reset, didn't help, restored all settings, didn't help.

I have also turned off all the widgets and notifications I don't need.. Turned off safari iCloud sync.

Need to mention that I updated to iOS 6 via wifi, both my iPhone 4S and my iPad 2..

I really don't want to set it up as new...looks like I have to though...

Also, here the other day, I discovered that after being charged all night, and still connected to the charger, the battery dropped 2% after the alarm went off two times...!  Is that even possible?

I've found that turning WiFi OFF makes a huge difference on my 4S. I'm guessing this is because I have a number of the settings set up so that syncing / downloading only happens over WiFi. When I get chance I'll try turning those back on and see if the battery drain goes mad, as that will narrow things down.

OK, it's now been over 3 hours since I did a Factory Restore and set up as a new iPhone and I can report that this seems to have fixed the problem.

I've been listening to tunes for at least an hour at the gym, and so far only dropped about 8% from a full charge in the 3+ hrs of use..

Oh, and I purposefully kept Safari open in the background to see if that in fact was the culprit and so far so good.

I did a soft reset after setting up the phone just to be on the safe side.

I've done the same to my iPad (2) but I've left it plugged in for now to get a full charge before testing - I'll report back on that in due course.

Hope this helps others.

I agree also. We shouldn't have to disable features that worked perfectly fine in iOS 5!!

After Factory Restore and set up as a new iPhone, is it possible to restore back my contact list, apps, photos and etc?

If you sync via iCloud or with your Mac, then yes.

I only sync with P.C.

First I do a backup sync to Itune with my pc, then I'll do a Factory Restore and set up as a new iPhone.

after that, how do I restore back my contacts and the rest?

Hmmm,

I'd have to defer to another PC user, but in theory, if you are currently syncing with your PC (say, via iTunes) then all you need to do is sync up again when your phone has been reset and elect to 'replace' or 'merge' content on your iPhone with that of the PC.

Turning off Safari location services and threatening Siri with installing Symbian on the 4S offered some subjective relief... 1% down from full charge after 3h of light use. Thank you Siri!

thanks Khoolman,

will give it a shot.