Q: iOS 6 iPhone 4s battery drain

My wife, my friend and I all have factory unlocked Iphone4s's. We cannot go a full day on one charge. We've brought our phones into Apple and they ran their battery diagnostics on them. Since they couldn't find anything wrong with the batteries, they wouldn't do anything for us.

I found something that "works" but its not really a fix and is really really annoying. If I turn off 3g and cellular data, and then do a hard restart of the phone, we can go all day and only lose about 15% of battery life. Once I turn 3g or cellular data on, even with all apps closed, we'll lose 1% every 3-5 minutes on standby. So, if i'm out and want to use data, I have to go into settings, turn on 3g and cellular data. Do the thing I wanted to do. Then, go back into settings, turn off 3g and cellular and then do a hard restart.. I am thinking it has something to do with the factory unlocked iphones, as my friends who have carrier locked phones don't seem to have any battery issues.

I had the same issue, on AT&T locked phone.  Apple store genius also used the software, and didn't see anything wrong, but he changed the battery on warranty.  It's better at the moment.

My iPhone 4S is locked and I have the battery issue, so it's not related to both locked and unlocked. However, I might try turning off cellular data while I'm at work tomorrow to see if I find any difference in  battery life. Since I've worked every day since the update was released, I will be using it under that same daily pattern of use since upgrading to iOS 6. I'll post the results.

My iPhone 4s is doing it again.  Carat says to kill MobileSMS and my battery is draining rapidly 6% in 10 mins.  I think MobileSMS has a leak.  My phone is warming up.   This all started after getting a text message.

no point to reset here and there. I guess there is a big bug in iOS 6 causing the battery drain. we need a software fix,

I'm having the same problem
After the update:
I lost my map and battery
I turned off all items(blutooth,wifi,celuar data,3g,siri,iCloud,... ALL is OFF)
But I still have the battery problem!
I've reset the phone several times., And even though I deleted all programs
I even re-restore.
But the battery problem is not solved.
I am very unhappy.

actually, i felt secure when i saw this discussion, felt that im not alone in that issue
but the worset thing that im worry about is that, does the battery will be in a good condition after they got fixed it soon...
wish nothing gonna happes to my IPhone 4s battery..

This seems to be a major problem for all IPhone 4 users, apple will definitely repair this in the next update. For know you can:

Adjust brightness: Dimming the screen is another way to extend battery life. Go to Settings > Brightness & Wallpaper and drag the slider to the left to lower the default screen brightness. In addition, turning on Auto-Brightness allows the screen to adjust its brightness based on current lighting conditions. Go to Settings > Brightness & Wallpaper and set Auto-Brightness to On.

Turn off push mail: If you have a push mail account such as Yahoo! or Microsoft Exchange, turn off push when you don't need it. Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Fetch New Data and set Push to Off. Messages sent to your push e-mail accounts will now be received on your phone based on the global Fetch setting rather than as they arrive.

new data less frequently: Applications such as Mail can be set to fetch data wirelessly at specific intervals. The more frequently e-mail or other data is fetched, the quicker your battery may drain. To fetch new data manually, from the Home screen choose Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Fetch New Data and tap Manually. To increase the fetch interval, go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Fetch New Data and tap Hourly. Note that this is a global setting and applies to all applications that do not support push services.

Turn off push notifications: Some applications from the App Store use the Apple Push Notification service to alert you of new data. Applications that extensively rely on push notifications (such as instant messaging applications) may impact battery life. To disable push notifications, go to Settings > Notifications and disable notifications for select applications. Note that this does not prevent new data from being received when the application is opened. Also, the Notifications setting will not be visible if you do not have any applications installed that support push notifications.

Minimize use of location services: Applications that actively use location services such as Maps may reduce battery life. To disable location services, go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services or use location services only when needed.

<Edited By Host>

it has been charged so it isn't correct...

***FACEBOOK***

I have been trouble shooting and trying everything to stop this issue on my 4s.  Read another post about the new Facebook app so I deleted it and did a reset.

Taa-Daah... My drain immediately stopped.  I know everyone is finding some success doing different things but this was clearly "part" of the problem on my phone.  Once again I deleted Facebook and then a hard reset.

Lets go Apple... Get this fixed please.

@Cdisano1: There is no conspiracy to sell iPhone 5s. This kind of unfounded speculation does nothing to improve the situation or contribute anything worthwhile to the discussion.

@thecomputerjames01: Thanks for your useful suggestions, but I would note that this is NOT "a major problem for all iPhone 4 users." I have an iPhone 4 with iOS 6 and have experienced no perceptible change in battery usage.Undoubtedly it is a major problem for some, but certainly not all.

I've get the same problems with my iPhone 4S, battery life is going down very fast, no sugestions, I don't know what I can to do!

Maybe.  I would try to direct the Apple Store rep to this forum so they can see it's not a "one-off" issue and possibly collaborate with Apple's efforts to diagnose and fix.  It really sounds like the rep didn't know your issue might be part of the larger problem many of us experienced updating to iOS6 that seems to have had nothing to do with our batteries, but seems to be a software cause that gobbles up battery.

Mine appears "fixed" for now.  What I did was reset my network settings, losing WiFi passwords but that wasn't an issue, doing a one-time closing of all background apps, and rebooting phone and router, though WiFi was fine.

It was much better after that, but not great, so I deleted iCloud from the phone and re-enabled it activating only "find my phone" and "notes", two critical things for me.  I also left iTunes Match and iTunes Cellular Data on, since I use them both.   My phone's not "crippled" but I definately went and leaned it as much as still meets my needs and my power seems a little better than before the update at times.  I noticed the battery usage spike when I first re-synched my bookmarks and cleaned them up on computer and phone, and it seems to spike once in a while dropping faster than usual, but for the most part and in standby it's pretty good now.

It seems like Apple may have increased what some background apps can do, which is a little unfortunate unless we can now track usage by app and get rid of anything that uses up more battery or data than we'd like.  I really liked the old control of background apps better if that turns out to be the case, but would be OK if we could better track and control the offenders.  In particular I don't want facebook doing anything to my phone when I'm not using it.

I've got the problem (battery drain) with my iPhone4s&iOS6 as well as my friend (iPhone4). The case is that battery becomes empty during  24 hours (apprx). Before the iOS6 update with the same iPhone usage scheme we'd got  36-40 hours.  Tried many suggestions except those that offer complete new setup.