Q: iOS 6 iPhone 4s battery drain

Out of the 56 pages of replies here I have nothing to add that nobody has tried but I do want to share my experiment last night; I have read about 20 pages of this thread and tried everything on my 4s. I have a iphone 4s with the wonderful ios6 on it that I regret every 6 hours when I need to charge it and a iphone 4 with ios 5.1 on it. Both phones have the same apps and email accounts on it. Battery life on the 4s is so bad now I did what many people have done; pretty much dummied it down from a smartphone to a regular phone. On the 4s I have turned off Siri, all location services, notifications, using auto brightness, fetch instead of push email, and all facebook or twitter applications.

On my other phone which is the 4 with the ios 5.1; I have left as a smartphone, location services are on, push emails, notifications are on, facebook & twitter. Last night I charged them both to 100% and removed them at the same time. I actually held a phone in each hand and did the same tasks for about half an hour. I checked the same emails on both phones, opened the same identical attachments, checked the same ebay items at the same time; Half an hour of the same tasks took the 4s to 92% battery and the 4 to 98%.

Muttering apple to my self I left them on the counter unplugged and went to bed. 9 hours later I woke up and checked the phones, the 4s is at 48% battery and the 4 is at 94%. Both phones had the same emails received while sleeping but the 4 had notifications and alerts as it is still a smartphone. I'm sure I'm not telling anyone that is following this thread nothing new but this is unacceptable to carry a charge cord around everywhere I go.

My question to Apple: Why can't you make available ios 5.1 to users to download until you resolve this? I would then get my battery life back and Google maps. My 4s is my work phone, policy is you can replace yearly. I am frustrated enough right now I wont replace with a Apple device, that simple.

Sorry but im not reading all that. If there is a multi step process i have to go through to have my battery last longer then a motorolla from 1992, then i am going to Samsung or Nokia. I have to charge my phone 2 times a day and for most of the day it is in airplane mode due to at work and no service, other wise my battery wouldn't last 3 hours.

I updated mine last night, the battery lasted 4 hours this morning and has been off since.

This is obvioulsy a great help, for the 4 hours it was on i had a shell of a phone as i have no contacts except my own number now!

im going to have to fire up the old nokia as i use my phone for work and have no way of chaging it and using it at the same time.

maybe the next update should have some kind of wind up charger built in? i dont see how it could have been any worse.

Just wanted to put another voice out there for apple to hear. I have had huge draining problems since updating a week and a half ago. Just in reading through this forum and listening to music I've lost 30% battery in an hour. I've tried all tips mentioned and have restored 4 times. In tired of having a brick in my pocket. Apple please fix this. And quickly. There was no point to having this phone if I can't go 8 hours without it dying.

I have a 4s and have not yet updated to iOS 6. Have been waiting to see what Apple does about all these issues first.

So I just called Apple Technical Support to ask when we might expect the fix, and the woman there told me that the big issue is how people are updating. You must have the latest versions of iTunes if you have a PC or Mountain Lion on your Mac. You must back up your data first to iTunes or iCloud, and do the update while plugged into the computer. She said millions of people have updated successfully.

I asked her why this information does not seem to appear anywhere and she just apologized that Apple hasn't said anything about this. I'm having a hard time accepting this information since it just doesn't make sense. Here is the link to Apple's instructions on how to update iPhones from iOS 4 and 5.  http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4623

It does mention you need the latest version of iTunes.

So has anyone followed these instructions exactly and still had the problem? Do you have Mountain Lion on your Mac? I haven't updated to Mountain Lion yet - just have Lion.

Rubbish.

I had my 4s replaced with a brand new 4s from the Genius bar. because I showed them screenshots of the battery drain.

I had a backup on iCloud that was made from my previous 'broken' 4S - but it was from an update done via itunes and so on.. so it was a ios6 backup created from a completely restored handset.

The new 4S was updated using itunes, mountain lion, latest versions - with the wind in the right direction and the moon smiling down at me, on a Sunday.

I can assure you all - it's made absolutely NO difference to the battery life. It seems to hold for 30min at 100% and then deplete. The same as the 'broken' 4S.

And - YES - i've done the 'conditioning' cycles.

So a brand new 4s, updated via itunes, following the update erased all settings and once restarted i restoed from the most recent backup.

This has made NO difference.

Don't bother trying to turn things off. It makes no difference whatsoever. We are either going to have to live with it until there is a fix or buy a 10 year old Nokia to get through a day without the phone dying on us.

And it's an iPhone 4S.

I updated through itunes after it loaded the most recent version, it then backed it up and installed the ios6 update just like they told you to do, rest of my story is 4 messages up. I updated off a Dell computer running windows7 so can't answer the rest.

I come here to thank and support all of the other users who are online like this. I think that for every one of us, there are like 10-20 others who are not motivated enough to come here and tell it like it is, for a myriad of reasons. I also thank all those who have tried various fixes, that all seems to have limited success, thus saving many useless hours for the rest of us.

In looking at the internet, and combing through numerous articles and web pages related to this issue since I upgraded to the iOS6 on my 4S, I have come to a few conclusions:

One, there are Apple apologists and over-the-top haters of Apple -- neither are doing anyone any good for the vast majority of us that just want a device that works for more than 3-4 hours between charges. We all watch TV and are aware of other products, and of Apple’s posture in the market. We just want it to work right. 

Two, there seems to be a common feeling that iOS6 is buggy. Recognizing this fact/perception, and giving access to a downgrade while a true fix is developed, would help Apple save whatever goodwill is draining as fast as my battery’s juice.

The bigger issue in my mind is that by Apple denying access to this simple fix (which we’d all like to think would be temporary) shows contempt for those consumers they should be trying to encourage and cultivate into dedicated supporters.

It seems they won’t permit the downgrade since it might stifle future upgrade efforts for their products; this reflects a total lack of trust from Apple as to their consumers. I guess they feel people will downgrade and then apps will not work and then it creates a bad, ripple effect. I guess they fear suits from app developers or something, rather than consumer backlash. While both are crappy results, one will have a much longer term effect on Apple than the other, but Apple is the cause and can have impact on the effect here; they are just being shortsighted.

The fact is that many of us look at the phone as a vital tool every day. To have an unreliable tool of such importance is anathema to many of us. People will find an alternative, and no amount of sleek designs or advertising buzz will replace the anger and frustration people like me are feeling at the hassles caused by this situation, especially where there seems to be such a simple fix they just refuse to permit. Hubris, and poor foresight. They can control the spin and trajectory of the cleaver, or help remove it altogether; it is just a matter of time before it falls upon their proverbial necks. Gravity will always win, so they need to act with some haste.

Hi -

So I have been playing around with options mention on this thread to see if I can remedy my battery drainage issue.  No luck.  However today, I noticed that when I was checking for my mail via Exchange - the iphone was constantly "checking for mail" - at this point I let it run for a half hour and noticed a big dip in the battery.  I turned off "push" and set Exchange to "fetch" and the constant check for mail stopped and the battery appeared to be more stable.  I will test it as a full day tomorrow and update the results.

Could this be as simple as an Exchange issue?

I too have just now tried setting mail to fetch I stead of push. With location services and wifi off, mind you. My battery is now only draining about 1% every fifteen minutes without usage, but as soon as I go on safari or open a text the battery starts dropping. I've been on the page for 5 min and since typing this have lost 2% battery. I have my phone unplugged since 7 am (fully charged) and have used it for 2.5 hrs of music (constant, no changing songs) and one hour of browsing these forums and right now I'm sitting at 22%.

Hi,

http://tidbits.com/article/13303

follow after this instructions, this is what worked for me, remember not! restore from any old backup that you have, you must leave it as a new Iphone.

after 5 daysof use, it seems that my iphone 4s back to life.

good luck everyone.

I believe not everyone has bookmarks sync issues. Ok now I am starting to get very confused here. Are you guys reporting a major draid 1% every 2 minutes while you are using the phone or are you reporting a drain while the phone is locked ?

Just to add an other battery life problem with iOS 6 and 4S.

50% lost in a 6 hours night, idle.

Hope apple will do something quickly.

Arrgh!!  Have tried multiple suggestions since upgrading and I think it's fixed, then battery starts draining super fast. I always check to make sure apps are closed. Come Apple, get this fixed!!  New stuff is great, but not if my phone is dead!!!