Q: Is iOS 6 draining iPhone 4 battery faster?

Call Apple support and let them know, I just got off with them about my iPhone 5 and am getting a new one.

I updated to IOS6 last night and my ip4 went from 36-48 hours between charges to draining completely and dying from 6:30am to 11am this morning, mostly just sitting in my pocket.  *** apple unacceptable.  I used the device for roughly 30-45 minutes and the rest of the time it sat in my pocket. 

Used to get 24-48 hrs between charges on my iPhone 4. After installing iOS 6 , a 15 minute call on 3G , the battery went from 80% to 60% charged, before it would drop a few percentage points. I have hardly anything turned on. Hope a software update is in the works.

Here's a guide in Portuguese that helped me regain battery life. Unfortunately I do not have it in English, but hopefully with the help of a translator, can help.

Link: http://blogdoiphone.com/2012/10/10-dicas-para-melhorar-o-consumo-de-bateria-no-i os-6-do-iphone-ipod-ou-ipad/

This solved my problem.

While there can be obvious causes of battery drain (e.g., Location Services, Notifications), apparently the conversion to iOS 6 can cause, for some, a corruption in the database file which handles the Safari Bookmarks and Reading List entries.  This produces a corrupt Webbookmarksd database, which puts your iDevice in a loop trying to sync, and causes a very abnormal battery drain as a result.

If you do have iOS 6 installed on your iDevice, check your reports to see if “Webbookmarksd” is running amuck (go to Settings /General /About /Diagnostics & Usage /Diagnostic & Usage Data).

Some brave souls have been able to manually replace the corrupt file, and now successfully use their iOS 6 and Safari, so things point to the actual conversion process as the problem for some. Others have completely rebuilt their phones, not using a backup restore file, to successfully bypass the corrupt database file.

If Webbookmarksd has run amuck, a temporary workaround until Apple can come up a fix is to:

• Remove Safari from your multitasking bar, then reboot your iDevice.  So long as Safari is not or has not been running and stored in active memory, then there is no excessive battery drain due to Safari trying to sync the Bookmarks.
• Do NOT use Safari, as the looping sync problem will simply restart; use another browser like Google Chrome.  (The obvious problem with trying to not use Safari is that it is built into the functionality of so many iDevice apps. You have to train yourself to “hold” the link for a response, and then copy the link into Chrome.  If you do accidentally launch Safari, just clear Safari from your multitasking bar, and reboot.)

If Webbookmarksd has run amuck and you want to fix it yourself, some of the following links detail how to rebuild your iDevice, none of which is easy or quick.  Performing a restore using a backup only recreates the problem, even if you set the restore to New Phone.  (This I know!)

- Following are some links to articles on the problem -

• Author first converted to iOS 6 and then transferred everything to his new iPhone 5, essentially bringing the problem along with the transfer:

http://tidbits.com/article/13303

• Maps problem is minor compared to Bookmarks problem:

http://pozniak.pl/wp/?p=5781?share=google-plus-1

• Apple Forum: Referenced in first link:

https://discussions.apple.com/message/19634442#19634442

• Apple Forum: Describes problem and using iBackupBot to correct:

https://discussions.apple.com/message/19692893#19692893

In summary, there can be many causes for excessive battery drain.  For me, the conversion to iOS 6 and the resulting hundreds of Webbookmarksd entries pointed me to the above links.

I went the route of restoring my iPhone as a New Phone, played around with it in New Phone mode to delete the Bookmark and Reading List entries, only to have things be reset back to the corrupted state after a restore from my backup file (which makes sense now, but you never know). After three variations of restores, I’m on-hold right now.

For now I plan to use Chrome instead of Safari, catch up on my sleep, and figure out if I want to invest another chunk of time trying to resolve this by either rebuilding completely or using the iBackupBot approach, or wait for some acknowledgment and fix from Apple.  I'll probably end up doing it myself, though.

And, no, I’m not a happy camper right now...

I am seeing really bad battery drain all over my workplace on iPhone 4's and iPhone 4S's.  Almost everyone I know with an iPhone tells me they can barely make it through the work day wheras on iOS5 they would go home with 50-60% battery.  My partner and I have Verizon iPhone 4's that are no more than 13 months old.   On iOS 5 we would come home with 60-70 battery.   Now we are lucky if we have 5-10% by 5:00 after just 8 hours and mild usage.  My brother has a brand new 4S (purchased one week before the iPhone 5 announcment) and even he has noticed a huge difference after upgrading.   There is simply no way this can be blamed on normal battery depletion from months of use.

I have turned off all notifications other than the most basic (mail, messages, calendar) which helps a tiny bit but I still cant; get a whole day's use out of my 4 but really, why should anybody have to do that.   I expect that kidn of management hassle from Android but not from Apple.   They really need to release an update soon because this really ***** fopr a whole lot of people.

I don't want to insult anyone on these boards because I'm sure those posting are having real problems like I did before I fixed my battery problem post IOS 6 on my iPhone 4.  But too listen to people railing against Apple about needing to fix this problem you would think that everyone who has an iPhone is experiencing these problems. NAND I have to shake my head at the number of crazy solutions about turning this app off, or deleting another, or simply standing on your head to make the battery last longer.  This board is insane.

The phone is a computer, and the operations system is software.  Software can get corrupted, and I suspect in particular when you install a new operating system on top of a previous one.

I went to the Apple store when I had a battery problem after uploading IOS 6.  The staff at the Apple store were very helpful, and determined that my software had some corrupted components which were the cause of my battery drainage.  Once this was identified I was able to correct the problem.

The problem is fixable, but not by sitting there and demanding that Apple make a universal fix.  I would suggest you Contact Apple and get technical support instead of wasting your time complaining on this board about evil Apple.

In answer to your question, I have been to the apple stroe a total of 5 times as well as having 15 open cases with apple techical suport, the solution to the problem was another lemon. I have the same issue I was having with my brand new iPhone 5 !!!!!!!! new solution waiting till apple admits they have a problem and comes out with a fix that will work !!!!!!!!

Okay guys, here's the latest update. Again, I'm going to only talk about my iPod as I don't really own iPhone. Since my last post, I tried all options, turning off WiFi, notifications, maps, so on and so forth, tried the hard reset, charged multiple times, but the battery bleed could just not be stopped. If I left the Pod 1 hour on standby it would be sucked out of all its life. Then, I finally tried restoring through iTunes--the whole process took about 2 hours to completely erase all the data, set up as a new device and then backup all the apps & data. I did this day before and voila! it seems to have worked. I'm on standby for than 24 hours with occasional music here and there and the battery is at around 98%, no leakage, no heating problems like before. Total usage shows about 1 hour 32 mins. Restoring seems to have worked after all for me. Again, like one of the guys mentioned, this may purely just be a coincidence, however, it's worth a try. Please try this with all the other suggestions that apply for the phone. Good luck and I hope everybody is back to using their phones/pods as normal.

Just downloaded the upgrade on Monday Oct. 1st for iPhone 4, and noticed a drastic increase in battery usage (like many people are also saying). In addition, I noticed it was "warm" enough to be felt through my jeans. Interesting thing is my wife has the exact same phone, same plan, upgraded last week and is noticing an INCREASE in battery life, so there is obviously something different w/ our phones which I will investigate later, probably Thursday evening. As a side note, I bought this phone new in early January 2012, and my wife bought hers new in early February 2012. I realize sometimes batteries for any device can be bad and need to be replaced, but this issue happened the day iOS 6 was installed, so it seemed like too much of a coincidence.

Previous to iOS 6, I normally listen to music ~3 hours/day, check the time probably 5-10 times, and go through email twice a day while dealing with up to 5 phone calls (usually under 5 minutes) and a few texts + some surfing (less than 20 minutes total) in my "typical" day. I used to easily go 2 full work days without needing to charge. Starting from 100% on morning of Day 1, I would charge up before bed the 2nd day with battery at ~20%. After downloading and installing iOS 6 and starting at ~86% @ 6am the morning of October 1st, my phone was drained completely by 1pm. All I did was make 2 phone calls (< 3 min total), and coincidentally texted my wife talking about my battery being low. No music, no surfing the web. I started a hand log to record times and percentages once I was home from work the evening of the 1st:

Oct 01-7:32pm: phone @ 99%-charged, turned off all iCloud apps except Find My iPhone

          -9:04pm: phone @ 82%

Oct 02-5:40am: phone @ 17%-started charging, deleted all "active apps" from Home screen and lowered                                   brightness to ~50%

           -6:50am: phone @ 70%-charged directly into outlet just under an hour, normal charging rate

           -8:03am: phone @ 54%

           -8:25am: phone @ 47%

          -8:32am: phone @ 44%-downloaded "Battery Watch" battery logger to phone

          -8:51am: phone @ 36%

          -9:08am: phone @ 29%

          -9:20am: phone @ 25%

          -9:31am: phone @ 21%

So previous to the logger being downloaded and used, I have been seeing a drain of anywhere from 1% every 3- 8 minutes depending on whether I've been driving, at work, or at home, with driving and being at work when I see the highest drain, although I have not "used" my phone at all except to check time and battery percentage at exactly those times listed.

Currently I do not have any iCloud apps except Find My iPhone synced, but apparently I do have location apps going for everything. I did not previously set this option up as I see it as kind of pointless for me, but I will leave it on throughout today to gauge whether or not that is the issue, changing it tonight when I get home before bed.

Obviously this is a complaint because this was definitely not an issue before, but instead of just complaining about it, I would prefer to take a more proactive stance and see if this can be used to objectively help solve the issue. I loved my iPhone 4 before this experience and have had a very good history with Apple, so I assume this issue will get solved in due time.

I appreciate any response or advice, and will continue to update as I try new things.

Regards,

-Jeff

I've turned just about everything off, except my email push. I went from a charged phone at 8am to a dead phone, it shut down during a phone call, at Noon. This is a mess!

JGrinager -

Good job of documenting things!

Just wondering if you had checked the diagnositc report to see if Webbookmarksd was showing up in large numbers, with each record timestamped several minutes apart?  That's what happened to me, so it's something to check.  You can go to "Settings /General /About /Diagnostics & Usage /Diagnostic & Usage Data" to find out.

You've tried just about everything else, so I'm just curious.

Thanks!

In addition to the battery drain, my phone is hot to the touch. I've turned off location services, shut down all apps, and all push. Nothing seems to help

That's an interesting suggestion. I checked, and there is "No Diagnostic Data". I also just posted on the heat my phone is generating, this came along with os 6

Morrisroe -

Well, it was worth a shot, and easy enough to check!  At least you can rule out one known cause, although rather obsure, for excessive battery drain.

For what it's worth, the following article in TidBITS covers the Webbookmarksd loop and related battery drain, which turned out to be my problem after converting my iPhone 4 to iOS 6.

http://tidbits.com/article/13303

That said, I'll keep on searching for anything else relevant for your situation.

Thanks, and let us know if you find anything helpful!