Q: iPhone 5 battery draining very fast

After 2 hours of light usage, a few texts and e-mails, I'm down to 60% battery life. Phone is saying 2 hours, 10 minutes of usage.

I too turned off iCloud and it made no difference at all.

Going to call Apple this weekend.

I consider about 4.5 hours of usage time unacceptable. Particluarly since I'm not using anywhere near the phone's capablities.

I've had iPhones since the iPhone 3GS and while batter life was never sterling, it never ran down like this.

If I wanted to utilize my phone for just text and e-mail I would have kept my Blackberry. Seriously.

I unplugged my 5 from its charger at 8:45 this morning, got on a bus, read emails for 40 minutes, nothing else, and my battery is down to 45%.

Ok guys after lots of complaints and starting these threads from day one when the Iphone 5 was just released I have noticed that I went thru 3 Iphone 5 64 gig white models from ATT in brooklyn new york bayridge area. I have noticed that the battery life from having three iphone 5's replaced has nothing to do with the closing or disabling or turning of settings. I have tested my forth Iphone 5 which I got yesterday and left wifi on in my home which has wireless network!  I noticed the battery drainedged stopped !!! the only thing I turned of since I dont use it is bluetooth.

When I turn off my wireless network which I have a very strong signal to and the Iphone 5 is forced to connect to 4g or LTE thats when the battery drain is seen while typing a message or browsing the web. So my suggestion untill apple plugs the whole in their sH---T IOS 6 SOFTWARE IS to keep wireless on if you have a wireless signal at home or in the office that will force the phone to keep data passing thru the WLAN instead of the 4G and the LTE on the iphone5 preventing the drainage of battery by the minute.

I even took out my old iphone 4s with ios 6 and i noticed the the iphone 5 in wlan mode keept up the battery life with the iphone 4s.

remember i did not turn off anything except bluetooth LTE and 4g is on but I also turned on WLAN while at home and in the office and thiat is making the data on my iphone 5 route via WLAN instead of 4G or LTE and saving me battery.

when I turn wifi off and just use LTE or 4G my phone drains in 3 hours. so again after going thru 4 iphone 5 returns I have figuered out that this has to be LTE and 4G software signal drain related please use my post to test your devices the same way I did not do any restores these phone where right out of the box setup with icloud , skype, and everything that comes with the phone in its orginal state I disabled only bluetooth.

Several people have posted the fix. It's got nothing to do with iCloud, notifications or anything else.

The issue, is with celluar data, that's it.

So either put up with ****** battery OR turn data off, whilst you have WIFI. Because even though you're connected to Wifi, data being on still kills the battery.

I can now get 12 hours usage time, when I turn cellular data off. Obviously it's a bit of a pain turning it on and off, but it's better than a dead battery.

Although the fact the cellular data kills the battery so fast, worries me, as I am concerned Apple won't be able to fix it and we'll be left with faulty phones.

Right turning of cellular data for now to save battery also works but If i want to use my phone normally with all features on ....another method would be to keep

wifi on even though it will drain the battery faster

then having the cellular data off

but slower then having the 4g or LTE on.

Apple f--k--ng fix your IOs this is all rediculous

So the plot thickens....

Talking to a friend the other day and he was saying how his mom got a new 4G andriod of some sort (he couldn't remember which one) and after 3 weeks she hates it already.....why?  Because she said the battery doesn't last for sh#t on it, and she badly wants a 3G phone again.

So the person on here who had Apple contact them, and run that app, and then Apple told him his battery was fine, maybe they were right, the physical battery IS fine, the problem is else where, they are just aren't telling you that part.

From what I'm reading and experincing my thoughts are 4G just may be a battery hog, BUT I still think iOS6 is making it use more battery than it should for things and that that can probably be fixed/tweaked, AND reguardless, Apple said 8hrs of usage, and so far it's only about half that, SO in short Apple still needs to do something or else that is FALSE ADVERTISING!  AND they can start by ACKNOWLEDGING THERE IS AN ISSUE!   Just acknowledge it and tell us you are working on it, quit being so **** secretive!

Also only having wifi on with celluar off has made zero difference for me, I've been doing that since day one.  Honestly I've tried EVERYTHING mentioned in this post, that keep getting posted over and over, not much makes a difference.  Yeah turn off stuff you don't use, turn off anything you can afford to live without and it' WILL last a bit longer.  I have Siri and Bluetooth off as I never use them, I've turned off Location Services, and turn them on per app when I open one that I want to use it with, I have all Location Services/System Services off except Celluar Network Search and Traffic, I have Limit iAds on, and I have mail on hourly.  I've probably forgot a few but I still get 4-5hrs of use, my standby time various, I have got up to 2days standby once.

But there is no sure fire fix that we, the consumer, can do.  The only permant fix (if there is one) will be from Apple, and Apple we ARE waiting!

Dizman7 read my post carefully do not turn anything off except what you don't use I did not turn of my cellular off

I  just left it on and also turned on wifi so that all data the iphone 5  is requesting is being sent over wifi .

This wont help if you are not in a wifi zone. Apple f---king fix your ios6 and the      4g And LTE battery drainage its working for me while i'm at work and at home,

but if im driving or walking or sitting where there is no wifi the 4g and LTE keeps draining battery in three - 4 hours tops!!!

this solution for now came after three iphone 5 exchanges!!! but yes there is 100 percent problem with the IOS draining the battery and i will return this phone as a fourth return and get an iphone 4s for now. Because wifi is not everywhere and the phone eats up the battery to fast on 4g or LTE!!!

read my posts

I have had this problem also. Battery was great at first then began to drain quickly. Turn off things you are not using and then reboot the phone. This fixed mine immediately. Just power it down.

I have turned off locations, Bluetooth, wireless, LTE, auto brightness (set to 25%), turned off iCloud, widgets, system services.. I have replaced my first phone at the store, do e several resets,  have charged to 100% and left longer, drained to shutdown at least a dozen times, and have screenshots of usage every time I reached 1%. Every one is 5.5 hours MAX!! THIS WILL NEVER get CLOSE to apples claims for battery life! Often it won't make 4 hrs browsing. PLEASE FIX OR TELL ME WHY MINE IS SCREWED UP!! Nothing works!

Went to the Apple Genius bar today to switch phones.. he listened to my attempts to try things in this forum. He checked my diagnostics from his device and said my battery and hardware are fine ie - no repair. A couple of minor things he mentioned might be interesting to some...

1. When turning things off cell network search needs to stay on otherwise you can have issues with losing calls and signal strength..

Location services> system services> Cell network search on

2. It doesn't matter if you turn off diagnostics data to them as they can get to it anyway when they check your phone in store.

3. The advice to turn off apps when they are not running is wrong they say, it uses more data to try and manage apps by doing this than just restarting the phone now and again. He said this wasn't the issue.

4. They do advise setting your phone up from scratch and not load any data or re-sync from any apps and that this may be part of the problem (apps with pre ios6 data). Also don't use your ios5 originated iCloud backup from your last phone - you will lose all the data from old apps doing this and all your text messages but everything else will sync. After this you can re-back up using iCloud or by cable via iTunes. If course I did this last step before but he's going ask me to do it again and recheck my diagnostics after a week whereas last time I went back to my old backup a day later after seeing no improvement.

Here's the killer - he said the ios6.01 update may not solve battery life related bugs! He said this may just be a an issue of a more advanced phone needing more power.

I went through the advertised battery specs with him and he stressed the 'up to' on the figures especially if you use more than one of the quoted features at the same time.

Just turn off LTE. It will make a huge diff. Give it a try and you'll see the diff.

My phone went up from 4hr usage to 9hr. cool ryt?

I think your'e right but here in the uk if using O2 they've taken the option away - it's a localised carrier setting but I suspect it's still searching for 4g.

Just turn OFF cellular data then. Use it only when you want it.

Much to my surprise I got a call from Apple yesterday!  As others have said they saw my posts here and wanted to get some information from me.

It was a pleasant experience and the guy was very nice.  They asked me a lot of detailed questions about my dialy usage and how/when I noticed the problem.  With my consent they sent me a battery logger to install that tracks the usage/drains and what not.  Originally they wanted to just run it for today (Saturday) and get back with me on Sunday, but I told them I use the phone a lot more on the week days and that they'd get better data on a weekday, as that's when I notice the drain the most and use the phone the most.  So I'm running it since Friday afternoon thru Tuesday evening, we'll see how it goes.

I didn't chew the guy out, as my beef isn't with him personally, but I did strongly stress my dismay and disappointment with the product.  I was able to get a little info but I realize he probably didn't have it all or may not be able to say anything.  He did say he has made a lot of calls to people for this issue across all carriers, so it's not specific to any one of them, and there are a lot of ppl with the issue.  He couldn't say as why nothing formal has been announced, but did say Apple usually don't make those kinds of statements until they have all the facts, which I took as they are still research/gathering data.

He also asked me my battery life percent when we started the call and again at the end.  Over our 45min call my battery dropped by 12%, which even his reaction was "oh wow".

Personally it was a great experience, and I was very surprised they called, and appreciated it.  It's nice to know your voice gets heard once and a while.

PS - my battery has dropped by 5% typing this