Q: iPhone 5 battery life is way worse than iPhone 4

Had my original i5 replaced on Sunday. My new phone seems to be a lot better. However I'm still watching it.

There is something that caught my attention just a minute ago while making a phone call. I noticed there always a spinning circle next to the LTE icon. It wasn't the syncing circle but in the same location. This icon spun for several minutes after I had finished my phone call.

Does anyone know what this icon means?

Yuniverse, I would say that the restore creating a new phone profile appears to have worked from what I can read about in a number of cases, it would be worthwhile doing it from what I can see as it works for a great number of cases. I hear your frustation and think its worth keeping faith for now with Iphone given Iphone 4 had battery issues also, and look at the improvements there since..

Just my 2c..

Best Regards

John

@ Jameson

Appreciate the suggestion. 

@ John Mul

I hope you're right, but I did try that method.  With bluetooth off, it was working wonderfully, but as soon as turned the bluetooth on, it tanked again.  Perhaps it's a software/hardware compatibility issue, because the iPhone 4 and 4S, both with iOS 6, is running just fine with great battery life as I've mentioned.

John Mul wrote:

 

Yuniverse, I would say that the restore creating a new phone profile appears to have worked from what I can read about in a number of cases, it would be worthwhile doing it from what I can see as it works for a great number of cases. I hear your frustation and think its worth keeping faith for now with Iphone given Iphone 4 had battery issues also, and look at the improvements there since..

 

Just my 2c..

 

Best Regards

John

@ Todd

I've only seen two types of circles there.

One with small "blades" running in circles (i guess which means it's downloading/uploading something)

and the two circular arrows running in circles if my memory serves right (i guess this is when it's syncing).

If it's something else, you're guess is as good as mine.  Sorry.

EDIT:  Oh, I just remembered another circle... that's for GPRS when you don't even have EDGE coverage, but since it's next to LTE, that can't be it. nevermind

todd1010 wrote:

 

Had my original i5 replaced on Sunday. My new phone seems to be a lot better. However I'm still watching it.

 

There is something that caught my attention just a minute ago while making a phone call. I noticed there always a spinning circle next to the LTE icon. It wasn't the syncing circle but in the same location. This icon spun for several minutes after I had finished my phone call.

 

Does anyone know what this icon means?

I also get it while using phone when not connected to wifi. I assumed it was a Verizon thing as you can not use data while talking. Kind of an indicator that cellular data is unavailable.

After 2 days after a DFU restore (the genius himself did it)

I am seeing 8hrs usage. At 50% / 4 hrs useage.

Cellular for me is the key cause.

I have everything on inc Bluetooth.

No push email.

Every time I steam music outside of wifi BAM it's dropping.

Go for re DFU, no back up restore, sync with iCloud and manually install apps.

Seems to be working (for now )

Fellas, I'm back.  I had a bad day thinking my phone went awry again, come to find out my wife turned on Bluetooth and I didn't catch it right away. Doh.  I 'think' this explains the quicker battery depletion, although I never use BT so I can't comment on how much drain it adds to the equation.

Either way, I charged it up to 100% and I'm currently at...3.45 usage, 20.45 standby with 29% battery.  This is with 3 email accounts set to push, no BT, all notifications on.  If your having issues, go get a replacement phone.  Now.

@yuni

You can now set up hotmail with push, built right into iOS 6. No more need to use exchange (i wish that was the case for gmail). 

Bring your phone in and demand a new one....don't request/ask.  Trust me when I say that no amount of restoring, even if its a DFU restore, will work/correct the situation.   I've tried it 8 different times with 5 different configurations...AND NOTHING WORKED.  I went So far as to delete my IPSW in iTunes, re-upload iOS 6 from Apple and restored again....no effect.

The ONLY thing that corrected my situation, was getting a brand new phone from apple and setting it up as a new phone.  Do not use any backup of any sort.  No iCloud backup or iTunes backup....no backup.

@Handsfull

If you go back to when we first started conversating I asked you to try turning on BT even if you didn't use it just to see what it would do to your "Great Battery Life" and you said it was in fact turned on with those great numbers you were getting? Now you are saying that you never had bluetooth turned on nor tried that and that it recently was switched on by your wife without you knowing? When I get back to my desktop I can try to sift back to try to find the post that you replied to me on that conversation if you'd like. So to my understanding now are you saying you are getting excellent battery life again because you have turned OFF bluetooth???

Handsful,

I'm sorry.  I did that.  They graciously replaced my phone.  This new one is performing exactly the same.  Rotten battery life. 

Really....really...rotten.

Ok, i'm seriously about to give up on this phone... battery usage is terrible.. even with nothing going on.. you've seen my previous posts..usage of 3-6 hours randomly.

wake up, phone at 100% on charger.. i reboot it while still on the charger and let reboot before i unplug. i know i'm at 100% here..

usage today

3G only, 30 minutes of Wifi maybe

Bluetooth Off

LTE Off

answering e-mails throughout the day

maybe 30 minutes of Alien Blue

maybe 10 minutes of Instagram

3 checkins on Foursquare

every single time i was done with an App, i made sure to kill it off... NOTHING WAS RUNNING

@Handsfull

Sorry I also have to call BS on your logical reason of just returning the phone for a new one in hopes of a lottery pick winner for a good one. I've gone through two exchanges myself and I did restore to new phone then did a backup to my most recent backup from my last exchanged phone, and im pulling decent numbers this screen shot is what I have gotten so far today from 6:30am most to all usage on AT&T with LTE turned off because we don't have it here in Tacoma WA yet, mostly email, reading this forum, and texting, bluetooth turned off.

74%

Usage 1h 55min

Standby 8hr 3min

I would send a pic but using my iphone to submit this reply.

I'm with everyone who says they are at their wits end here. I submitted a report to Apple thru the normal channels.  I assume they know there is a problem....????

How many people here are using IMAP, either gmail or any other IMAP server setup as Exchange and are having the battery issues?

Phil:

Big question: Did you restore a backup to the new phone?

If you did not restore, Go get a new one, its probably a hardware issue.

Ramone:  page 47.  I said I never use BT, just like I stated above.  I told you I turned on my Bluetooth for about an hour to test it (specifically for you...your welcome :), and saw no significant difference. 

I was getting a 1% drain every 3/4 minutes while the phone screen was on (regardless of what I was doing), but when in standby....minimal drain/great performance.   I can't explain that part of it, but My phone began acting like the battery drain issue was present again, So I looked at my settings, and found Bluetooth on and turned it off.  I'm now at 4.15 usage, 21.16 standby with 16% battery....

Ramone: 

You can call BS of it makes you feel better.   My suggestion has had two parts:

1. Get a new phone.

2. Don't restore to a backup. Repeat: don't restore to a backup.

You broke rule #2.

If you don't care, I don't care. I'm just trying to help with solution to get people back online.