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

Goodluck. It's a shame that a lot of people are assuming these battery issues are the result of restores from back ups.

By now many are setting up as new phones and only syncying contacts from iCloud to avoid the maladapted battery conditions.

Yup that's what I did. Helped the battery, but its still not perfect still drains pretty quick when useing.

BTW apple has acknowledged this. Ive been talking to a senior engineer for days now and they contacted me.  They read the forums and all your posts.  My phone was replaced, same thing on the second phone. I did a dfu and complete drain and recharge and it seems to be getting better but, there is definitely something draining the battery.

When i first got my iPhone 5 I set it up as new (as I never had an iPhone before) and was getting REAL bad battery.. around 3-4 hours tops. Shutting down LTE, WiFi(when not in use) and Bluetooth got to about 4-5 hours.

Last night, I did the DFU and restored from the backup i took just before the DFU and I got the best battery usage so far today.

25 minutes playing music over bluetooth

a few hours listening to mp3s at work.

Checking Facebook, Reddit, etc.

Sending a bunch of mail..

a few phone calls..

Still not perfect, but almost 7 hours.

For some reason, the DFU does seem to help.. why? i have no clue. it should be the same build as what is on the phone from the factory.

I believe the battery life has decreased because of the upgrade to iOS 6. Anyone facing the same issue due to the upgrade?

Turn off LTE on an AT&T 5 and with HSPA+(4G) your battery will last all day. I know LTE uses more current, but it cant be this bad? iOS 6 was not ready. Scott F. needs to go.

I got my third Iphone 5 by UPS today...  (at least it's over night shipping)

and I'ts charging as we speak.

DFU restore, icloud back my contact and email et blabla...

Will keep you posted...

I find it strange that many are so fast to blame IOS 6 for their poor battery life. I have four iphone 5s and three are perfect. One has a problem with the battery draining on standby. I have exchanged it twice and it has not corrected the problem. I would be surprised if the vast majority of iphones have a problem since there are few comments on the internet relative to the number of phones sold.

If IOS 6 was bad it would probably effect most iphone users. So the problem may not be directly related to the software. The only thing my bad iphone and its replacements have in common is that they had the same SIM card and thus they are tied to the same phone number at Verizon. There could be multiple problems for different iphone5 users that are creating confusion and a lack of consistancy.

So here is my question for the experts here:,Is it remotely possible that a bad SIM card could cause the drain? OR Is it possible that Verizon or AT&T could have something in their network setup that effects certain specific customers?

iphone5rocks,

You say that you have verizon and SIM cards. This is impossible as Verizon is a CDMA network and does not use SIM cards. So I doubt your theory is possible. I wish though!

Your three perfect iphones, how much usage do you get from 100 to 0?

just an update from a few pages back.

i can confirm apple are aware of the issue and are investigating.

i have been sent a diagnostic tool from an apple engineer which i am running on my phone for the next 48 hrs; communicating the data back to them.

there may be light at the end of the tunnel for all iphone 5 owners.

if my phone doesn't fix itself by friday, it is going back to apple. permanently.

wasted too much time and effort into something that should work out of the box.

JhonathanMac,

The Verizon iphone 5s have SIM cards.

I have only tested my phones for standby loss. The good ones show only about less than 3-4% loss in a 12 hour period.

I just returned my two I phone 5'S .  We have been struggling for three days with the battery issue.  We have watched tons of forums and discussion.

We  have spent hours in the apple store changing settings and running diagnostics. We have restored the phone twice and brought back no apps just contact calendar and email.  Still no change in battery life.  It goes runs dosn about 1% every 2 minutes.  It is sooooo not worth my time.  I am back to my 4S.  We are soo sad that some folks have no battery issues?  The apple tech guy at genius bar state " There is nothing wrong with your battery "  . Humm then why after 2 hours does my phone battery say 1% and then turn off.  RETURN YOUR IPHONE 5 UNTIL THEY FIX THIS ?? GOOD LUCK ALL...

There is definitely a HUGE Bluetooth bug.. everyday I drive to work (about 20-25 minutes each way), every day I get to my desk in the morning and I am at 88-91% battery remaining.. that's pretty insane battery usage for just listening to mp3's over bluetooth.

I agree with you Spyd4r, BlueTooth and using Imessage drains my battery a lot.

To your earlier post of using the phone for almost 7 hours, that is pretty good. That usage indicates the phone is being used consistently for almost 7 hours, that is a lot of usage. I was able to get 1 day 3 hours of standby with 6 hours 54 minutes usage. I would have gotten more standby, I used GPS for about 45 min. during that time frame, plus I have only 2G service at work.

My friend got 2 days, 2 hours of Standby, and 5 Hours 32 min usage...with LTE on..

I'll be looking for your info from Apple.  Right now, my "5" is doing fairly well, I think, after its third charge.  Usage is 2 hours, 40 minutes and Standby is 1 day, 21 hours, with the battery percentage at 65%.  Have answered or made only a few calls, done several texts, and browsed the web some, and used some other apps.  No specific time on these, but I "think" my last iPhone, a "4," did approximately the same.