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

Cros:

No music listening at all.  I don't even have music on my iPhone (never have)....it was a lot of web, 32 minutes of phone use, and setting up apps with passwords/etc.

Ramone:

I feel your pain. My thoughts are along the same line as yours. 

All I can offer is, go to the store and replace your phone.

Set it up - AS A NEW IPHONE, without using itunes - in the store and watch the battery while your surfing on the wifi provided by the apple store.

If your battery depletes at a rate HIGHER than 1% every 5 minutes, ask for another replacement instantly, because that one is also bad.

Update,

Went to the apple store today the specialist decided to give me a new replacement and wrote in her report that there was a 3% drop in just her doing the diagonistic which was unusual to say the least, started with a fresh iphone no back up. Will update when I do a full charge.

http://carat.cs.berkeley.edu/

I have turned off everything except Cell Network Search, Compass Calibration (I geochace), Traffic and Wi-Fi Networking.

I thought it would be worth sharing. I have done some further experimentation with battery life (using Carat as an scientific instrument of sorts) and, for those who have turned Push off like I have in my experiment, this may be a major contributor to poor battery life for whatever reason. Will others look into it to see if what I have found hold true?

@Tan

Please update.....I'm curious.  Be sure not plug into/sync with itunes until your first results come thru so you have a baseline.  I'm slowly moving forward with adding things.....cautiously....

@Handsfull,

I saw your original and updated Usage stats, congrats on the improvement.

I'd like to know, are you now getting 12 hours with lots of features off, some, or out of the box settings?

I only ask because I set up my iPhone 5 on launch day as a new phone, turned off all the great features, lowest brightness setting, conditioned my battery from 100% to 0 every time, etc and my battery life usage has gotten worse from 5 hours to currently 3 and 1/2 hours.

Before I invest the time @ the genius bar and setting up a second brand new iphone 5 i'd like to know if I can attempt leaving the settings like LTE and location services on this time around.

@Jmac

Go back a page and read my posts. The only solution is replacement at this point.  Everything else is just a band-aid.  People restoring as a new phone (like I did) ARE getting 'better' battery life......BUT NOT WHAT THEY SHOULD BE GETTING. 

Why would you settle for anything less than what you paid for?  It's like getting a Ferrari and accepting that it only runs on 4 cylinders.  No bueno.

Additionally @handsfull did you happen to notice what percentage your battery came in when you set it up and turned on the battery percentage setting?

I noticed something odd on my iPhone 5: it came out of the box with 100% battery. I've had every iPhone and this was the first one that ever displayed a charge over 60% out of the box.

Perhaps the battery was improperly conditioned by the factory. I'm just frustrated by people getting replacements with equal/less battery life. Any chance yours was replaced at a Genius Bar in NYC? Maybe they have a good batch...

Mine came with 60% -ish on it.   My replacement came from the Twin Cities, MN Apple store.

No such thing as "conditioning" Jmac.....that went out with Nickel metal hydride batteries.  We are working with lithium now.....

Ah I guess it is all the propaganda I have read on this very thread making me believe conditioning will allieviate the problems. I read your posts on the previous page and agree it is a hardware/software combination issue impacting different users differently.

My newest theory is that for people who set the phone up as new and then turn off all the features (disabling the good stuff) is perhaps causing lower battery life somehow. Just from reading half of this threat it seems that the people who turn off everything are getting the mediocre 5 hours to 7 hours max battery life while you and one or two others who left everything on reached the 10-12 peak.

After reading some of the posts in this thread, i'd like to contribute with my latest testing on my iphone 5.

- backup and restore done from an iphone 4 (not 4s)

- not using LTE, as it's not available in my country (yet)

after a couple days i noticed the battery life was about 6 to 8h (at the most) with what i consider "normal" usage, that is, checking emails, posting pics on facebook, taking pics, recording some videos, iMessaging, making a few phone calls, etc.

to me, a phone that can't hold it's battery from 100% to 10% (at least) throughout the day it's a big NO NO to me, cause sometimes i can't have a charger next to me.

So I started searching the web for answers about this problem and this is what i concluded:

- TURN OFF LOCATION SERVICES

this, is the number one feature to drain your battery, period.

the iphone 5 has some "advanced" settings that are by default on, and this is one of them

the result of turning this off was this, in a 16h period of "normal usage" the battery drained from 100% to 45%.

this, is actually better than the previous models of the iphone.

now, you may ask, "But I need the location services? Or not really?"

well, the answer is simple, if you need to use GPS software, yes. And this is where I advise you to turn ON location services ONLY when you're going to use your GPS NAVIGATION software (this usually implicates the phone to be connected to the car charger anyway), but make sure you turn it off after using the nav software.

try this and witness a new phone working in your hands.

i couldn't belive until i saw it with my own eyes.

i thought that the location services turning off option was BS regarding results, boy... was I wrong.

what location services do, when you're using the phone AND WHEN YOU'RE NOT, is CONSTANTLY communicate with the satelite via GPS, specially if u have "find my iphone" feature on.

GPS literally kills your baterry in a third of the time.

This is an issue that already comes from the iPhone 4S (not the iPhone 4 tho)

so there you go boys and girls

turn off the location services and see for yourself

regards

I think the difference is that some people actually "believe" their phone is running good at a day's worth of time.  I came from a 4s getting 3 days of standby, so I wouldn't accept anything less (or I'd go back to a 4s).

I strongly feel their is a hardware issue OR a software issue that relates DIRECTLY with a hardware component within the phone....but what do I know....I'm just smart enough to be dangerous -LOL.

@Traffic

Traffic, no offense, but it's posts like "disable this" or "disable that" that are clouding a resolution to this problem. The truth is, there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING YOU CAN DO that will remedy your phone, if it possesses the internal error....whether it be an OS bug or a hardware issue.  Period. 

Starting your car and then turning off the ignition switch isn't going to cure a flat tire, no matter how many times you do it.  Your spinning your wheels. Pun intended.

Yeah it's pathetic that my 2 year old applcare replacemtn iphone 4 is getting 8 hours of usage and 2 days standby and this brand new iPhone 5 is getting 3.5-5 hours usage <24 hours standby.

The people stating things like "turning off location services fixes the problem" are irritating me because it is just a cosmetic fix and not getting to the heart of the issue.