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Why is my iPhone5 battery draining so fast, worse than my iphone4?

My phone seems to be loosing battery really quickly. It came only slightly charged but I have since fully charged it and notice it drains much faster than my iPhone 4. Is anyone having similar issues? Frustrating!

iPhone 5, iOS 6

Posted on Sep 22, 2012 10:56 AM

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246 replies

Nov 16, 2012 10:18 PM in response to Boxergirl48

Ok here's my story. Got the Iphone , downloaded all my apps 4 pages worth, went camping for 2 days ,phone was 100 to start,70 the first day, 20% at end of 2nd day just a few calls and email checks. Following morning still at 10%. came home updated everything, activated I cloud and other stuff and now battery drains from full to very low win one day with normal (light) usage. Mensas?

Nov 26, 2012 1:09 PM in response to Boxergirl48

Maybe it's just me...maybe it's luck or there's something too this. Went from a 4 to a 5. Set the 5 up from the cloud back up of my 4. Battery life was horrible. I did a restore on the 5 and did not back up from the cloud again. I also turned off the photo stream and nothing else. LTE is on all day long. The phone was disconnected from power at 7:30am and it's now 4:05pm and the battery shows 51% without any supplemental charging. Phone calls, email, text and some other minor browsing. Battery shows marked improvement. Not sure if there's something in the restore from the cloud or not but this made an enormus difference for me. Pretty happy with the phone's battery life now.

Nov 26, 2012 1:19 PM in response to Boxergirl48

After growing tired of the battery issue, I made an appointment at the Apple store to have the phone swapped out. Even though some have reported no difference after swapping, I felt that Apple might not pay attention until phones started coming in because of this issue. Oddly enough, two days before my appointment my battery life increased to what I would consider normal and the phone was no longer constantly warm. The only change that I know of was the update of the Facebook app, I don't know why that would make a difference but it was the only thing that was different from one day to the next (Sadly, LTE is still not available in my area, so it wasn't that). I kept my appointment though, and swapped out the phone just in case. When I did I left it at the default settings to make sure battery life was fine, and after a few hours I restored the replacment phone from my backup. Two weeks now and battery life has been comparable to my iPhone 4. Can't say for sure if it's the phone or not, but I thought I would post this for others to consider.

Nov 26, 2012 4:20 PM in response to C.S. Hander

My iPhone 5 was working well when I intially received it on the launch date. I have not updated to 6.01 as I have read the issues with the update. I am not getting anything close to the estimates in use. Listening to a streaming radio app like Sirius kills the battery in 3 hours using ATT 3g or LTE with around an extra 1.5 hours using WiFi. The most troubling thing is how little talk time I get, 31 minute phone call ate up 9% and this is from a freshly charged phone. This no better than the iPhone 4. I can tell you no matter where I call from a slightly less than 2 hour call uses 50% of the power. Don't be telling me up to 8 hours internet use when I'm only getting three is acceptable. I have turned off anything that can be draining the phone. I am very particular in shutting down the apps to eliminate anything that could be draining the phone. When listening to streaming radio the display is off so the only drain is the Sirius app itself. I have used other radio apps and have gotten the same result. I'm sure the Apple store is going to tell me do a restore even though I'm positive that the battery was working much better when I got the phone. I have also done a full drain and charge, as a matter of fact I did this diligently when I first received. Obviously the battery is going deteriorate with time but not in 2 months. Should I ask for a replacement or are my real world results in line with others.

Nov 26, 2012 4:27 PM in response to JackStraw77

When I went in to the Apple Store, I described the conditions that the phone was constantly warm, that disabling cellular data stopped the battery drain, that I had done a restore and disabled bluetooth, wifi, etc with no change and that I had read a discussion thread on Apple's support sites that was 13 pages long (now 15 pages) with other users having the same issues. He tested the phone and the results came back that the battery was good and the phone was operating correctly. He said they wanted me to be happy with the phone, so he gave me the option of just documenting the issue, or replacing the phone (advising me that they wouldn't be able to keep giving me a replacement phone for the same issue). I chose to replace the phone. I am uncertain if replacing the phone corrected the issue, or the app update but mine seems to be working correctly after two weeks.


Your mileage may vary...

Nov 27, 2012 9:21 AM in response to spaztacular

Have you tried doing a restore? I had the same problem and a few of the others in this group had success with a restore. I backed up my phone to my mac and restored from the mac as well, not from the cloud, and my battery life is as it should be. I'm not a Heavy user, but i can go 2 days between charges now. Before the restore, i had to re-charge every 12-14 hours or less.

Dec 3, 2012 5:49 AM in response to nadz240

My phone has this same problem. Last night it stayed at 1% for nearly an hour. I even checked facebook, viewed a website, and installed Flick Golf since it was free this week. The phone still wasn't dead when I went to bed and plugged it in.


I've tried letting it die before and then recharging to see if that helps but no luck. Thinking I may want to visit a genius.


I mean, I think it's great that it keeps working so long at 1% but after unplugging my phone from charging all night and getting ready for work and not doing anything other than shut the alarm off, my phone is at 95% before I even leave my house. Weird.

Dec 18, 2012 10:07 AM in response to MajesticNJ

I posted here earlier about the terrible battery performance on my iPhone 5. At the time I blamed it on my ATT Microcell, since battery life was always horrible at home, but pretty good away. However, I've been trying all the suggestions posted here and elsewhere (backup/restore as new phone, location services, brightness, LTE off, notifications, iCloud, etc.) and continued to have problems. What seems to have worked for me is changing all my email from push to fetch. I still get new email without doing anything, but my battery performance has gotten alot better. For instance, my phone has pretty much only been in standby for 5 hours this morning (only one short call) and I'm still at 98%. Previously, I'd be closer to 50%.


I have iOS 6.0.1, Location Services On, most System Services On, LTE On, etc. I don't think that the switch from iOS 6 to iOS 6.0.1 fixed things because I had poor battery performance for several weeks after upgrading. Somehow, the change from push to fetch seems to have improved my battery performance. (Although I don't understand why push didn't cause battery problems away from home.)


I can't promise it will fix everyone else's problems, but it's worth a try.

Why is my iPhone5 battery draining so fast, worse than my iphone4?

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