iPhone 5 short battery life?

My Iphone 5 had decent battery life until I recently updated to the new IOS software upgrade. It deteriorated significantly and is currently at unacceptable levels so I expect Apple to correct this promptly.

Since this has been an ongoing issue with some of the upgrades, I've given it some thought and have found a solution for some folks currently dealing with this (where iOS 6.x may be the issue).

In my case, I'm using an iPhone 5 w/ iOS 6.1. I noticed after installing the latest minor iOS update the power issue. I thought my battery was going to ****. As people have noted, it is an iOS problem, and Apple will need to address it. In the meantime, I have a fix that might help.

Here is kinda the full solution I've gone through - first to diagnose the problem (rule out the idea that the battery is the problem), and then to try and put at least a temp fix for it.

First, I think it helps to pick up the Battery Life app from the AppStore. In particular, it gives you a nice time line graph of battery usage in terms of charge/use.

• One thing I would do is use this app to record battery usage patterns over time. If you do a full battery charge (i.e. from 20% charge, uninterrupted, to full), this produces a nice red line sloping upwards to 100%.
• Now, assuming you have done all of the things Apple asks of you:
  • Turn off location services and notifications
  • Kill apps that are eating up memory
    • Press the home button 2x in quick succession and this will open a window on the bottom which shows current apps running.
    • Press and hold any one of the icons in the bottom window until they 'shake' (just like deleting an app you don't want).
    • Sweep through the apps you don't absolutely need in memory (usually only phone and mail can be left), and tap the 'x' on them to kill the app.
      • Alot of apps in memory is one of the things I'm thinking could be the issue.

If, all other things shut down and your Battery is still spilling its guts - do the following:

1. Backup your iPhone to whichever source you prefer (iCloud or your own system via iTunes).
2. Connect your iPhone to your computer and open iTunes.
3. Place the iPhone in DFU mode ( http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=1034 ).

   This may take several tries to get it right. I find it easier to start from when the phone is on, hold both the home and Sleep/Wake buttons for ~10sec and then continue to hold the Home button until you get an alert box on your computer. Your iPhone screen should be completely blank.

4. Restore your iPhone as prompted. It will take it back to factory settings.
5. At this point you can Restore your iPhone from the backup you made earlier.
6. Make sure and complain to Apple what happened and the fix, so they'll patch it sometime SOON. The more people complain the better.
7. Voila.....or something...

If this didn't work for you, then your battery may indeed be faulty. Hope this helps!

Are you really suggesting these things? Do you work for Apple? These are the same things they are telling us to do, which, if you read this forum, you will find DO NOT work.

Last night I thought my Iphone 5 would burn a hole through my trousers it became so hot. And that is after I have restored it to factory default several times, and closed all apps, and locations services etc etc etc etc etc etc etc.

Its simple. The Iphone 5 battery is not only useless, but can also be described as dangerous as it is becoming so hot.

iPhone is not 10 year old Nokia with working time two or more days without charge.

If your phone works max 8-12hours without charge - then you have perfect iPhone 5.

If your phone works only 5-6hours and it heated up in stanby mode in your pocket - then this you can fix with full restore from iTunes (connected to Mac (PC)). But I'm not an expert.

p.s. if you have Exchange email account you can tray to delete it and make hard reset (Home+Power buttons) and after set it back. My iphone was started to heat up after I opened Mail, but not in first date after iOS6.1 update. Something was wrong in settings after OTA update to 6.1. Restore from iTunes help to me, now I charge only every night.

No I don't work for Apple. I just happened to do some digging to find something that might help me take a shot at diagnosing and providing a fix and it worked for me. Note I mentioned this may work for SOME, not ALL folks.

Note also that I did not mention overheating problems.

Some of these problems with the latest update may have slightly different presentations and thus may need completely different approaches to amend.

But in my case, my object was to attempt to diagnose the problem as if it were a desktop. Using BatteryLife allowed me to look at rates of change in charge over time. Looking at all the apps that were being called into memory and eating up RAM even though I never called those apps hinted to me that this was definitely related to the iOS upgrade.

Once I actually conducted the factory reset to the original 6.1 build, and I restored my data on the phone from backup, it has behaved normally ever since.

So I posted what I found. Although what I proposed may not work in all cases, I can also imagine where the process may have failed for some folks and they didn't see a result. What I've seen with 2 colleagues of mine whose phones had the same symptoms was that they had actually placed the phone in to recovery mode, not DFU mode.

There's a big difference here, and they can be engaged via a very similar shutdown process (which I think was a really dumb idea by Apple). All it takes is mistiming your button holds. That's why I said doing this may take several runs. It took me 3 tries to get it right.

The factory reset technically should force your phone to operate as you received it out of the box, before any other apps/modifications had been implemented. If there is still an issue, then battery or some other hardware could indeed be something else to consider.

Anyway, that's why I posted, and the solution worked. So I'm unclear why you're painting such large brushstrokes to say this method will not work. These sorts of incidents can be hit or miss on both the emergence of the problem and 1 or more approaches to solving it.

My iPhone 5 had battery problems through the pre 6.1 firmwares and I had complained on this post like everyone else. However after the 6.1 update, it's actually getting quite decent. I'm not too sure if its all due to the firmware or because during the same period I was draining my phone to 0% letting it auto shut down and charging to full overnight.

I'm thinking maybe the battery calibration got screwed by the updates previously (happened to my Android phones sometimes). But anyway, after 3 full cycles I'm definitely seeing improvements with normal usage. Lasts through the day even with pretty heavy usage (3-4hrs of semi-continuous Internet usage, although the phone would track double that amount under "usage" and more than 12 hours standby.

I've also deleted apps that have not been updated to support the latest firmwares, especially those that still ran in the shorter screen modes.. So that could have helped with the background drains somewhat from outdated or poorly written apps.

I would like to point out that I was so frustrated that I got myself a Samsung Galaxy S3. Which frustrated me even more.. The battery life wasn't greener on the other side at all.. Even with SetCpu and Juice Defender Ultimate running on my rooted phone..

I'm happy to say I've gone one round and concluded that my iPhone still tops them all, although I really wish Apple would squeeze a bigger battery in! Samsung did we'll to go with bigger screens that allowed them bigger batteries underneath and still keep pretty slim.. Cheap move but it paid off.

And yeah I don't work for App,e either although I wish I did :)

I got this iphone 5 thinking the battery would be great and guess what it was at first with the ios 6.0 it was the best. My standy time was 2 days and 2 hours and my usage was 12 to 14 hours.

NOW WITH THIS LATEAST IOS 6.1 ITS RUBBISH. MY STANDBY TIME IS 1 DAY AND USAGE IS 6 HOURS. THIS UPDATE 6.1 IS SO HOPELESS, APPLE SORT YOUR IOS UPDATE.

I have had an Iphone5 since day one, from the start I had very fast battery drain.I would do a restore and it would fix the problem, but ever since the newest update I tryed to restore to fix the battery drain 3 times and It didnt work... Apple replaced my phone and still im having the problem! I will turn everything off at night and within 7.5 hrs of sleeping I will wake up to 11% life..from 100%.

this is getting very annoying! D: Ugh.

That's strange@benjamin

I actually went to general>reset>rest all settings (did it 5 times in a row) and the battery seems better. Try it and see how it goes man 😎 hope it helps

My issue is around an Microsoft Exchange account stuck performing send/receive and heating up my device. I deleted the account and the phone gets wonderful battery life. I've added the account back but it started having the same issue. So guess Apple needs to push out a fix for that. Otherwise my battery is drained in just under 4 hours on STANDBY!

After doing multiple restore and lot of play i was able to narrow my heating and battery drain problem to calender sync with exchange on ios 6.1.

Turn off calender sync under exchange acount and my battery is back to normal usage and phone doesn't heat any more.

Where do I turn this off in my settings?

Thanks.

I am new to the forum but have for a long time suffered with this battery draining problem. Like everyone else I have tried all that is recommended and to no avail. I was hoping that iOS 6.1.2 would've fixed this but still no luck.

My sister has an IPhone 4S and her battery is rubbish as well. My wife has an iPhone 5 yet her battery is incredible. Way better than my IPhone 5 yet she uses hers so much more.

None of us have Exchange so I ruled that out.

What I think it could be, and there are a couple of forums on this, although it isn't that widely publicised is a problem with the proximity sensor. I work with CCTV and I noticed on a camera today that my proximity sensor was constantly flashing whenever the phone is "awake". It doesn't matter what app you have got, it's constantly flashing. It's done via infra-red so you can't see it with your eyes normally. I checked my sisters IPhone 4S and hers was also constantly flashing but instead of it being rapid flashing like it is with the iPhone 5, it was slow but regular pulses.

I then checked my wife's iPhone 5 which has excellent battery life and hers was not lit at all.

I checked the settings for Siri incase the option for "raise to speak" was on but it was switched off.

I did a full reset of the phone and set up as a new one with no backup on it at all and the sensor doesn't come on. I restore it from a backup and the light is back flashing. This has to be draining the battery and there can be no reason to explain why it is flashing.

So I urge you all to check your phones. The easiest way is to use a webcam or a CCTV camera and point the phone at it making sure the screen is on. If you have a light flashing by your speaker grill then your sensor is on. If not then that rules that out. Some cameras won't work as they have IR filters inbuilt. I used my MacBooks camera to test. To make sure your camera will pick up the image I used a TV remote and pointed at the camera and pressed a button. If it flashes then the camera will pick up Infra-Red. It's also best to do it in a dark room.

There has to be a bug with this sensor and so if everyone who is suffering with battery problems on the iPhones have this problem, hopefully Apple will take note and provide a fix for it.

I hoped the new update would fix my battery, but nope! D:

Hi pmiddlet72, can you say which battery life app you are referring to? I looked and there are many there and you mention different steps and tools it offers, so knowing specifically which app you are discussing would help.

Michelle