iOS 6.1 Battery Drain Problem

Yesterday my iPhone 4s iOS6.1 got hot like never before. To prevent it from overheating, i had to shut it down for a while. Battery was very low in no time. Thankfully this happend while the phone was in my jeans, so i noticed it early enough. Now everything is normal again, but im a bit confused!

@capitalr

You are the exception to the rule. 99.9999 percent of the CURRENT problem is related to Exchange. Without having a complete list of the half million or so apps and the crazy things they do, it would be impossible to troubleshoot your unique problem. I would recommend you start deleting apps in the order you have installed them over the past few weeks until your problem disappears. If its not the Exchange problem then it IS an app that don't like iOS 6.1.

Been following this thread since the beginning and I have to say, that I can't reach a conclusion to the cause of the problem. I believe that it's not only an exchange/calender nor just a network issue. The fixes people report (and tried myself) seem to be quite random. So, it seems there are multiple issues with 6.1.

My own iPad2 can't connect to exchange anymore, but I fixed the battery drain/heating by resetting network settings. As for my iPhone5 it is still going strong after trying any kind of fix you can imagine. Even had it working fine for a few days and then suddenly starting to heat and drain the battery. Right now it is working fine with two exchange accounts set to push and with calendar (Gmail and business).

Mako09, your suggestions are good, but I've been through all that. I already have the display set very dim, and killing off background apps had no effect at all on my problem. I have definitely isolated my particular problem to Exchange ActiveSync calendar looping. Others may have different problems, for sure, but that is my problem. It is easily demonstratable.

I have determined that I can "fix" my particular problem either by turning off the calendar in my Exchange account, or by setting the entire Exchange account (mail, calendar, contacts...) to be fetch only. I say "fix" with warning quotes, because it only cures the battery drain. I actually NEED my calendar and email to work and update in a timely fashion on my phone. I can't afford to miss meetings because they do not show up on my phone calendar. I NEED to have important email show up on my phone asap, not 15 or 30 minutes later.

But I'm still left with the fact that my buddy at work with the same iphone 5 is not having the same problem. I checked his phone settings last week, and it was the same as mine at the time, with push enabled for Exchange, and calendar enabled. I'm going to look at his phone again tomorrow using SysStatsLite to check that he does not have the problem and simple not know it.

In any case, I need to schedule another visit to the Apple store. Maybe there is something wrong with my particular phone. I'm willing to give them a chance to fix it.

Last night went to bed with my fully charged iPhone 5 (100%), woke up in the morning to find it at 75% (6 hours standby, no usage). Played a quick game of temple run, 75% drained to 70%. Checked my instagram, lost 2% more battery. Made a 5 minute call, phone at 60%. A few more web browsing and texting, phone is DEAD. Cellular data OFF, brightness at its lowest, push notifications or other notifications OFF, bluetooth OFF, no exchange account or email accounts registered on the Mail app. *** is this. And Apple saying that the battery life's better than ever? SCREW THAT. My 4S had better battery life. This *****!

@brojim62

You use the term 'exception' - yet others have the same issue. Yes it might be a minority, BUT to say that exchange is the main problem is wrong, when others dont use it.

You cannot conclude that it is therefore an app that doesn't like 6.1, how can you be 100% sure??

Also, even if I'm a minority that suffers a problem without exchange, I'm still an iPhone user with a major issue, therefore Apple should dedicate just as much time to finding and fixing the cause.

The Exchange problem is likely not the ONLY problem in the 6.1 release. But it IS the main problem.

http://www.iphonehacks.com/2013/02/ios-6-1-devices-microsoft-exchange-access-blo cked-excessive-logging.html

I'll give them a week. I bet 6.1.1 drops into the picture by Friday!

I don´t use microsoft-exchange or something llke that, but my iPhone got **** hot yesterday after i made an repeating entry in my calender which is synched via icloud. This was the first time i did this since i´m on 6.1 and it´s the only time my iPhone got this hot and lost battery this quick. So common sence: there might be a problem with the calender but there might be a lot of other problems with this update!

That is also my conclusion. I bet we will never get the full story from Apple. They will most likely fix it (eventually) but never talk about it.

Have seen media coverage about it, both locally but also from Cnet etc. My carrier says they have many customers reporting the issue (in my country its the seller - ie the carrier - that is the responsible part. The customer would never contact Apple directly).

@capitalr

I share your frustration with this issue. It should NEVER have happened. There is ALWAYS a way to work around the issue until Apple gets off their butts and fixes the OS. Exchange IS the main problem no matter how much we wish it wasn't. The other issues are going to be tied into the communications, ping, polling, or other network type problems that ARE related to those associated with Exchange.

Keep in mind, your phone or pad IS a wireless device. It's ALL about wireless communication. Everything you use on the device communicates wirelessly at some point in time...even if it is only to check the server to see if an update is ready.

At no point in time did I imply your problem was any less valid than anyone else's problem. But when the communication issue with Exchange is solved, I bet your issue will resolve as well! The iOS 6.1 seems to get caught up in an endless loop of pings--primarily related to Exchange. Who says it doesn't affect other ports? Who knows? But they better get it fixed! Or I see a class action headed their way!!!!

All three of my kids have the iOS 6.1 on theirs and this is the first I've heard of it. Don't use a cell phone, I'm retired but I'm interested if there's a problem about their phones batteries draining or getting hot. I hope this gets resolved soon. Has anyone called tech support?

Just signed onto this blog and have over a dozen emails on this. It's improved the iPad I use, I'm disabling email notifications. Just poking around and got myself into something I have no answers to. Good luck!

@brojim62

fair point made, it could be linked to that.. its very annoying and frustrating !
At times, i cannot use my iPhone for more than a minute or two as it randomly starts heating up to such a ridiculous point... also the battery drains quick/when in standby, but even worse when its overheating.

I'm tempted to take it to the Apple store in London in the next week or so if an update isnt released and/or doesnt fix the issue. I might even ask for a new iPhone, ill have to see what they say!

iOS6.1 has not made my iPhone 4 worse. The bad times began with iOS6. I tracked it down to a continuing loop in Safari bookmarks update over iCloud. With that feature turned off in iCloud and some other battery sucking featured turned off (notifications, push), battery longevity has been normal. Now, I can't delete any Safari bookmarks on my iPhone. Did a backup and restore yesterday, and while the phone seems faster, the old bookmarks are there forever. I was hoping to delete all of them off the phone and then sync to a leaner set on iCloud that have been created on the iMac, but no go. I've been a Mac user since being a new purchaser of an LCII way back when. I've never been so frustrated as with iOS6.

You may have already tried the following, but this worked for me after seeing significant battery drain even in standby mode (100% charge to 70% in 2 hours) with IOS 6.1 on my iPhone 5 and iPad 3, but not my iPad Mini.

1. Back up your device. I suggest using iTunes/iCloud.
2. On the device, select Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings
3. In iTunes, Restorse iPhone to default settings
4. iTunes will reinstall IOS 6.1
5. Restore your backup from iTunes (or iCloud)

After going through this process on both my iPhone 5 and iPad 3, both device with moderate use are lasting more than 16 hours without any significant battery drainage. Tedious, but worth a try. And I have 2 Exchange accounts and active calendar use and I'm not experiencing the issues others have reported with my Calendars. I also downloaded BatteryDoctor to all my devices to help track my usage. 24 hours later and all devices are holding strong under reasonable use. 🙂

Had the same battery issue on my 4S since 6.1 upgrade - it seems in some case there is an issue related to the Exchange Calendar support.

Disabling "Calendar" for any of the Echanges accounts, in Settings=> Mail, Contact, Calendar" seems to do the trick.

While I war running out of battery after only 5-6 hours since the 6.1 upgrade last week, I'm now back to normal for my own usage (15-17 hours), and this for the last 3-4 days.

Hopefully 6.1.1 will fix that soon...

note:

Disabling Calendar sync will obvously remove any calendar entry synced from your exchange server (it won't delete it on the server side, only on the IPhone).... So obvously not an ideal workaround, but enables you to get an IPhone up and running during the whole day.