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Iphone 4s ios 7 battery issues

I posted this question in the basics forum, but it probably belongs here: Since installing iOS 7 on my iPhone 4s, the battery life seems to be significantly reduced, at least judging by how quickly my battery life percentage meter keeps dropping. I've gone through and turned off all sorts of settings, like location services on most everything, etc. Is anyone else experiencing a similar issue? Anyone know of any fixes?

iPhone 4S, iOS 7

Posted on Sep 19, 2013 10:26 AM

Reply
449 replies

Nov 27, 2013 4:37 PM in response to landminespring28

I waited 3 months. 3 iOS updates (now at 7.0.4) did not solve the battery drain problem ....may be aggravated it in my case. I restore the whole system at least 3 times. I tried all the tricks proposed by hundreds of blogs on internet. I fought with Apple 3 times.

My iPhone is still unusable and I need to move on!


Bye bye Apple! I am shopping for an Android system and I will buy by black Friday. Probably Sony Xperia Z1.


I wish a better solution for the other poor fellows experiencing similar problems.


Cheers

Nov 27, 2013 5:15 PM in response to Taildragon

More info:


The problem appears to be different now (7.04 vs. 7.01)


The battery charge indication jumps during or right after accessing digital data (e.g. email, browser). The charge level drops precipitously, then stays at that level for hours. Today, I had 86% charge at around 2 p.m. I read email for about 7 minutes, and the charge dropped to 56%. It's still at 56% now, at 6 p.m.


My theory: the battery manager is reading the voltage while the cell radio is operating with a heavy current load, resulting in voltage sag. Rather than throwing this reading out, or at least averaging, the manager sees this as the current charge state and doesn't reset it upwards when the load goes away.


While the battery is mostly charged (above about 50%), this is ok. As the battery drops below 50% (true charge), the voltage sag is enough that the battery manager thinks the battery is fully discharged, resulting in an immediate shutdown.


Plugging in the phone, even briefly, resets the charge reading, and viola, it shows a decent charge.


i can't see any workaround, other than don't use the Internet while not on WiFi.

Nov 28, 2013 7:10 AM in response to landminespring28

Dear Taildragon, Robinotter and other fellows here,

I am sure your analysis is right for your device. In my case:

2 days ago I boarded on a flight Munich-San Francisco. At Munich I turned off (I repeat: I SHUT DOWN, SWITCHED OFF ...OFF) my iPhone 4 (iOS 7.04) with 97% battery. When I landed in San Francisco about 11 hours later ....my phone battery was dead. 0% charge!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Even worse, it took about 1 hour of plug in time to recharge it to the minimum 5% and be able to turn on the device!!!


As I wrote in previous posts on this same blog, it is not a hardware problem (I change battery, I tried everythig possible. Apple "Geniuses" aslo agreed the device is fine). I do not know what iOS 7 did to my phone in specific tech terms, what I know is that it screwed it up and made it unusable.


Again ....I will buy an Android system asap.


Bye and good luck to all users.

Nov 28, 2013 8:30 AM in response to Giopippo

Hi guys,

I posted here last week because of the same situation.


I was intentioned to downgrade to 7.0.3, but I solved before my problems, at 100%:

  1. hard reset (home button and switch off)
  2. after last restart, leave iPhone (mine is 4s) to complete battery discharge and shutting down, without recharge until a full night down
  3. plug in charger for a full charge


Now, after a complete charge (from 7:00 AM to 1:00 PM), battery life is 95% (in Italy are 5:30 PM) after 3 calls, Apstore update of 5 apps, wifi and gps on, push mail of 5 accounts with several e-mails (but no browser navigation and other...).

5 % lost in 4 ours!! Same situation before 7.0.4 update.


I think that something was happened about battery calibration and iCloud syncing (that cause high CPU process that make warm the phone...).

Good luck!!

Dec 1, 2013 8:18 AM in response to landminespring28

I've had the same problems with the battery of my iPhone 4S, although the Genius Bar people at my apple store refused to believe it had anything to do with iOS 7. Having read this post I realise I'm not alone!

I've had a new battery installed, which has helped but my battery drain is still more than before ios7. I'd love to turn off some of the new graphics (eg, floating tiles, etc) which I really don't need. I've also switched off as many background apps and notifications as possible whilst keeping my phone usable for me.

Overall, I'm not happy! I'd happily switch back to iOS 6 if I could.

I'm seriously thinking of switching to an android. And I can't believe I'm saying that!

Dec 1, 2013 8:36 AM in response to landminespring28

Update - I finally caved and replaced the battery. It resolved all of my issues an works better than ever. I was convinced it was software due to exact timing with problems. Apparently software is much bigger draw exacerbating problems.

One thing of note that may prove useful to others - the "find my iPhone" feature was disabled by the tech when replacing my battery. I received an email stating that I would need to log in and enable it again. Apparently the software was replaced. Perhaps this may help some others. Good luck!

Dec 2, 2013 3:31 AM in response to Nai77

This is so crazy! I didn't even know I could get a new battery but now I have to do that just to use my phone after. Ridiculous update? It used I power off just under 20%. They fixed that with 7.03, although it would power off at 10%. Now it's back to powering off at 7.04.


Apple has really stopped listening to their customers in recent years. They expect me to upgrade to the 5 to make my problems go away? Fix the problem Apple. For shame.

Dec 2, 2013 2:40 PM in response to jdintheburgh

I had lots of these issues after iOS 7 updates, 7.04 did not resolve them either, I had already replaced the battery with no luck I again had the same issues; random reboots, poor battery life, etc. One thing I noticed while testing was the flash light would flicker if used below a 50% charge.


I had also been having some problems with the dock connector, I had this before iOS 7 the phone would get stuck in dock mode randomly, I know it was a damaged connector so I decided to replace it this morning, it seems to have solved all my issues including the iOS 7 battery issues, the light no longer flickers either.

I have just now run the battery down until the phone turned off, I could never get this before, it would simply keep restarting at around 6%.


Seems the damaged connector was a factor with my issues, I will update if I run into anything, could be worth a try to anyone having these peoblems

Dec 4, 2013 5:04 AM in response to landminespring28

I have 5 iPhone 4S and most of my family members have battery issues with their phones after the IOS7 "downgade". In fact, yesterday one of my daughter could not take it anymore and went to an Apple store and paid around $80 to replace her battery. My yougest daughter makes sure to bring her charger wherever she goes. As for me, yesterday I was at Yale - New haven Medical Center while my daughter was at her residency interview and my phone, which usually does not give me problems, at 2pm was losing power rapidly and was warm to the touch. I quickly turned off almost everything, WiFi Bluetooth and helplessly saw the numbers quickly plumet down to 1%. I did notice that it was connected to Sprint 1x, usually I am on Sprint 3G, so I wonder if this played a role or am I just grabbing at straws. Fortunately I had an iPad sharing the same Apple ID and was able to fire out a message to my daughter hat when her interview was done to not call me but text me to meet with her.


For the future it would be to Apple's advantage to allow users of futue iPhones to rapidly swap in a spare battery. Not an elegant solution but one that people can live with until the culprit, be it Apple's or third party, can be identified. Face it, most suggestions given are software work arounds, which is fine and dandy, but the battery swap would be a nice hardware work around.

Dec 4, 2013 6:07 AM in response to Dogcow-Moof

>Apple explicitly decided to not go with a replaceable battery for various reasons and they aren't about to change now.


While I love my iPhone if I can't have it last a day doing things like talk & text (I hardly use web since I have an iPad with me) I will have no choice but to look elsewhare. I am very tempted t go with the Moto X on Republic Wireless with their unlimited talk & text $10/mo plan but will probably wait until the iPhone 6 to decide. If the next iPhone still has the smallish screen and sucky battery life then I am outta here. Now mind you I will not leave the fold, but will resign to the fact that I will need two devices, one an Android bassed large screen phone and my iPad (grandfathered into AT&T unlimited LTE for $29/mo 🙂 )

Iphone 4s ios 7 battery issues

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