Q: Iphone 5s battery drains fast after ios 7.1 update.

Ok so I fully charged my 5S all day long till ~5:00 PM.  Did not touch it till 7:00AM.  Pre-7.1 I'd have 96%-98%...this morning 81%.  My wife's iPhone 5 same thing, charged all day till 5-6:00PM looked at 7:00AM she had 86%.  Nothing has changed except we updated to 7.1.  No one @ Apple con convince me that this isn't caused from the 7.1 update.  We need a patch fast!  this is extremely frustrating esspecially if I am out all day away from a charger.

Don't bother

no one will help you and no one know the real problem

since the iOS 7.1 and no one know the problem everyone give you tips on how to survive with the battery but no one wana do a real analysis for the iOS and apple dont care yet seems my experience with apple going to an end soon i heat to do that but the whole purpose of the phone to make my life easier not worse and having to worry about the battery every 3 hours

I have almost 1,000 € paid for it and can use a maximum of 4 hours: (

thank you apple for scrap!

@DaveOJr, @Khaledsafadi @elbingo did you read my message from earlier today. I posted a link to a blog from a former Genius bar employee which mentioned other things then the standard blogs/news sites have posted. I also mentioned a link from a post that in which i explained what kind of things i tried.

What did you do already? 

Question 1) Did you read the blog post i mentioned?

Question 2) Does your iPhone have the exact same Usage time as Stand-by time or not (see Settings > General > Use > ..)?

If this usage time is not exactly the same as the stand-by time then  it could be that it simply is a hardware issue (battery itself) and not software (iOS) related.

Question 3) What kind of settings do you have on your iPhone e.g. the below things could cause a huge battery drain ever since the recent iOS release can still run in the background (if you have 'refresh in background' or GPS turned on for some apps).

We have two iPhone 4S phones and we have an average battery time of 1-1,5 day (when using it for e.g. a few calls, texts, mail, news apps and a short video for e.g. total of 3-4 hours) or even 2 days (if i don't use my phone much almost 90% stand-by time) and with WIFI connecting for about 90-95% of the day and ofcourse phone network but no 3G.

Aside from that we have the following settings which could save a lot of battery:

- bluetooth off

- screen brightness set to approximately 30%

- fetch e-mail accounts once an hour (Settings > E-mail, calendar .. > deselect 'Push' and set it to either Fetch e.g. once an hour)

- do not refresh any apps in the background (Settings > Refresh apps on background)

- apps that use GPS are limited (Settings > Privacy > Location tracking)

- only have a few apps (5-10) that are allowed to send push notifications

- only have a limited amount of apps to send messages to 'Notification center' or e.g badgets/strips/sounds/apps symbol or on your 'Access screen' (See Settings > Message center > check settings per app)

I think that 3G uses more battery then WIFI so if you have WIFI access then use that instead of 3G.

@pacorob I hear what you are saying but again it all doesn't matter.  I had no issues with either my 5S or my wife's 5 until the 7.1 update.  Coincidence?? I think not.  And I paid a lot of money for this phone as well as paying a lot of money for my service each month so why should I now have to shut off features that I have been enjoying prior to this update?  You can't argue with that.

Bottom line Apple needs to address this issue that I am sure they are fully aware of.

I also feel the same way to you today, you're right we paid a lot of money for these phones we pay a lot of money for the service and Apple says the best you can do is to turn everything off which I make them no better than up the phone. My question is why has Apple been so belligerent and not addressing this problem quickly? We watch these phones that have applications to be able to use as needed and desired not turn all the applications off is what Apple support us telling us to do that makes no sense they make the phone the hardware they promoted is the best phone and week can not use it as a scribe or promise and all their sales advertisement. I have even emailed Katie Cook at Apple about 10 days ago that you have to get a response from him. According to the website it says he does reply to emails I am so waiting. I guess one consumer really doesn't count please also many Apple products. It may be time to say goodbye to Apple products at this time, it's getting too frustrating to have to deal with everything they want us to do when they can have a software or hardware package to take care of our problems until Loubier all or aggravation. I had no problem until the 7.1 update in the new update that just came out was no help at all my phone and iPad both battery drain much faster than ever did before. I got my iPhone 5s today Kimmo I enjoyed it greatly until the 7.1 update my battery use the last day and a half to two days now I'm very lucky if I can get 10 hours on a good day. In a few months I'll be able to update and I will probably go to Samsung.

My wife and I had that also however since iOS7.0.6 and still with iOS7.1 on our iPhone 4S. In our case it was a rogue app which kept running in the background by using GPS which didn't have any problems before iOS7.0.6.

You could aswer this simple question so we as readers do know a bit more then 'my battery is draining'.

Question 2) Does your iPhone have the exact same Usage time as Stand-by time or not (see Settings > General > Use > ..)?

I'm not saying to turn off every feature but that you need to understand that some features can cause battery drainage as mentioned in my previous post.

Aside from turning off the bluetooth, I use many battery saving features.  Before 7.1, my iPhone 5 with what was normal use for me, would hit the 20% battery life warning after 10 hours.  After updating to 7.1, my phone is dead in half the time, and that's with conservative use.

I've turned off background updates completely, and I manually shut down apps after using them.  Battery life is still miserable.  There are no rogue apps running.

Usage and standby times are accurately displayed.  I'm to the point where I don't want to use my phone for anything than absolutely necessary so I have some battery life when I do need it.

Pacorab, I did try the solutions you posted, to no avail.  My Usage & Standby times are not the same, so I know it's not a battery issue.  I did find the blog post by the Genius Bar guy helpful - esp. the thing about shutting down background apps possibly draining the battery faster. 

I previously posted   https://discussions.apple.com/message/25486198#25486198 a fix I thought helped, by changing a setting with mail downloading.  It seemed to help for a day or two, but then the drain was back.  I tried another solution on Tuesday evening which so far has helped a *ton* - although it's only been about 1-1/2 days. https://discussions.apple.com/message/25130998#25131151   

I didn't monitor my battery life before Tuesday.  But before trying the fix, on Tuesday the battery went from 70% to 60% in 2-1/2 hours of light use (checking email & not much else).  Yesterday, also with light usage, my battery was at 96% at 11:40 a.m., and 82% at 10:41 p.m.!!  That's a drain of only 14% in 11 hours!!  Today I am going to monitor usage, standby times & battery life together.  I'll keep you all posted.

This happened to me so make sure to close apps when not using phone.

@jamiefromwoodinville you are saying that your usage and stand-by time are not the same that could mean that it is in fact a battery (hardware) issue on your end. If it is the same it probably is a software issue as i said and also the former Genius is indicating this on his blog.

The usage you mentioned of only 14% in 11 hours on Wednesday 23rd of April is perfectly fine. The 70% > 60% within 2,5 hours could have to do with an app that was still running in the background e.g. for GPS or background refresh. I've had similar changes when i used an app for houses nearby which is using quite some GPS. I don't think there is anything wrong with that battery usage.

@racheliesti since recent iOS versions apps could still be running in the background although you closed the app. Apple now approves that apps of which you selected that they can use GPS or can refresh in background that this could still run although you 'closed' the app by sliding away the app (home button twice and slide away open apps). It's best to very selective in which apps can or can't use those two things.

Since my update to 7.1.1, what was some days ago, my battery performance is back to normal. It was seriously bad before, my phone was asking for the charger at 4pm with moderate use.

To be honest my wife's gold 5s never had any battery issues. Does anyone think that some components are not the same in 5s color variants?

Ah, yes - I understand re. battery.  In any event, none of the other fixes worked before I tried the one I mentioned yesterday.  But after the fix, I was able to go almost two solid days withut a charge (charging at around 40% battery life).  I woke up today and my phone is at 95%!

I updated to 7.1.1 and noticed a slight improvement.  Pre 7.1, I would stream audio using TuneIn Radio on my 30 minute commute to work, and the battery would only drop about 2%.  With 7.1, battery life would drop 20% with the same usage. 

Yesterday, the battery went from 100% to 92% on the same commute.  Also, I made it home after an 8 with 15% battery remaining.  I must add that I barely used my phone during the day.

Today things are not looking as grand.  30 minutes of streaming audio dropped my percentage from 100% to 82%.  I'm going to try restoring my phone this evening and seeing if that makes a difference.

Still very dissatisfied.

So far, there seems to be no rhyme or reason to whose phoen is effected.  I have a 4S and had the same issue.  So far the fix I found here seems to have made all the difference.  Before trying the fix (which is VERY simple & doesn't involve a restore) my battery lost 10% in 2-1/2 hours of extremely light useage.  After the fix it lost 15% after 11 hours of very light useage.  I was able to go about 45 hours between charges (1st charge at about 40% battery, second at about 45%), aside from a slight charge when syncing to my computer - about 10 minutes.  I'd love to know if this fixes it for other people!