iPhone 5s Battery Dies Quickly Even On Standby

Question

Level 1

6 points

iPhone 5s Battery Dies Quickly Even On Standby

I have an iPhone 5s. I've owned it for exactly 1-year today. After a full, overnight, charge, battery begins to lose battery life even when not in use (standby). When on standby for 10-15 minutes, battery reduces by 10%. This continues until phone completely dies in less than 6 hours, even when the phone is not in use all day!

Even after disabling all the below features, phone battery still drains faster than normal, even when the phone is not in use:

Background App Refresh is Disabled.
Bluetooth is Disabled.
Cell Network Search Disabled.
Location Services Disabled.
Push Notification Turned Off.

In other words, all the features that one would presume would work fine with a 1-year old iPhone 5s have been turned off. To even think about owning an iPhone only to partially use its ideal features in order to conserve battery power is poor product design. This phone should work perfectly on standby for 250 hours, according to Apple TechSpecs, not 4 hours!!!

All other discussions in this forum do not discuss this type of issue.

Also, the fact that Apple is now charging $19.99 for a tech support phone call/text causes me to question the integrity of its services and products going forward. These phones should have more than a 1-year manufacturer warranty, unless Apple conspires to the "Planned Obsolescence" philosophy, which ended up hurting Microsoft in the long-run. In other words, stop nickel-and-diming your loyal customers!

iPhone 5s, iOS 7.1.2

Posted on Sep 27, 2014 3:22 PM

Reply

Answer 1

pberk

Level 2

321 points

Sep 27, 2014 3:51 PM in response to SinceAppleII

Try this: Instead of "topping off" your battery,let it run completely out next time (so that it goes dead)... then give it a full charge... and see if that helps.

Also, use the charger that came with the phone - not all third party chargers are delivering the correct specs...

Reply

Answer 2

SinceAppleII Author

Level 1

6 points

Oct 2, 2014 10:36 AM in response to pberk

pberk,

Thanks for taking interest into this issue. Unfortunately, I've let my battery drain and then gave it a full charge several times and the issue still persists.

Additionally, I scheduled an appointment with an Apple Genius who took a diagnostic of my phone and found that, sure enough, my phone was closely using the same amount of battery charge as the amount of time my phone was being in use, even when the phone was on standby. The Genius also said that this was an issue he'd seen before and it was an issue with the iOS software, not hardware. He said the only resolution was to restore the phone, and to specifically NOT back it up since the issue is with the software. Sadly, while most of my photos and music can be downloaded again, I will lose about 8 years worth of text messages if I do this, as that can't be saved independently.

Lastly, although I've restored my phone 3 times now, I'm always given the prompt of adding my iCloud password, which then downloads my recently backed up iOS, so I'm struggling to find a way just to restore the phone to its original factory settings. So currently, I'm not even sure if a restore will solve the phone battery issue.

If you have any further insights or guidance, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Reply

Answer 3

pberk

Level 2

321 points

Oct 2, 2014 2:50 PM in response to SinceAppleII

Do you use the Messages app on your desktop as well?

Reply

Answer 4

ChrisJ4203

Level 10

230,347 points

Oct 2, 2014 2:53 PM in response to SinceAppleII

SinceAppleII wrote:

I will lose about 8 years worth of text messages if I do this, as that can't be saved independently.

There are 3rd party applications that can archive those text messages to your computer. You will just not be able to put them back on the phone. Look for Touchcopy. It works on both the PC and Mac platform. Minor cost if you have a lot to do, but it is well worth it for what you can do with it.

Reply

Answer 5

pberk

Level 2

321 points

Oct 2, 2014 3:21 PM in response to SinceAppleII

If you are using a mac and your messages appearing the desktop app as well as on your phone all of your messages arearchivesin your user library and you can reopen any of those conversations in Messages just by clicking on them! In your desktop message preferences, just make sure "Save history when conversations are closed" is checked.... if it is, all of your conversations are archived on your mac already.

If not, check it now. I would then quit messages and reopen - and then check in your library to see if the file is there (the file names have the name of the person or phone number that appears on the conversation in Messages)... I would test it before going further, i.e., close an unimportant conversation that you don't care if its saved. Then look in the library files to see if you can click on that conversation and everything comes back - if so, I think you can then do the same thing with the particular conversation that is so important to you to save.

Reply

Answer 6

MacRyan

Level 1

4 points

Oct 2, 2014 4:29 PM in response to SinceAppleII

Hi there -- do you know that there's an Apple Recall on some batches of iPhone 5 ? Mine had the battery problem too. It ran down quickly - and frequently shut down showing 30 or 40% battery - especially if picked up from standby and an app opened. Usually it was the camera, or the calendar. Maddening when immediate access is required for a diary entry or to take a quick photo.

I was almost at the "bounce phone off wall" stage, when I saw that this recall appeared.

The recall (and an associated recall for the Sleep/Wake button) is in tiny print at the bottom of

the /support/iphone page : here's the link - https://www.apple.com/support/iphone5-battery/

You type in your serial number and it tells if it's eligible for upgrade. I got mine done a few days ago. They also replaced the Sleep/Wake button on the same job, even though mine wasn't behaving faulty.

Best Wishes

Reply

Answer 7

SinceAppleII Author

Level 1

6 points

Oct 3, 2014 11:22 PM in response to MacRyan

MacRyan,

Thanks for your feedback; however, I checked my phone's serial number with this link prior to this post, and unfortunately my phone does not fall under that recall.

That being said, I contacted Apple support for a second time and explained my situation, and they were willing to replace my battery for free as a one time exception even though my phone was only 12 days past its factory warranty. When I went to replace the battery today, they apparently had to give me a new phone because there was an issue replacing the battery.

I plan to restore my phone using a backup just before this issue happened. It's possible that the backup could impact the battery life based on whatever data I have stored on it. Should be able to tell if the issue persists in a couple of days.

Thanks again everyone for your input.

Reply

Answer 8

Oct 10, 2014 8:11 PM in response to SinceAppleII

SinceAppleII

I am having the exact same issue with my phone.

5S warranty expires Nov 15th.

How is your phone since Oct 3?

Cheers,

Reply

Answer 9

SinceAppleII Author

Level 1

6 points

Oct 10, 2014 8:34 PM in response to phormstudio

Phormstudio,

So far so good with my replacement phone. My phone lasts all day now. But keep in mind my phone was replaced entirely; it wasn't just a battery replacement. I downloaded my backup info and that hasn't affected my battery performance.

I'd bring your phone in and explain the issue to Apple, and hopefully they'll replace the battery and it will be a significant difference.

Good luck!

Reply