Is my iPhone4 battery draining too quickly?

looks like your standby went way up with a 9% battery drop. Whats the problem?

Your phone usage appears to be fine. When Apple says 300 standby hours and 6-10 hours of internet use, it doesn't mean standby *plus* internet use. It's one or the other. So as a combo, your phone is doing fine. Don't forget that there are other things that can deplete your battery as well, such as bluetooth use, using location services, brightness levels, etc.

also, if you're in a low signal area, your battery will drain quicker. as the phone will up the power it's using to talk back to the cell tower.

I worked in one building, where everyone's cell (didn't matter the network) got very spotty reception, and even people who could normally go for 2 or 3 days, would have to recharge in the middle of the day.

I thought id tag onto this instead or creating another thread.

has anyone noticed battery drain since updating to 4.0.1. myself and a few friends have 3gs. since updating, our batteries will drain within 10 hours from fully charged to dead flat. just wanting to know if anyone else has noticed this.


cheers

Mine gets a little less than that with mostly 3g web browsing...but its still amazing compared to doing that same thing on a 3GS

5fingers said:

Just trying to determine if this is normal battery performance. Stand-by usage is quoted at 300 hours by Apple and 8-10 hours for internet use. To me it looks like I am way under those values.

Trying to determine if other users have better or the same performance as myself.

Click to expand...

It’s not 8-10 hours for internet use. It’s 6 hours for 3G only, and 10 hours for wifi only. It looks like you were using 3G, so you’re probably okay. However, you said you did a “reset.” You need to restore and setup as new, not reset.

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0 like Mac OS X; en-gb) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A293 Safari/6531.22.7)

The battery life on my iPhone 4 is appalling. After getting it I thought the days of daily or sometimes bidaily charging were long gone. Turns out my 2 year old 3G lasts much longer.





I am writing this on the bus and it is literally dropping 1% every 2-3 minutes. This is unacceptable.








Is this normal battery life for the iPhone 4?!





Ps my reception is fine!

I am getting much better battery life with my iPhone 4. Don't forget that since we have multitasking now you have to close out the apps you have open. To do this press the home button twice and it will list all open apps. To close them out hold down each app until you see the red minus sign. I would also suggest turning off any features you may not be using like 3G or WIFI.

Your battery is fine. I think a little bit of the OCD is getting to you. Turn off the usage percentage and just use your phone instead of worrying about your battery.

If I want condescension I'll speak to my girlfriend thanks. Fact of the matter is I do use my phone - for 3-4 hours and then it dies. I was just asking other members whether this was normal battery life for a new iPhone 4? If not then obviously I want to get it looked into...

I too thought the battery was draining quickly. I bought an app called Battery Doctor and after following instructions on charging, the battery now performs normally.

littledigger said:

I too thought the battery was draining quickly. I bought an app called Battery Doctor and after following instructions on charging, the battery now performs normally.

Click to expand...

Can you specify what it is about Battery Doctor that you think helps the battery perform better?

I bought it recently and I don't know if there was anything I was missing, but all I got from the app was how much time it takes to charge to get to a full charge. Aside from that and some tips on what drains the battery, I could not see what the fuss is all about this app... All help would be appreciated. Thanks

capitation said:

Can you specify what it is about Battery Doctor that you think helps the battery perform better?

I bought it recently and I don't know if there was anything I was missing, but all I got from the app was how much time it takes to charge to get to a full charge. Aside from that and some tips on what drains the battery, I could not see what the fuss is all about this app... All help would be appreciated. Thanks

Click to expand...

Battery Doctor is a scam and will do nothing to improve your battery.

iHeartapple2 said:

I am getting much better battery life with my iPhone 4. Don't forget that since we have multitasking now you have to close out the apps you have open. To do this press the home button twice and it will list all open apps. To close them out hold down each app until you see the red minus sign. I would also suggest turning off any features you may not be using like 3G or WIFI.

Click to expand...

You do NOT need to 'close' apps in the apps switcher drawer. Watch the keynote again. These apps area not running but merely a list of recently used apps. The only 'background tasks' an app can do is request a limited amount of time to complete tasks. The other apps use fast app switching which only saves a state and does not use the processor at all. Multitasking has no effect on battery life unless it is very specific things like Facebook uploading a pic in the background. Only a few apps can do this right now and we are only talking about a few seconds worth of background work. Don't spread this misinformation. The only reason to delete apps in that drawer is for organization and personal preference, it has no impact on performance. This is not a WinMo or Android phone.

lane3128 said:

You do NOT need to 'close' apps in the apps switcher drawer. Watch the keynote again. These apps area not running but merely a list of recently used apps. The only 'background tasks' an app can do is request a limited amount of time to complete tasks. The other apps use fast app switching which only saves a state and does not use the processor at all. Multitasking has no effect on battery life unless it is very specific things like Facebook uploading a pic in the background. Only a few apps can do this right now and we are only talking about a few seconds worth of background work. Don't spread this misinformation. The only reason to delete apps in that drawer is for organization and personal preference, it has no impact on performance. This is not a WinMo or Android phone.

Click to expand...

Well said. I will add that the "big three" background tasks are audio, location, and voip. Task completion and local notification are the "other two." This approach to multitasking really is a great way to do it.

Im getting a very good battery life i never could get half of this time in my iphone 3gs.. after i took the screenshot it turned off on me... hehe but i love the new battery amazing... i did a mixture of everything... 3g browsing , talking , emails , facebook, twitter, ebuddy, everything , and i love it...

vincenz said:

Your battery is fine. I think a little bit of the OCD is getting to you. Turn off the usage percentage and just use your phone instead of worrying about your battery.

Click to expand...

that's exactly what i do.... i don't have the battery percentage on it makes me anxious lol

You MAY need to close some apps

@lane3218 and @drewapplefan

first "spreading misinformation" is what a rumour is. ;o)

And you can watch the keynote until your eyes bleed, and the fact will remain that certain apps running in the background will drain your battery, so, in fact, you may need to shut them down from the taskbar.

All you have to do to prove this, is install the latest 4.0 Skype, log in, and let it run. Leave your battery % indicator on, and watch it drop 1% per minute. Then open the multitask bar, close Skype and watch as your battery drainage goes back to normal.

drewapplefan clarified a bit about VOIP, which is what Skype is, and if you say "yes" to the app wanting to know your location, and that app has been updated for 4.0, or the app streams music and it has been updated for 4.0, all of those *may* need to be forcibly closed from the taskbar so battery doesn't drain.

I've been a little disappointed with my battery life with the iPhone 4 as well. It seems much worse than my old 3G.

So I took it to the Apple store yesterday and the genius said it was probably because I had too many apps running (the recently accessed list). In fact, I had sixty-four items on the list and he was amazed! He recommended that I try closing down the ones I don't need and see if that helps the situation.

There seems to be a lot of debate about what the apps are actually doing. Am I correct in saying that an app like my Tube one (which iOS4 updated and supports fast switching and uses GPS) will ALWAYS be running away in the background in some fashion if I don't force it to close? I previously thought multitasking apps which were actually doing work in the background were indicated as such with an icon on the top right (eg. playing sound, using location services etc) but now I'm not so sure...

I was not spreading false information or rumors! It's a fact that some apps will continue to run in the background unless you close them out. One example is my TomTom GPS app and there are many more.

chili195 said:

I've been a little disappointed with my battery life with the iPhone 4 as well. It seems much worse than my old 3G.

So I took it to the Apple store yesterday and the genius said it was probably because I had too many apps running (the recently accessed list). In fact, I had sixty-four items on the list and he was amazed! He recommended that I try closing down the ones I don't need and see if that helps the situation.

There seems to be a lot of debate about what the apps are actually doing. Am I correct in saying that an app like my Tube one (which iOS4 updated and supports fast switching and uses GPS) will ALWAYS be running away in the background in some fashion if I don't force it to close? I previously thought multitasking apps which were actually doing work in the background were indicated as such with an icon on the top right (eg. playing sound, using location services etc) but now I'm not so sure...

Click to expand...

Yes, any app that is doing anything will display an icon on the top the only 2 items will be core audio (play symbol) and core location (arrow symbol).

Okay so I've been trying to figure out how I can make this more clear. I went to the iOS developer page and looked up the actual background code guide. As I've said before it makes clear that the system handles background tasks on a per need basis. Applications are not running in the background they are suspended and the specific task say audio, location, voip, is off-loaded to the system for handling. This results in no battery loss over the phones typical use of those services. If Pandora is running it will drain battery life like the ipod does when running +the streaming. When you stop the audio the app is suspended automatically and it's state is saved, when you press play it is resumed. Apple uses this scheme for all background tasks except 1. There are 3 types of location backgrounding (significant change, standard location, and continuos background) it is the third type that Apple warns against. Certain apps have to make a continuos decision based off constant location data. This is the only type that Apple warns about battery life effects, and says should be used sparingly. No other waring is listed. Voip apps do not run in the background rather a 'socket' is offloaded to the system and the app is suspended. This acts the same way as the typical phone app, in which next to no power is used (300 hrs standby) As I said before the apps in the app tray are not running they are recently used. There are only 2 cases where an app that you do not see is using battery life and in both those cases there is an icon in the info bar (play and arrow). If you don't see those then there is nothing to worry about. Furthermore there is no need to close apps in the tray as stopping music and canceling the route will both kill the background tasks. If your battery is being killed by an app in the app tray something is wrong and definitely not intended or normal. Try uninstalling the app and reinstalling. Below is a link to the documentation I referred to, and please stop telling people they need to manage tasks I have about 30 apps in that tray and get about 2 days of normal use (including multitasking) on iPhone 4.

https://developer.apple.com/iphone/.../BackgroundExecution/BackgroundExecution.html

your battery life is in line with other smartphones with the exception of the blackberry because the screen is smaller. a realistic expectation should be about a day of usage. just accept it. if you go to any other smartphone you will get about the same battery life maybe even worse.