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Voluntary Multi-tasking? Battery DRAINS.

M

mediaboy

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 9, 2006
87
0
I want to know if there is a way to turn off multi-tasking. For those that don't realize it yet, every program you open stays open in the multi-task bar until you close it manually.

My phone got to 20% battery in 4 hours today with decent use. (new iPhone 4)

About 10 minutes of web surfing.
93 minutes of talking.
No streaming video
2 Pictures
1 Recorded Video for 3 minutes.

My only guess is that since I forgot about multi-tasking that it left everything running. (12 apps)

Is there any way to turn it off, and only enable it when I actually want something to multitask? I can't see any reason to have ANY apps multitask now especially since most apps are not updated to support it.

In a perfect world, I would have a menu that I can select which apps I want to be able to multitask.
 
Keep in mind that it's not true multitasking in the traditional sense. Just because those items are in the double-click menu doesn't mean they are running.

Only applications that have been updated to use the multitasking APIs will continue to run, and even then the full app doesn't stay running.
 
Your problem isn't multitasking, it's having restored from a backup. If you restore as new, you'll see a dramatic improvement (especially in standby battery life).
 
Drain Cause #1: Despite your thoughts on usage, the phone is new and you're playing with it a lot more than you would otherwise.

Drain Cause #2: Lithium Ion/Polymer batteries don't reach their full capacity until they've been power cycled a few times.

Give it a few days.
 
I see a 100 min of pretty heavy use in there at killing the battery depending on signal quality.

Talking runs the phone antena at near full power and will kill a battery pretty quickly. Mix that with another 10 min of web surfing means 100 min of the full cellular antenna going.
On my blackberry 8900 Talk time on it will range from 2 hours to as high as over 4 hours depending on how I am located to the towers.
 
mediaboy said:
For those that don't realize it yet, every program you open stays open in the multi-task bar until you close it manually.
Click to expand...

False.

I don't know what your actual problem is (the other posters are making good guesses) but you are incorrect about this.

Multitasking is not your problem.
 
My battery life is awful. Lost 35% last night in airplane mode, with wifi, no location or bluetooth.

But the same thing happened with my 3GS, had to cycle the battery a couple of times to get it right.
 
multitasking/restore as battery drain

Eso said:
Your problem isn't multitasking, it's having restored from a backup. If you restore as new, you'll see a dramatic improvement (especially in standby battery life).
Click to expand...

Whoa, this is intriguing to me - explain further to a non-tech savvy user, if you would. Thanks!
 
I am just going off what I am seeing.

If they are not multi-tasking, why are they in that bottom bar? I agree, that they arent taking advantage of the software yet, but then why are they down there?

I am just going off the Apple site saying:

Talk time:
Up to 7 hours on 3G
Up to 14 hours on 2G
Standby time: Up to 300 hours
Internet use:
Up to 6 hours on 3G
Up to 10 hours on Wi-Fi

Video playback: Up to 10 hours
Audio playback: Up to 40 hours

So 93 minutes is not a lot. (I added up the call times, so it's exact). I am sure about the use because this is my 4th iPhone, so there isnt much for me to be exploring.

I will try a full restore and see if that fixes it. I was just surprised about how short a period of time I got until the 20% notification.
 
But don't you guys think it's pointless for these apps to stay in the multitasking bar when they don't even truly multitask?
WTH is the point, I constantly have 20 apps in there making it difficult to look around.
 
Aphex3D said:
But don't you guys think it's pointless for these apps to stay in the multitasking bar when they don't even truly multitask?
WTH is the point, I constantly have 20 apps in there making it difficult to look around.
Click to expand...

Not to mention, having to close EACH ONE manually. I would rather just select which apps I want to have multi-task capabilities.
 
mediaboy said:
If they are not multi-tasking, why are they in that bottom bar?
Click to expand...

That bar is a list of recently used apps.

That's all it is. Nothing more.

That's why you see everything in there, even apps that can not yet multitask.

mediaboy said:
Not to mention, having to close EACH ONE manually.
Click to expand...

You're not "closing" anything. All you're doing is clearing your history list. There's zero reason to do that unless you don't want to see them there. That's the ONLY thing that changes when you remove them.
 
fogelmania said:
Whoa, this is intriguing to me - explain further to a non-tech savvy user, if you would. Thanks!
Click to expand...

When I originally got my 3GS, I restored from a backup of my original iPhone, and my battery life was terrible! It would lose 10% overnight while in standby. So, I did a test where I sat the phone on the table with the screen off, playing the iPod until it died. It lasted 9 hours (rated for 30 hours).

There was a big thread about it here where many people were having significant battery life issues and restoring as new fixed the problem for many people. I restored as new, ran the same iPod test, and got over 28 hours this time.

Consensus was that it was some setting from the backup that was not playing well with the new hardware.
 
Small White Car said:
That bar is a list of recently used apps.

That's all it is. Nothing more.

That's why you see everything in there, even apps that can not yet multitask.



You're not "closing" anything. All you're doing is clearing your history list. There's zero reason to do that unless you don't want to see them there. That's the ONLY thing that changes when you remove them.
Click to expand...

Ahhh, this is good info. That makes sense. Do you mind me asking where you got that info from? So I can read up on it further?

Eso said:
When I originally got my 3GS, I restored from a backup of my original iPhone, and my battery life was terrible! It would lose 10% overnight while in standby. So, I did a test where I sat the phone on the table with the screen off, playing the iPod until it died. It lasted 9 hours (rated for 30 hours).

There was a big thread about it here where many people were having significant battery life issues and restoring as new fixed the problem for many people. I restored as new, ran the same iPod test, and got over 28 hours this time.

Consensus was that it was some setting from the backup that was not playing well with the new hardware.
Click to expand...

It's official, I am going to do a full restore and see how it works. Thanks for the insight.
 
So if I restore as new to make sure I don't have a battery problem, how will I get all my old info onto it? or is it just you want to start as new then go on ahead and do a backup restore? ty
 
mediaboy said:
Ahhh, this is good info. That makes sense. Do you mind me asking where you got that info from? So I can read up on it further?
Click to expand...

Mostly from reading all the threads around here the last month about people with OS 4 testing it out.

Also, reading all the reviews pretty much confirmed what those people had been saying.

https://www.macrumors.com/2010/06/22/early-iphone-4-reviews-begin-to-go-live/

I don't recall which ones said what. I just know I've seen this concept repeated a couple of different places. I'd suggest starting with Engadget's review. I don't remember for SURE if they mentioned this, but they were very detailed.

EDIT: Again, I'm not gonna re-read them all to check, but I bet this one has some info. I remember it being very good.
http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2010/06/ars-reviews-ios-4-whats-new-and-notable.ars/
 
I thought I'd be anal about clearing that bar but now that I've been using it for a few months and now that I have apps that actually use 4.0 APIs I never clear it unless an app is misbehaving and I need to restart it. I find it quite useful actually, and I can go hours without seeing my home screen.

This has meant that I've missed noticing a few new emails unfortunately.
 
mediaboy said:
I am just going off what I am seeing.

If they are not multi-tasking, why are they in that bottom bar? I agree, that they arent taking advantage of the software yet, but then why are they down there?

I am just going off the Apple site saying:

Talk time:
Up to 7 hours on 3G
Up to 14 hours on 2G
Standby time: Up to 300 hours
Internet use:
Up to 6 hours on 3G
Up to 10 hours on Wi-Fi

Video playback: Up to 10 hours
Audio playback: Up to 40 hours

So 93 minutes is not a lot. (I added up the call times, so it's exact). I am sure about the use because this is my 4th iPhone, so there isnt much for me to be exploring.

I will try a full restore and see if that fixes it. I was just surprised about how short a period of time I got until the 20% notification.
Click to expand...


You do know those numbers are from IDEAL conditions. That means you are like point blank range to a tower and the phone is ONLY used one of those items and has to do next to no real task.

IDEAL is ideal. Take for example my blackberry. 5.5 hour talk time (best I have ever pulled for 4 hours. 2.5 hours is more the norm max)
15 day standby time. Now longest I have pulled off no charge is 3 days but that was pushing it. Normally I need to charge it once a day like most people on their phone.

So yet again I see a 100 min of heavy usage in your numbers. 100 min of that it is pretty normal to see the battery drained that much. The signal for your phone could of been poor, or a lot more interference in the air so more power to the phone antenna to use it. Btw bars and how much power your phone is going to use do not always line up. You can have 5 bar and needing more power than some one who has 2 bars because there is more noise in your area.
 
Rodimus Prime said:
So yet again I see a 100 min of heavy usage in your numbers. 100 min of that it is pretty normal to see the battery drained that much. The signal for your phone could of been poor, or a lot more interference in the air so more power to the phone antenna to use it. Btw bars and how much power your phone is going to use do not always line up. You can have 5 bar and needing more power than some one who has 2 bars because there is more noise in your area.
Click to expand...

I am going to have to disagree with you here. I understand that obviously the times are going to vary. But 1 1/2 hours talking isn't anywhere near the 6 hours stated on the site. It's not like I got 5 1/2 hours and complaining that I didnt get 6. :rolleyes:

I realize that as a battery gets old, it starts to lose it's charge, so in a year, if I am getting 1 1/2 hours of talk, its ok.

I am doing my restore right now, so I'll see how it works. That and I will give it a few days and power cycles to give the battery time, as suggested.
 
mediaboy said:
I am going to have to disagree with you here. I understand that obviously the times are going to vary. But 1 1/2 hours talking isn't anywhere near the 6 hours stated on the site. It's not like I got 5 1/2 hours and complaining that I didnt get 6. :rolleyes:

I realize that as a battery gets old, it starts to lose it's charge, so in a year, if I am getting 1 1/2 hours of talk, its ok.

I am doing my restore right now, so I'll see how it works. That and I will give it a few days and power cycles to give the battery time, as suggested.
Click to expand...

again as I pointed out it is IDEAL. Ideal truly means Ideal. Normal would be around 1/2 that number so 3-4 hours. Poor signal stregth or noise you can cut that in 1/2. On top of that Apple has a long histroy of exaggerating its specs like battery life

As I pointed out from my own experience with my blackberry which is rated at 5.5 hr of talk time. I have killed the battery in under 2 hours before of talking on the phone. 3 hours is about the upper limit most of the time. I will admit I have pulled a 4 hour day before low battery warning. Now I have read reports of people beating rim numbers but it is pushing it.

So again I am not surprised by those numbers. I have a phone with similar battery size from a company that does not have a histroy of massively over stating performance specs and still matching with what I am stating.
 
I would think that the battery capacity is not maxed out on phones straight out of the box. More like 80% or so.

Keeping a Li-ion charged to max capacity for shipping is not a good idea in terms of battery longevity. Also, proper Li-ion charging should involve two stages that I'm ASSUMING these smart phones have. 1) Constant Voltage then 2) Constant Current (with proper algorithm). The second stage can take awhile to complete, but when done will get you up to capacity.
 
mediaboy said:
I am going to have to disagree with you here. I understand that obviously the times are going to vary. But 1 1/2 hours talking isn't anywhere near the 6 hours stated on the site. It's not like I got 5 1/2 hours and complaining that I didnt get 6. :rolleyes:

I realize that as a battery gets old, it starts to lose it's charge, so in a year, if I am getting 1 1/2 hours of talk, its ok.

I am doing my restore right now, so I'll see how it works. That and I will give it a few days and power cycles to give the battery time, as suggested.
Click to expand...

Keep updating this thread with your impressions after the restore. Think I might do this when I get home from work today.

Phone was at 100% when I went to sleep last night. I had my phone in airplane mode last night with only wifi on and played a couple of music tracks to fall asleep. This morning I woke up to the device not turning on initially. Once it did, it had the "plug me in fool!" graphic. Really took me by surprise.

Any updates after your restore would be appreciated.
 
5 hours of pretty heavy useage has run my iphone 4 from 100% to 35%, which seems reasonable.

what i am wondering is what the phone was doing between me going to sleep, and waking up (8hours) that required 10% of battery life!!

I've turned push notifications off now, see if that makes a difference tonight.

edit: being a new phone, it was "Set up as New"
 
Small White Car said:
False.

I don't know what your actual problem is (the other posters are making good guesses) but you are incorrect about this.

Multitasking is not your problem.
Click to expand...

This is my first post so go easy on me here. I think the multitasking IS the problem. I charged my phone till it was 100%, unplugged it, went to bed and woke up to it being 61%. I recieved two text messages and 1 phone call. aside from that is was on standby. now what I didnt know was that every app you use stays in the multitask bar till you close it manually. I had 17 apps in the multitask bar. By the process of elimination, it's the source of MY battery problem
 
reppin780 said:
This is my first post so go easy on me here. I think the multitasking IS the problem. I charged my phone till it was 100%, unplugged it, went to bed and woke up to it being 61%. I recieved two text messages and 1 phone call. aside from that is was on standby. now what I didnt know was that every app you use stays in the multitask bar till you close it manually. I had 17 apps in the multitask bar. By the process of elimination, it's the source of MY battery problem
Click to expand...

You are, unfortunately, wrong.

The bar is indeed simply a history of previously opened apps. They are not continuing to run. The presence of the app icons in the multitasking bin means nothing. It's unfortunate that Apple does not do a better job about educating the general consumer about this.

Unless you left Pandora playing all night or your phone was trying to give you GPS directions, there was nothing backgrounding on your phone. And certainly not 17 apps, which would basically crash the device.
 
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