Battery life on iPhone 4

[Liquorpuki]

Thanks for the suggestions in this thread. They fixed my problem.

I had used the backup off my 3GS and with Bluetooth, Wi-fi, Location and Push on with the brightness on auto between 40-50%, I was losing about 1% off the battery every 1-2 minutes when surfing the web. I went to sleep last night and woke up and the phone went from a full charge to 50%. I was thinking those reviewers with their "300 hours on standby" and "24 hours and it never went in the red" were smoking something

I just did a complete OS restore and had iTunes see it as a new phone. Battery no longer has a ridiculous drain.

 

[BlondeBuddhist]

On my 3GS I used to HAVE to plug it in each night or I would be in the red (below 20%)

I have yet to get close to the red alert stage, and would have to say I am on the iPhone 4 more than I was the GS, just because its new and all.

I know I keep saying it, but this thing is awesome. No need to try and polish up a description. It's pure awesome.

Blonde Buddhist

 

[telarmago]

I'm in the same boat... Very annoying.

Most certainly. At this point it seems like it's a rare hardware defect or something. 3 complete new restores, even friggin' airplane mode, with no luck. I might have to go to an Apple store. I'm now running down my battery to calibrate it a 2nd time, but I doubt it will have any effect.

 

[0309385]

This was a well-documented issue at the release of the iPhone 3GS.

You need to restore the iPhone and set it up as a new phone (do not restore from a backup).

Is there anyway to get a workaround for that?

I hate it that i lose all my camera roll photos and messages. Can i just reset all settings and just recalibrate the battery?

 

[Stankonia]

Is there anyway to get a workaround for that?

I hate it that i lose all my camera roll photos and messages. Can i just reset all settings and just recalibrate the battery?

I don't want to get your hopes up (or mine ), but I reset all settings a few hours ago and deleted my mail accounts then set them back up again. I have left the phone in standby for the last 2 hours and the battery has not gone down at all.

Hopefully this actually solved the problem. I'd like to avoid restoring to a new phone unless nothing else works.

 

[Hans Brix]

After resetting all settings on the phone, I still noticed that it was losing a percent of battery life every ten minutes in standby mode. So, I performed the factory reset and configured it as a new device, hoping that this fixes the issue.

 

[pango1in]

Reset all settings didn't work

Actually, the resetting all of the settings didn't work. Guess I'm going to have to restore to a new phone...

Eugh, which means I'm going to lose all of my texts... not ideal. Humph.

Don't really expect this sort of s**t from Apple.

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

you have 4 apps using push and are wondering why your batt life went down?

The whole point of Push is to not waste battery life.

 

[bushbaby]

pago1in, I am watching your situation as I am having a faster battery drain on this than on my 3gs -- and that phone a genius tested and said the battery needed to be reset.

I plug in nightly to the wall and can't make it through the day. Wanted to show off the phone's incredible screen at a party but it died.

I'm down to 73% at 1:30 PM.

(I've put it on auto brightness, turned off 3g, turned off push and set fetch to manual - none of this I had to do with the 3gs)

 

[Liquorpuki]

Thanks for the suggestions in this thread. They fixed my problem.

I had used the backup off my 3GS and with Bluetooth, Wi-fi, Location and Push on with the brightness on auto between 40-50%, I was losing about 1% off the battery every 1-2 minutes when surfing the web. I went to sleep last night and woke up and the phone went from a full charge to 50%. I was thinking those reviewers with their "300 hours on standby" and "24 hours and it never went in the red" were smoking something

I just did a complete OS restore and had iTunes see it as a new phone. Battery no longer has a ridiculous drain.

Nevermind, I spoke too soon. I went to sleep with the phone at 49%. Woke up 6.5 hours later and it was at 9%.

I put it in flight mode this morning and the battery % has not dropped for the last 2 hours so I know the drain has nothing to do with multitasking. It's something communications related. So here's where I turn on and off each of the services - Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Location, 3G, Push, etc, and figure out which one is killing my battery...

 

[smash1031]

The whole point of Push is to not waste battery life.

If only this were true. When I'm not pushing gmail, I get excellent battery life. When I am it's ok on the iphone 4. I agree that it should not waste battery life, but I think gmail push via exchange maintains a constant connection to the gmail server which drains the battery faster. I'm not sure if this applies to yahoo push.

 

[bripab007]

Yes, Exchange/Google Sync use a constant TCP connection to your phone in addition to the constant TCP connection you have to Apple's Push Notification System (APNS) that's used by other apps (as seen in Settings > Notifications), and if you were also using Yahoo's push e-mail, that would be yet another connection.

There are push mail apps in the App Store that you could purchase/use for pushing Gmail to your phone using APNS, rather than using the second constant TCP connection of Exchange/Google Sync.

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

If only this were true. When I'm not pushing gmail, I get excellent battery life. When I am it's ok on the iphone 4. I agree that it should not waste battery life, but I think gmail push via exchange maintains a constant connection to the gmail server which drains the battery faster. I'm not sure if this applies to yahoo push.

That's strange. I always have push on for my email and two applications. I've never noticed a difference in battery life when it's turned off. And I've never noticed such horrible battery life that the OP talks about and you attributed to Push. That battery life definitely is not due to Push.

I unplugged my iPhone before I went to bed after it was fully charged and when I woke up the battery life was at 100%. That means Push did little damage to the battery charge.

 

[Juventuz]

For both mine and my wife's phone it's fine in standby mode, but anytime we use an app, even if for just a couple minutes, we see a massive battery drain. I had Meebo on today while at work, from 9am to 1pm the battery life went from 96% to 7%. With my 3GS it would drain at the most 30-40% in that time period.

I reset all settings, quit all apps in multitasking and am currently recharging the phone. Hopefully it'll see some improved life.

 

[Juventuz]

Well here's a little update... Tried the trick of resetting the phone and fully charging it. Unplugged it at 100% at 3:52pm and for the last half hour I've sent and received a few texts and have had Meebo on the entire time. Well in a half an hour my phone went from 100 to 94%, that's not bad considering it was dropping roughly 11% every half hour before I did this. Hopefully it'll solve things. I'm going to try the same thing on the wifes phone tonight to see if it helps her.

 

[jbachandouris]

Well here's a little update... Tried the trick of resetting the phone and fully charging it. Unplugged it at 100% at 3:52pm and for the last half hour I've sent and received a few texts and have had Meebo on the entire time. Well in a half an hour my phone went from 100 to 94%, that's not bad considering it was dropping roughly 11% every half hour before I did this. Hopefully it'll solve things. I'm going to try the same thing on the wifes phone tonight to see if it helps her.

It won't. My iPhone 4, bought on Launch Day, had a dead battery out of the box. Apple assumed it just needed to be charged. After an 8 hour day on Friday it was down to 10%. I would charge it to 100%, unplug it, power it off, and go to sleep. During the night, while powered off, it would drop to 50%. I tried a reset, I tried a restore. I tried a full erase, re-installed iOS4 (through restore), and set it up as a new phone EVERY time. NOTHING worked. I went to the Genius Bar and thankfully I had an observant Tech. Even though diagnostics said my battery was 'good,' it was draining whil we were standing there. I received a new iPhone on the spot. Out of the box, it was already at 100%. I charged it later that night. Today I have 49% battery after almost 15 hours of use (EDGE network, email, wifi and BT both on all day).

When in doubt swap it out!

 

[techguy40]

I put mine on the charger every night. Notifications will eat into battery life, as will location services and mail checking interval.

Is it safe to charge the Iphone 4 every night?

 

[True Tao]

Here is mine

 

[bubbagumpshrimp]

Is it safe to charge the Iphone 4 every night?

I've done this with my last 3 iPhones with no problems.

 

[techguy40]

Well here's a little update... Tried the trick of resetting the phone and fully charging it. Unplugged it at 100% at 3:52pm and for the last half hour I've sent and received a few texts and have had Meebo on the entire time. Well in a half an hour my phone went from 100 to 94%, that's not bad considering it was dropping roughly 11% every half hour before I did this. Hopefully it'll solve things. I'm going to try the same thing on the wifes phone tonight to see if it helps her.

What are the steps in resetting the phone?

Will i have to install all my apps again, set up my network and email setting again?

 

[pango1in]

It worked.

Full restore and setup as a new phone worked. You can restore your phone from the main iphone screen when it is plugged into itunes. Then when your phone is new and plugged in, you create a new phone from it - don't restore from a previous backup.

After which you have to sync everything again. By that I mean choosing which apps go onto the phone and where they go (which is a real pain... as otherwise they all go onto the phone!), syncing your music again, and syncing your photos.

I've lost all my texts and saved games/preferences on each app I own. Bit of a hassle really.

However, now I have gone from losing 50% battery in 12 hours to 30% in 24 hours. much better.

 

[jbachandouris]

Full restore and setup as a new phone worked. You can restore your phone from the main iphone screen when it is plugged into itunes. Then when your phone is new and plugged in, you create a new phone from it - don't restore from a previous backup.

After which you have to sync everything again. By that I mean choosing which apps go onto the phone and where they go (which is a real pain... as otherwise they all go onto the phone!), syncing your music again, and syncing your photos.

I've lost all my texts and saved games/preferences on each app I own. Bit of a hassle really.

However, now I have gone from losing 50% battery in 12 hours to 30% in 24 hours. much better.

Glad that worked for you. My phone had to be replaced since my battery drain was a hardware failure.

 

[number9]

After a battery calibration, I got very good life on the next charge. See this post: https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/10394546/

My current charge, from 8:30PM last night (Tuesday night) is at 2 hours 9 minutes of usage with 12 hous 34 minutes of standby and currently 75% battery life remaining, with the same settings as the post above. However, this is also with about a half an hour of location services on to use GPS directions last night. Still beats the pants off of my old 3G. I'd be lucky to get 2 hours of usage out of 50% of the battery, nevermind 25% with GPS use.

 

[gehrbox]

Is it safe to charge the Iphone 4 every night?

It's safe. If I didn't I wouldn't make till noon the next day.

 

[bushbaby]

Full restore and setup as a new phone worked. You can restore your phone from the main iphone screen when it is plugged into itunes. Then when your phone is new and plugged in, you create a new phone from it - don't restore from a previous backup.

After which you have to sync everything again. By that I mean choosing which apps go onto the phone and where they go (which is a real pain... as otherwise they all go onto the phone!), syncing your music again, and syncing your photos.

I've lost all my texts and saved games/preferences on each app I own. Bit of a hassle really.

However, now I have gone from losing 50% battery in 12 hours to 30% in 24 hours. much better.

I thought I might be okay as my battery was doing better yesterday. But today I have 2 hours usage, 5 1/2 standby and I'm at 61% already at 3:30 PM. This is with 3g off, bluetooth off, location services off.

But I really don't want the pain of this hand restore when I also have connectivity issues - and want to see how that's going to be addressed.

Glad that worked for you. My phone
had to be replaced since my battery drain was a hardware failure.

Can you say more about this - what happened?