iPhone 5 Battery Life May Be Impacted Greatly by Cellular Signal Strength

[taylortm]

MR tries "Fair and Balanced" ???

It's just the way it is. How is this news again?

Seems to be a trend by MR today/lately. Maybe they're trying to convince themselves that they're not "pro-Apple" and they're all Fair and Balanced.

See? We threw in a couple stories about worse-than-advertised battery life and how some POIs in Apple's brand new Maps app are off by 100 yards!



phhhht! tired of it

 

[MacRetina]

I have great battery life...

 

[NedBookPro]

It's not just with iPhone 5. My iPhone 4 would last 2 days on a single charge before iOS 6 update. After the update, I hardly get 1 day. In my office I have 1 bar or no reception at all.

I agree, and this is the point:
The changed thing here is the iOS upgrade that has caused battery issues across the board. And while signal strength might play a part, when you look comparatively between before and after iOS update, the signal strength has nothing to do with it.

IT'S IOS6 THAT'S TO BLAME.

Why the fsck can't apple address this issue, give us a small update to patch the problem? I think this ought to be about priorities. Then there's the mail swoosh issue, and the sounds issue, and all the other shyte that's wrong with this update.

I couldn't give a flying fsck about the maps issue if that's what they're holding back on. Maps are useless anyway on a phone with a dead battery.

I for one have learned my lesson on upgrading iOS too quickly.
My phone that was a useful tool, is now effectively a frustration.

I just want battery and mail to work properly. Is it too much to ask?

Get it together apple. Yes - I'm a bit angry about this.


.

 

[newyorksole]

My iPhone5 battery lasts much longer than my 4S. And my usage location, times and style has not changed.

same.

----------

My battery is fine.

I have great battery life...

did you restore from an iCloud backup?

 

[Maltz]

That's weird. Doesn't iPhone switch to cellular data when locked, regardless if Wi-Fi is enabled (when all background tasks are complete that is)?

Not since the 3GS. Starting with iPhone 4, the WiFi stays active even when the phone is locked. 3GS and earlier would shut down the WiFi radio when locked to save power.

 

[whoathere]

My iPhone 5 lasted all day yesterday at the Ryder Cup. However, I was a bit nervous as I left my house at 98%. I talked for 15 minutes through my earpods. Various texts and arrived at the course at 9:30 am (2.5hrs later) and had 68%. That 30% went so fast. Of course there are no car chargers or anything, so I just have to hope I make it all day. I took few photos and minimal texts/browsing and left at 6:30pm at 20%. To me, it seemed unacceptable, but it could be a poor coverage area. I had Bluetooth and wifi off, location services were off. It was the first time I had noticed poor battery life. Maybe it was a fluke.

 

[MagnumOP]

I normally only have 2 bars at my house (3g no LTE in my city). Last night my iPhone 5 used 10% of its battery sitting on standby for just 6 hours. My iPhone 4 would only use about 2%.

Hopefully there is a software fix for this.

 

[NedBookPro]

Way to completely waste your time iLounge. This will be fixed in iOS 6.0.1

Mark it.

Let's hope so...

I'm jonesin' for this to be fixed.

Can't come soon enough.

.

 

[Fruit Cake]

This isn't news at all, all cellphones do this, even the old ones.

 

[Cockney Rebel]

Battery life on my 4S is noticeably better since upgrading to iOS 6 ...

 

[mdelvecchio]

it's always the same marketing ***** with Apple

wanna get real life battery life ?

just the numbers announced during a keynote and remove 1/3 to it and you'll get the real battery life for iPod, iPad, iPhone and Mac

strange, because the majority of gadget sites i read said the ipad got even more than then 10 hours advertised.

 

[Geckotek]

Real world tests at 50% lower than Apple's exaggerated claims?

Now how are you gonna stream those dewy-eyed videos of Jony Ives talking about his precious beveled edges?

Are you unable to compare two lines sitting right next to each other? Or perhaps you don't know what 50% looks like?

 

[NedBookPro]

My iPhone 5 lasted all day yesterday at the Ryder Cup. However, I was a bit nervous as I left my house at 98%. I talked for 15 minutes through my earpods. Various texts and arrived at the course at 9:30 am (2.5hrs later) and had 68%. That 30% went so fast. Of course there are no car chargers or anything, so I just have to hope I make it all day. I took few photos and minimal texts/browsing and left at 6:30pm at 20%. To me, it seemed unacceptable, but it could be a poor coverage area. I had Bluetooth and wifi off, location services were off. It was the first time I had noticed poor battery life. Maybe it was a fluke.

You actually were right. It is UNACCEPTABLE.

2.5 hours after charge and 30% down on battery life? That's woeful.
No one in their right mind would think: "oh that's fine, I'll carry a charger with me, put a charger in the car" just so that you can keep your phone alive.

If means PRODUCT FAIL. And in this case, as I've been railing about for days now, iOS needs to be fixed ASAP.

iOS developers have clearly been asleep at the wheel, becuase it's not just battery life as you already know.

It's a total fiasco.

.

 

[technopimp]

If you have no LTE in your area, have you tried switching off LTE? I'm not saying that you should have to do that (the phone should manage on its own and my iPad 3 does just fine with it), but just saying it might help you until a software patch fixes the issue.

I did turn off LTE. Didn't make an appreciable difference.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not really complaining. Just saying this is very noticeable.

 

[cgc]

As others have said, weak cell tower signal will cause every phone to use more power. It would be a non story if it weren't the iPhone 5. Seems you throw that tag in the title of a story and it draws lots of attention/traffic to your site. Yawn.

 

[greytmom]

My battery life has been great. 12-15 hours most days.

Those who are having problems, check Location Services, Brightness, etc. In other words, the same things you did to improve battery life on your previous versions.

 

[dblissmn]

A suggestion

I've been using some signal strength apps on my Galaxy S3 for the past couple of months, and it's pretty clear by this point that some towers host both 3G and 4G, and others are only one or the other. Also clear -- some areas that "already have" 4G don't yet have a completed 4G network, while other 4G areas have a network that demolishes even cable internet for performance. In the end, when you're in a 4G-biased area, you're going to be very happy with LTE phones. When you're in a 3G-biased area, you're not.

I'm really surprised that neither the OP nor most commenters have picked up on the way the networks themselves are set up -- because it's going to dramatically affect these phones.

Also unanswered, is 4G inherently a more power-hogging technology even on second-generation, integrated 4G devices like the iPhone 5 and Galaxy S3? We know the first 4G phones got horrible 4G battery life because of having a separate 4G chip, but when you integrate 4G on the processor (Galaxy S3) or the voice/data baseband chip (iPhone 5) it should solve the problem, right?

 

[rsnc]

the first couple days with my iphone 5 i thought it was dying much quicker than my iphone 4 used to...but I soon found out that it was due to the amount of gps use it was doing..i had set a couple location based reminders and also used navigation for a bit(although it was plugged in most of the time for that)..it would die in half a day.
after turning off the reminders and under normal use conditions I am actually pretty impressed with the battery life. I even had to double check to see if I forgot that i charged it for a little while during the day (got home and the lightning cable was still plugged in next to my bed..so no ..)
that was yesterday...i went to bed with over 40% batt left
today I used it all day streaming podcasts while working..taking several videos and pictures (and editing them) and streaming podcasts over bluetooth in the car, lots of email and Facebook and safari. it is currently at 61% at 6:53 at night..im pretty impressed

i live in raleigh NC where we have good LTE coverage..usually have 4-5 bars..sometimes 3.

 

[diamond.g]

Good battery life for a smartphone isn't impossible. My S3 has been going for 45hrs and is only on 50%.

I really wish Apple had the same battery usage breakout.

 

[brettizzle]

Nothing I didn't anticipate. I bet it'll be better than my 4s battery life.

 

[DakotaGuy]

I have an Android-based phone. If I'm in an area with good signal and if I only minimally use my phone, it will last the workday. If I'm somewhere where I have poor signal for more than a couple hours I turn it on airplane mode because it will drain the battery dead within those hours if I leave it running (I can tell when I forgot to turn on airplane mode because it starts getting really hot in my pocket).

As a number of people said, results like this have always been the case with phones. Why do you think Apple didn't want to include LTE before now? The real news is that battery life is so good on LTE.

I'm currently at 2 days and 4 hours on my Android phone with 20% remaining. Not extremely hard usage, but very normal usage. I have been using it throughout the past 2 days for checking email, some browsing, listening to some SiriusXM, a few games, etc.

The key to my phone is it has a real battery packed into it.

My battery life has been great. 12-15 hours most days.

That's horrible as far as I am concerned. You better be using it VERY hard.

 

[TigerWoodsIV]

it's always the same marketing ***** with Apple

wanna get real life battery life ?

just the numbers announced during a keynote and remove 1/3 to it and you'll get the real battery life for iPod, iPad, iPhone and Mac

I got the advertised battery life with my 4. Just not my 5. I never found battery life to be an issue until now. Also, my iPad gets 10 hours. Their claims are pretty accurate for me.

 

[twoodcc]

yeah at home i get great battery life, but at work, with terrible signal, i get terrible battery life.

 

[recif2000]

I upgraded to an iPhone 5 from a 3GS and so far I am quite concerned with how quickly the battery drains. While its true that I normally have localisation on for location bases reminder, I am still baffled by the performance and thought I may have received a faulty unit. I read the 7 pages of comments over 3G (3 bars and I lost 4% of battery)... Do you guys believe it is a ios6 bug? I did a restore of my previous phone so it could potentially also come from this.

 

[Manyis]

My iPhone5 battery lasts much longer than my 4S. And my usage location, times and style has not changed.

Same here. I can go a full day now without recharging, with the 4s I had to recharge twice in day