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iPad 3 battery drain is insane!
- Thread starter MacAttacka
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Excuse me, but that sounds like jailbreak?
Apple doesn't make any promises about battery life in that case.
No its not jail broken.
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Yeah but only in some instances, especially any kind of gaming whatsoever. When browsing the web on 50% or less brightness the battery is seems more or less the same as the iPad 2. I think A5x is the main problem. You can turn down the brightness but you can't turn down the pixel count during gaming!
Couple of potential problems there from the Activity Monitor Touch specs on iTunes:
So it's not updated for iOS 5.1 or the iPad 3 and only estimates the CPU usage anyway rather than measuring it. Not what I'd call a particularly reliable indicator of what's going on.
The apps in the multitasking bar are, apart from one or two specific use cases, not consuming any CPU resources anyway as they're suspended. Closing them shouldn't make any difference. For a detailed explanation of why, see here and here.
Now here's another weird thing, I was browsing some static news site for an hour or so on wifi with medium brightness. I might have scrolled the page up and down a few times and clicked on a few new stories. Nothing overly taxing for the iPad. There was very little drain, 5% or so in that one hour. Then I was playing around with Google maps for 30 minutes, on wifi same 50% brightness. Throughout, I was panning and zooming, the device got warmer, which doesnt bother me one bit but here we go, the battery was dropping fast, probably around 7-8% in those 30 minutes. Im on decent wifi but the iPad was taking longer than the iPad 2 did the refresh the map squares. Clearly there is 4x more data to pump to the screen and its taking its toll on the A5x. Im beginning to think when viewing static images, like photos, web pages, probably videos too where the battery drain is on par with the iPad 2 but when you use any app that generates full page data that has to be constantly refreshed such as most games and maps the quad cores get fired up and the battery drains. Anyone seeing this too?
Both my ipad 2 and 3 (wifi only version) are draining their batteries at 6% every 30 minutes when playing the following games:
- Combat Mission: Touch
- Imperium Galactica 2
- Ravenmark
Brightness is at 50%, wifi on, bluetooh off, all other apps closed. I started testing when the battery was around 75% because of concern that the meter might not be accurate when showing the charge in the 90-100% range. Tested each game on both devices. Consistently 6% every 30 minutes.
8.3 hours of gaming isn't bad. I'm surprised that the ipad 3 is lasting just as long as its predecessor. Perhaps a more graphically intense game like infinity blade 2 would yield different results.
- Combat Mission: Touch
- Imperium Galactica 2
- Ravenmark
Brightness is at 50%, wifi on, bluetooh off, all other apps closed. I started testing when the battery was around 75% because of concern that the meter might not be accurate when showing the charge in the 90-100% range. Tested each game on both devices. Consistently 6% every 30 minutes.
8.3 hours of gaming isn't bad. I'm surprised that the ipad 3 is lasting just as long as its predecessor. Perhaps a more graphically intense game like infinity blade 2 would yield different results.
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not to sound rude or anything, but what did you expect?
playing any game with mediocre graphics and processing power for 2 hours (assuming it was 2 hours straight) will drain your battery a bunch.
What would've been an acceptable percentage for you after you were done playing? There is nothing wrong with your ipad as of right now. The problem is with the people.
The ipad 3 is a graphics power house, if you were to count all 3 million+ pixels at a rate of 1 second per pixel, it would take you about 830 + hours!! If this new iPad was the first ipad ever to release, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
It's already miracle they got the same or close to the same battery life as the older ipads with that Retina Display. It's not perfect but I'm happy with it, and you should be too! After all, you spent your hard earned money on this thing anyway right!??!
I am not sure about the insane battery drain in the new iPad.
I had a look my battery level at 08.30 pm and it was 83%.
Then I used the iPad non-stop until 10.50 pm.
I was on WiFi at home. I surfed the web, wrote some replies in forums, I checked my mails repeatedly, tested the current version of IM+ Pro, did some more testing with Skype (including short call), I read in a PDF (Scientific American) and did some photo editing in iPhoto.
All in all no really spectacular tasks, I know, definitely nothing that is really pushing the iPad. But a pretty good summary of my usual iPad use.
I observed a battery drain from 83% to 66%.
So that is 17% over the course of 2 hours 20 mins.
I think that's pretty OK.
If I do the math, that would put my iPad to around 13 hours, until the battery reaches 0%. Now that calculation is a bit over the top in my opinion, but I am pretty sure, it would clock in at around 10 hours.
Of course, if you play games or do graphic intensive stuff, things will surely look different, but with the tasks described above, there seems to be nothing wrong with the battery.
Edit: The brightness setting was at around 60% with automatic brightness enabled.
I had a look my battery level at 08.30 pm and it was 83%.
Then I used the iPad non-stop until 10.50 pm.
I was on WiFi at home. I surfed the web, wrote some replies in forums, I checked my mails repeatedly, tested the current version of IM+ Pro, did some more testing with Skype (including short call), I read in a PDF (Scientific American) and did some photo editing in iPhoto.
All in all no really spectacular tasks, I know, definitely nothing that is really pushing the iPad. But a pretty good summary of my usual iPad use.
I observed a battery drain from 83% to 66%.
So that is 17% over the course of 2 hours 20 mins.
I think that's pretty OK.
If I do the math, that would put my iPad to around 13 hours, until the battery reaches 0%. Now that calculation is a bit over the top in my opinion, but I am pretty sure, it would clock in at around 10 hours.
Of course, if you play games or do graphic intensive stuff, things will surely look different, but with the tasks described above, there seems to be nothing wrong with the battery.
Edit: The brightness setting was at around 60% with automatic brightness enabled.
I know mobile gaming is intensive on mobile device hardware so I expect the battery not to last forever. Having said that there is a distinctly lower life on the iPad 3 than 2. That is cause for concern. However its not only games, its Google Maps too. I havnt had the time to put the other apps to test but I wonder how iPhoto, iMovie and Garage band are faring? These are apps not games so I dont think im being unreasonable expecting iPad 2 level battery life.
Also, Apple are not in the business of producing under performing junk. If it was anyone else I would have bitten the bullet but I have very high expectations of Apple when it comes to performance. Their whole business is based around the user experience. Retina or no Retina, Apple should have made sure that their iPad 3 performs at least as well as the iPad 2 does under the same usage patterns. I couldnt care less how many watts the Retina, A5x, the LTE take up, thats Apple's problem not mine. Apple have always taken care of that part of the deal and want users to enjoy playing in their walled garden. If there is a problem with the battery Apple need to just fix it.
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Im struck by the fact that you got the same battery life on iPad 2 & 3 playing the exact same games. That's got to be a perfect result.
I was a bit surprised too. I tested all three games on each device. Exactly 6% every 30 minutes, each game, both devices.
My iPad is at home 99% of the time and always near a charger, so in all honesty I could really care less how the battery performs under any given circumstance.
Same with my android phone. Since I always have a spare battery with me I could really care less how many apps I have open or how high brightness is set to. At the end of my work day I can still reach home with a fully functional phone and not have to worry about battery drain.
I don't worry about any of those things and simply enjoy my gadgets for what they are.
Battery technology has not caught up with advancements in electronics that rely heavily on them. Carrying an extra battery is a small price for me to pay to fully enjoy what I have.
Same with my android phone. Since I always have a spare battery with me I could really care less how many apps I have open or how high brightness is set to. At the end of my work day I can still reach home with a fully functional phone and not have to worry about battery drain.
I don't worry about any of those things and simply enjoy my gadgets for what they are.
Battery technology has not caught up with advancements in electronics that rely heavily on them. Carrying an extra battery is a small price for me to pay to fully enjoy what I have.
Ive only had a chance to do two full discharges and recharges and there has been marked improvements. I also think the screen glue baking has helped the whites. When I have a chance Im going to repeat the games tests and see whether ive got better life out the battery on the same device.
Properly calibrate the battery before making claims about drain, at least that way you know that the battery percentage is accurate. Personally, I feel the iPad 3 has great battery life. Like someone else said, brightness is probably the biggest factor. The screen is a beast, and it will drain the battery like crazy, especially with games.
I'm getting the exact same battery life on ipad 2 and 3 when gaming with brightness at 50%. Calculates to about 8.3 hours of gaming, which is impressive.
Mmm yeah you are right but I would like to know if somebody else already tried it. Pain is the wrong word, but installing all apps, videos, newspaper, documents, music via iTunes Match ... simply takes some time. (Call me lazy but I really want to avoid that)
I can confirm first hand that restoring will address drain problems. I upgraded from the iPad 1 to the new iPad about three weeks ago, and noticed immediately that the battery performance was significantly worse. Most specifically I noticed that left unplugged overnight, even while not in use, my iPad was losing as much as 10-15% battery in a 7-8 hour stretch. I read a lot of posts a lot of different places from people explaining that I needed to disable services, turn off different settings, etc to avoid the problem; but felt from the onset that this was incorrect since I've been using the iPad 1 nearly two years with the exact same settings and no similar battery problems.
Moreover, I've been convinced it's a software problem of some sort and not as others suggest a hardware problem with the new iPad. So the last week and a half or so I've been using my iPad 1 again while using my new iPad as an experimental device trying to track down the root cause. Here's what I've found:
Last week I went to an Apple store and asked them to run diagnostics on the battery since they have access to software and data I do not. 18 hours prior to that I'd run a backup and restore on my new iPad under suspicion that the battery drain problem was related to corrupt data brought on the new device from my previous iCloud backup. Following the backup and restore I charged it to full and then left it overnight. The following morning the battery had drained about 15% over 12 hours despite no use.
So to the store I went, and the first thing we noticed when we plugged it in for diagnostics is that the battery was reporting that since the restore and last full charge the iPad had been used for just shy of 18 hours and had been in standby for just shy of 18 hours. Bottom line: When it was supposed to be going into standby it was not, hence the reason for the drain. So we did a factory restore, and I did not perform an iCloud backup restore under suspicion that backup was the cause of the problem. The next two days it worked flawlessly and exhibited no battery drain at all.
So over the weekend I decided to test my theory to see if I could reproduce the battery drain by restoring from iCloud, thus verifying my theory that the cause is something corrupt being pulled from the backup. I restored it Friday, and overnight unplugged sure enough it drained just over 10% in 8 hours of standby once again. So Saturday afternoon I restored to factory settings, configured the iPad again as a new device, did NOT restore from backup, and then reinstalled all my apps and data. Through just over 48 hours it has exhibited no battery drain at all, and the battery itself has been performing every bit as good as my iPad 1 ever did.
So my conclusion in all this is that something from iCloud/iTunes backups does not play well on some of the new devices. I have no idea what specifically is causing the problem, but it's clear that the cause is something in those backups that does not play well with the new device. Further, I'm reading on other forums where some people have exchanged new iPads several times with continued problems, confirming further that it's corrupt backup data that is causing the problem. It would seem then, for those of us experiencing this software induced problem, that the only remedy is performing a restore and then reinstalling apps and data on the iPad as a new device.
One other lesson from my experiments, in my first successful attempt I manually reinstalled apps via the App store individually. This most recent time I installed via iTunes, though again I did set it up as a new device. The result in both instances was the same, so that it does not seem to matter which method you use provided you set up the device as a new iPad and do not restore from a previous backup. So for those considering, it's nice to know that the iTunes route works since it is is obviously a much faster way to install apps and data back on to the iPad.
Sorry for the length of post, but hope it helps those who may be experiencing the same battery drain problems.
After your factory restore did you enable iCloud? Cal, mail, contacts, photos, docs, settings sync?
It's quite possible iCloud push sync might be a factor in the battery drain.
I did try disabling different services for those first two weeks trying to pinpoint a specific problem, but was ultimately unsuccessful. I'm also positive that it's not specific to iCloud, because I was able to duplicate the problem first after restoring from iCloud and then again after restoring from an iTunes backup. Additionally, I'm running the iPad right now alongside my iPad 1 to make sure that the settings are the exact same on both devices, including iCloud push. The iPad 3 is running flawless since the restore, but would not run those same settings when they were pulled through a device restore from a prior backup.
So bottom line, at least in my case, is that the drain is not being caused by any one specific setting or app. I can run all the settings and apps the same as my iPad 1 as long as I set up the new iPad as a new device and clean install all the apps/settings. If however I import all those settings via an iCloud or iTunes restore, I can induce the battery drain during standby. So it's a software issue bring brought on through the restore, not a specific setting.
It's interesting, since I pinpointed the problem on my device, I'm finding now similar problems of battery drain in standby when the 4S was rolled out as well. Read a few of these threads and you'll find specifically that the discrepancy between Standby and Usage problem was also seen by many of the early 4S adopters. So it makes me believe that much more it is a software problem, one that hopefully Apple will identify and resolve soon.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1256077/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1315978/
http://technophobix.com/2012/03/19/iphone-4s-battery-drain-repair-guide/
http://www.everythingicafe.com/forum/threads/usage-standby-meter-reading-the-exact-same-time.40124/
Not sure if this is news to anyone but there are reports that the Broadcom BCM4330 chip may have a software bug causing its power management processes to fail in the wi-fi models
http://www.pcworld.com/article/253427/ipad_wifi_issues_may_be_fault_of_power_management.html
http://www.pcworld.com/article/253427/ipad_wifi_issues_may_be_fault_of_power_management.html