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Holy Battery Drain (iPhone 5s, iOS 7.1.1)!

Dick Whitman

Dick Whitman

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 16, 2012
483
159
What am I doing wrong?! I absolutely don't understand it. I've dealt with horrendous battery life since the iPhone 5 first came out. Now, on my iPhone 5s, I'm still dealing with this issue. I shouldn't have to purchase a $100 Mophie Juice case just to get through the day. All the usual culprits have been disabled (location services, background app refresh, etc.) and still, after updating to iOS 7.1.1, I'm at 77% in 54 minutes!!!! This is just from web browsing and listening to Spotify AND over wifi only.

The only thing I can think to do is to try and restore my phone and install the latest update while connected to iTunes but usually that never helps anyway.
 
What brightness setting do you use? It could be that you're running the phone at 100% brightness and that in part affects battery use.
 
Interesting. My wife's IP5 is experiencing lousy battery life even after 7.1.1 while mine is OK. I think I will try a restore from backup to see if it helps (it will also reduce the Other data).
 
Strange, I never had battery problems. My 5S holds on for almost 2 days on standby with usage normally on 8,9 hours.
 
whsbuss said:
Interesting. My wife's IP5 is experiencing lousy battery life even after 7.1.1 while mine is OK. I think I will try a restore from backup to see if it helps (it will also reduce the Other data).
Click to expand...

My iPhone 5 had the worst battery life of any iPhone ever. The battery on iPhone 5S is much better.

Are you doing clean iTunes restores when upgrading firmware ? If you are having bad battery experience, the BEST way to extend it is do a clean iTunes restore, set up as new, do not restore to backup. Then restore your content only using the tabs in iTunes or iCloud
 
So what kind of usage and standby time do you get toward the end when most of the battery is used up?
 
C DM said:
So what kind of usage and standby time do you get toward the end when most of the battery is used up?
Click to expand...

So using WiFi mostly and using the Mophie Juice Air, I get almost 8 hours, which seems...horrible. Also, my battery just dropped from 35% to 15%. Is that normal?

Standby time is 1 day, 14 hours.
 
Streaming anything (including Spotify, even on Wi-Fi) is usually hard on any iPhone, let alone the 5s.

I wouldn't worry too much about it. It seems you've tried a lot of the fixes, so I'd suggest a restore and set up as new.
 
A) Have you let the iPhone turn off then full charge.
B) you still haven't confirmed what brightness you are at, use less than 50% to achieve a decent runtime.
 
I must say I am partially shocked that you expect an iPhone 5s to last more than 4-5h when streaming and surfing. I mean, I'd understand if you had such a battery life in standby, but why would you use it all day, though? Surfing an hour with music streaming and still having 77% is not great, but it is not a "Holy Battery Drain" either and will probably have been not much different in iOS 7.1 or earlier.

One tip for you: if you're freaking out over your battery life and are really concerned, try turning off battery percentages. If you only see that battery icon but not the constantly descending numbers, you won't think so badly about your iOS device which, frankly, behaves like a lot of devices in use.
 
Wow. Not a single screenshot or listing of times

Settings -> General -> Usage

What do the following say?
Usage
Standby

Are the same number?
 
Crazy

Xenomorph said:
Wow. Not a single screenshot or listing of times

Settings -> General -> Usage

What do the following say?
Usage
Standby

Are the same number?
Click to expand...

He said he got: Standby time is 1 day, 14 hours.
That's pretty good if you ask me.
 
I have no idea what's wrong with my battery. It also turns of very often between 30-40 %.
20 minutes later I can turn it on and use it for around 1 minute until it turns off again.

Used it today just for some small web surfing, Facebook and snapchat.
All on wifi.
2edy8yma.jpg
 
btsvchris said:
I have no idea what's wrong with my battery. It also turns of very often between 30-40 %.
20 minutes later I can turn it on and use it for around 1 minute until it turns off again.

Used it today just for some small web surfing, Facebook and snapchat.
All on wifi.
Image
Click to expand...

Check the following settings:

Settings > Privacy > Location Services > (scroll to bottom) System services > Turn everything OFF except: Compass Calibration, Mobile network search.

Set your brightness to around 40%

Goto General > Background App refresh. Turn this off to start with.

Now see how the battery usage goes. If it is better, go back to Background App refresh and try enabling one app at a time. If the battery life drops again then you know which app is the issue.
 
iPhone 5s, updated to 7.1.1 yesterday. Unplugged it this morning at 100%.
It's been sitting idle at work, I had one phonecall that lasted 1 minute, sent one text message and checked something on Facebook that took me 30 seconds. And I am now at 3.30 pm at frikkin' 19%!!! All kinds of crap is turned off, the phone barely in use all day and I have lost this much battery. I should have learned by now to NOT update if I'm using an iOS version I'm fairly content with. Cause it will **** you up when you do. I'm pissed.
 
Last edited:
I'm having exactly the same issue.
My battery is draining at 10% an hour on standby with airplane mode on, no apps, nothing
 
I think some process must've been going on in the background that you don't see, which drains your battery crazy. Too bad, we can't see which thread needs most of the CPU power.

Maybe hard reset the device once?
 
I also have been having issues with battery drain after update. My battery drops 1% every 40 seconds that I am web browsing.

I thought it was my phone but it's not since I just had it exchanged with a brand new 5s. So basically two brand new 5s with new update have had battery issues.
 
I tried hard resetting, restoring, setting up as new phone, everything. Still draining like crazy

g0lromR.jpg


(was on airplane mode for 2 hours)
 
DarkAnnie said:
iPhone 5s, updated to 7.1.1 yesterday. Unplugged it this morning at 100%.
It's been sitting idle at work, I had one phonecall that lasted 1 minute, sent one text message and checked something on Facebook that took me 30 seconds. And I am now at 3.30 pm at frikkin' 19%!!! All kinds of crap is turned off, the phone barely in use all day and I have lost this much battery. I should have learned by now to NOT update if I'm using an iOS version I'm fairly content with. Cause it will **** you up when you do. I'm pissed.
Click to expand...


***To Anyone who feels like there battery was better on 7.1 instead of 7.1.1. The signing window for iOS 7.1 is STILL OPEN (for some apparent reason) Just download the appropriate firmware for your device from here: www.icj.me/ios/all
and shift restore with iTunes. :)
 
Some are saying that iOS 7.1 is still being signed, so perhaps that might be of some use to someone.

Edit: Didn't realize a new post just above posted pretty much the same thing until I already posted my reply.
 
adminaaah said:
***To Anyone who feels like there battery was better on 7.1 instead of 7.1.1. The signing window for iOS 7.1 is STILL OPEN (for some apparent reason) Just download the appropriate firmware for your device from here: www.icj.me/ios/all
and shift restore with iTunes. :)
Click to expand...

Are these firmware downloads legit? No spyware etc?
 
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