Apple Working with iPhone 4S Owners to Address Battery Life Issues

[zapnyc]

It's iMessage......

My battery on my 4S drained to 20% in one day with normal usage...

Today I turned off iMessage....NO problem.... still near 100% with moderate usage, at 4pm!

Which is a bummer because I love iMessage.

Guess I'll have to turn it on/off when possible. Ugh.

 

[mactree]

That would make sense to me. Yet I can't get myself to turn it off.

It's iMessage......

My battery on my 4S drained to 20% in one day with normal usage...

Today I turned off iMessage....NO problem.... still near 100% with moderate usage, at 4pm!

Which is a bummer because I love iMessage.

Guess I'll have to turn it on/off when possible. Ugh.

 

[fins831]

its not iMessage, mine has been off since day 1 because i noticed messages were getting there late.

I am still seeing my battery life just drain before my eyes, even when I take it right off the charger. after 1 hr of use today, maybe 10 min of standby, twitter usage and fb, i lost nearly 25 percent of my battery life..

I also have done all the fixes, including restores, time zone fix, turning off this and that, redoing icloud and push email....its a drain, its software...itll be patched.

 

[zapnyc]

its not iMessage, mine has been off since day 1 because i noticed messages were getting there late.

I am still seeing my battery life just drain before my eyes, even when I take it right off the charger. after 1 hr of use today, maybe 10 min of standby, twitter usage and fb, i lost nearly 25 percent of my battery life..

I also have done all the fixes, including restores, time zone fix, turning off this and that, redoing icloud and push email....its a drain, its software...itll be patched.

dunno what to tell you.... bizarre that it would be different for different phones. it's about 11pm now and I'm still above 80%....but only after I turned off iMessages....

 

[fins831]

I've done everything, and I pull my phone off the charger, open facebook and 1 percent is gone, opened twitter and post a message, another...standby by battery is fine...but when that wheel is spinning of data usage, my battery melts away...

i could prob hit standby max no problem, but usage, I think there is some sort of issue relating to data usage, maybe HSPA+ is sucking up too much juice, even over iMessage, or something is hanging, glitching, or providing an error and leaving the GPS or data connection on longer than it should...

I don't know, all I know is I have so much junk turned off and with very basic use my battery just wilts away, on equal usage to my 3GS, which doesn't make any sense...

 

[dhrcus]

Earlier this week, the Apple Store reloaded the firmware that governs the battery usage saying it was corrupt. The battery life got somewhat better. Another problem I have had with the phone was on occasion when talking on the phone the volume would turn up a lot and distort. The person on the other end of the line would hear themselves echoing loudly.

So I took it back again and Apple swapped it out. The battery life is good now. They did say that the battery checked out fine, but noticed the longest it had stayed powered was under 7 hours.

Original 4S 64MB AT&T
When down to 10% charge
Usage: 3 hours, 28 minutes
Standby: 13 hours, 35 minutes

Replacement 4S 64MB AT&T
End of Day Battery Level 48%
Usage: 2 Hours, 54 minutes
Standby: 15 hours, 56 minutes

 

[Beerme737]

Maybe it's too early, but I just had my 4s/32G replaced and everything seems normal, battery wise. (The old one chewed through a full battery in 4 hours in airplane mode!)

Against all better judgement, I restored from a backup (after giving myself sufficient time to believe I didn't have another battery issue) and even with the restored configuration, I haven't seen any problems, yet.

I'm convinced it's a hardware issue. Restoring to new phone and not installing the Backup didn't fix it. That's what prompted me to get a new phone. Now that I have a new phone and the backup installed, the problem hasn't recurred, yet. That points to hardware, imho.

 

[ubersoldat]

I've had stellar battery life since upgrading. 16 hours standby and 5 hours usage and still have 25-30% left

you are impressed with that? my blackberry has a battery lifetime of usually 5 days with normal usage on 3G...

 

[speedriff]

Battery Drain?

My performance is terrible too since iOS 5. I even tried to set some features off with no luck at all. I turned off a lot of location services, applications that back up to iCloud, iMessage. I don't know what to do

Go to Settings, General, About and scroll to bottom of page. There you will see Diagnostics and Usage. Click on it and select Don't Send. You will see much improved battery life as the send option is constantly sending reports. I did this and stopped all the ridiculous location services (does Angy Birds really need to know my location?) and I have great battery life now. Hope this helps.

 

[TWSS37]

So I'm clear on the potential work arounds to improve battery life:

1.) Modify how often you are syncing/pushing notifications or completely shut off
2.) Kill apps that may not be in use all the time but are running in the background
3.) Shut off wifi when not near a hot spot
4.) Perform a battery re-calibration
5.) Download an app to monitor CPU usage
6.) Perform a hard reset

Sounds like things Apple users have been long been laughing at Android users for having to do, no?

 

[diamond.g]

So I'm clear on the potential work arounds to improve battery life:

1.) Modify how often you are syncing/pushing notifications or completely shut off
2.) Kill apps that may not be in use all the time but are running in the background
3.) Shut off wifi when not near a hot spot
4.) Perform a battery re-calibration
5.) Download an app to monitor CPU usage
6.) Perform a hard reset

Sounds like things Apple users have been long been laughing at Android users for having to do, no?

Pretty much.

 

[bruinsrme]

So I'm clear on the potential work arounds to improve battery life:

1.) Modify how often you are syncing/pushing notifications or completely shut off
2.) Kill apps that may not be in use all the time but are running in the background
3.) Shut off wifi when not near a hot spot
4.) Perform a battery re-calibration
5.) Download an app to monitor CPU usage
6.) Perform a hard reset

Sounds like things Apple users have been long been laughing at Android users for having to do, no?

Did all this, turned off any push, notification and so on.
Last night I charged it and when it reached 100% I unplugged it.
It's been sitting at 100% for over 8 hours.
When it was charged when it hit 36%, using the iPad charger (this time) it tooK under 2 hours to hit 100%.
My speculation is in the monitoring circuit.

 

[powers74]

Not!

"I then got a call from a senior [Google] engineer who said he had read my post and was 'reaching out' to users for data and admitted this was an issue (and that they aren't close to finding a fix!) and asked lots of questions about my usage and then asked if he could install the file below and that he would call back the day after to retrieve the info. I extracted the file from my Windows PC after a sync and emailed it to him. He was incredibly helpful and apologetic in the typical Google way!"

 

[Rigby]

Developer here. My iPhone 4 got hot and drained the battery on every beta prior to the final release of ios5. My solution - inexplicably - was to "reset all settings" under settings>general. Then do a full reboot. If it didn't work, do it again. It resolved until the next beta release. Solved my problem everytime. There was no indication of a rogue process running in the background, but my memory wasnt releasing and continuing to be accessed causing the drain. Good luck.

Just wanted to confirm this. After the iOS 5 update, my iPhone 4 gobbled up the battery and sometimes ran hot in standby, even when switched to flight mode (I noticed this on a transcontinental flight of 5 hours, which drained the battery from 100 to 50%). There were also lots of error messages in the diagnostics log under General/About. After a "Reset all Settings" as described above, everything is back to normal, and no more errors. Go figure ...

 

[techconc]

Seems to be an OS issue...

I experienced a similar problem this weekend for the first time. I went to bed with an 88% charge. The next morning, the battery was dead. Recharged the phone and it continued to drain quickly. I manually quit all apps and reboot the phone for good measure. The problem was resolved.

Today, I'm at 99% after 7 hours of standby and checking e-mail and stocks twice this morning. Likewise, under normal circumstances, the battery life is actually very good. However, there seems to be a software bug somewhere. I bought the phone the weekend it came out and this is the first time I saw the issue. I didn't have to disable anything to get past it.

 

[Taz Mangus]

So I'm clear on the potential work arounds to improve battery life:

1.) Modify how often you are syncing/pushing notifications or completely shut off
2.) Kill apps that may not be in use all the time but are running in the background
3.) Shut off wifi when not near a hot spot
4.) Perform a battery re-calibration
5.) Download an app to monitor CPU usage
6.) Perform a hard reset

Sounds like things Apple users have been long been laughing at Android users for having to do, no?

And Apple has acknowledged that they are concerned about the issue by reaching out to users for information. I would be interested in seeing information that Google has done the same to address that in Android. I have not seen any information showing how many users the battery issue is effecting with iOS 5. Personally, I am getting a good two days of use before I have to recharge my battery. Right now I am seeing about 20%/hour drain. This with:

• Notification on for Weather, Phone, Messages, Reminders, Calendar, Stock Widget and Mail
• Siri on
• 3G and WiFi on
• Bluetooth off
• Location services turned on for Siri, Weather and Find My iPhone

I would like to see even better battery life on my iPhone 4S and I think that the next update will address the battery life iisue that some people are having.

My suggestion to everyone that is having an issue with battery life, contact Apple to report it.

 

[cp2222]

Hi everyone, I may have figured out the solution to this issue. If you are having this crazy battery drain issue (which I was.. even after swapping my iPhone 4s at the Apple store for a new one), check your contacts and see if you have any duplicates (like records that may have been duped due to MobileMe sync sucking). I know this seems crazy, but after the rumors of this issue being related to contacts and iCloud, I searched my contacts and noticed I actually had some duplicate records. After cleaning it up, my battery is back to what my iPhone 4 was...actually better! I have only been testing 2 days since I did the clean up, but both days I was at 60% at the end of the day vs having to charge the phone 3-4 times in the day.

I am only guessing, but this duplicate record thing may have been causing the general indexing or Siri indexing to just thrash (obviously a bug).

 

[Ifti]

I have iCloud enabled for contacts, calendars, documents, and Find my iPhone.
I also have iMessage enabled, as well as Siri.

My battery is the same as my iPhone 4. It's lasted almost 2 days and I still have 20% remaining.

Moderate usage. Currently on leave so not too many phone calls etc, but wifi on and been using it on wireless and 3G as well.

 

[indyzzzz]

I hope the next iOS5 update fixes it.

 

[xumax]

Achtung Apple trouble ahead

Why the attitude? It's just another cell phone, and it has its good points and its bad points. I moved over from an Android phone and gave up the ability to put a huge battery in the phone, access to controls that make use of the phone quicker and easier, and access to apps from whatever source I wanted, and, worst of all, access to the Google turn by turn maps program.
I like my 4S but it isn't the be-all and end-all. Heck, I turned off Siri because I found it annoying and not something that interested me much.

Opinions good and back backed up with specifics are handy to have.

I ordered two iPhone 4s and after the issues with the battery popped up - Germany seems to have a lot more probs. - i did a storno, so good.
When the Samsung Fonzies told me to switch this and that off to make the TV better, it went back.

I Start to get it what calling somebody "a Fanboy" means.

No hard feelings with Apple, but you have to be better than this to stay on Top, and to Keep me as a Customer.

Just words wont do in the Future.

 

[texasexile]

Contacts problem link to overactive Lion Contact process

My battery life was dismal - down 50% in half a day. I found that the addressbooksourcesync process on my Mac was running at 100% CPU ever minute or so and causing battery life issues. I turned off Contacts from iCloud on my Mac and the process didn't cause anymore CPU utilization spikes.

So, ahah... Looked at Contacts app on my iPhone and saw the activity icon twirling way too often. Turned off Contacts in iCloud and my battery life is back to normal.

Don't know what the Contacts issue is but I'm starting to go through a delete duplicate entries. For some reason I had a bunch of empty contacts...

 

[astewes]

update on battery drain issue

i replied to this thread earlier, as i experienced an overnight drain (80% to 1%) with no apps running about a week after i activated the phone.

i noticed yesterday afternoon that my battery was draining more quickly than usual - i wasn't really using the phone at work. no apps were running, either. since restoring my phone after the first incident, i've had mail settings on manual, all location services turned OFF (not just time zone settings), ping switched to off....i pretty much followed every battery life tip out there.

last night, before i went to bed, the battery was at 80%. following the usual routine, i made sure all apps were off. when i woke up 8 hours later, the battery was at 46%. now, that's not as bad as some people are reporting, but there is no way the battery should be draining that fast on STANDBY. usually, when i wake up, the battery has MAYBE dipped 5%. this 35% drain is excessive. keep in mind, i had all location settings turned off. nothing was running on the phone. i think there is definitely something else going on here...

 

[fat jez]

Things are looking up slightly. I let my battery run down to 0% yesterday and fully charged it in one sitting. My Battery is now at 58% left. Usage figures are 2 hrs 8 minutes usage and 1 day 4 hours on standby.

I turned off Mail, Calendars and mobile sync of docs in iCloud. I also turned off Diagnostics and usage and time zone in location services. I still have push email enabled for Google mail. iMessage is still enabled.

 

[electric]

Better performance now

I deleted all my apps, deleted email accounts, turned off notifications, turned down brightness to 1 and only turn phone on to make a call. My battery life is now much better.

 

[DannoTheManno]

This thread is absurd, consumers having to turn off and never use features that drive them to purchase a devise over other products.

A comparable is buying a pick-up but not being able to fill up the bay and move furniture or equipment because it causes in doing that the truck does 10 gallons to the mile and you run out of gas because you get anywhere.

That said I am waiting for my online order just be another person with the problems.