Have you tried calibrating your battery by letting the battery completely drain and then fully charging it? That seemed to work for me. I also turned off location services for most of my apps. On the first full day after I got my 4S the battery was almost drained about 15 hours after being fully charged. Now after calibrating the battery, among other things, it seems to be much better. With 1 hr 19 minutes of usage and 10 hrs 28 minutes of standby since my last full charge, my battery is at 82%. Seems all right to me. You can look up your usage since the last full charge at Settings > General > Usage.
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Bad iPhone 4S battery life?
- Thread starter linkandzelda
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Yes i spotted this too i disabled it and it imprioved slightly.
So like, I went to an Apple store today asking how i can improve my battery life. I expligned my experieinces and they gave me a brand new one on the spot. I wonder if it will show any difference or not.
I'm having the exact same issues, even replaced mine at the store - same results... so it was not a defective unit as I first thoughts... same exact setting as I had with Iphone 4... 4S battery drains like a leaky pipe... left home with 100% got to work with 78% in less then an hour (didnt use the phone)...
Tried to turn off location services & Bluetooth... didn't help
Trying now to turn off Push (have 2 exchange emails + icloud) to see if that helps...
Something is certainly wrong...
Ive got a 64gb iphone 4s in black and received it on launch day. As soon as I did i noticed issues affecting the battery. The first day of usage was terrible with the battery dropping completely. Note that this was a clean install - a bit of music, exchange account set up and half hour fetches. No icloud, no bluetooth, wifi or any notifications, or locations.
I even switched off mobile data to see how it went.
In an hour it seems to drop 10% doing very little - maybe the occasional text message.*
It is on t-mobile in the UK and with a sim card from an existing contract - so it was bought sim free from apple.
I have spoken with Apple Care and they have offered a replacement so I am hoping it can resolve the problem - but since I've had it, I've turned it from a smart phone into a flip phone - no cool features - but still ridiculous battery life.*
You name the feature, I have turned it off.
I hope this is a batch related issue - or something that can be addressed, as this is my first iphone and was really looking forward to having something that was a joy to use.
Dont get me wrong, its lovely, but thats only when the battery holds a charge.
I even switched off mobile data to see how it went.
In an hour it seems to drop 10% doing very little - maybe the occasional text message.*
It is on t-mobile in the UK and with a sim card from an existing contract - so it was bought sim free from apple.
I have spoken with Apple Care and they have offered a replacement so I am hoping it can resolve the problem - but since I've had it, I've turned it from a smart phone into a flip phone - no cool features - but still ridiculous battery life.*
You name the feature, I have turned it off.
I hope this is a batch related issue - or something that can be addressed, as this is my first iphone and was really looking forward to having something that was a joy to use.
Dont get me wrong, its lovely, but thats only when the battery holds a charge.
Discovered a direct problem with rapid power loss
I created a bug issue on Apple developer, Problem ID: 10310193.
My iPhone 4s would go from 100% charge to less than 10% in around 3 - 4 hours all while in standby. When I would pick up my phone, I noticed that it was unreasonably hot for being in standby. The culprit is configuring Google calendar syncing through the MS Exchange interface. I noticed that when I would have calendar event reminders shown on the notifier display they would be refreshing/flashing rapidly.
I had tried turning everything else off as suggested by Apple, but just disabling the calendar sync made the problem stop. My phone has been on for 4 hours and I am at 97% charge.
I created a bug issue on Apple developer, Problem ID: 10310193.
My iPhone 4s would go from 100% charge to less than 10% in around 3 - 4 hours all while in standby. When I would pick up my phone, I noticed that it was unreasonably hot for being in standby. The culprit is configuring Google calendar syncing through the MS Exchange interface. I noticed that when I would have calendar event reminders shown on the notifier display they would be refreshing/flashing rapidly.
I had tried turning everything else off as suggested by Apple, but just disabling the calendar sync made the problem stop. My phone has been on for 4 hours and I am at 97% charge.
I turned off a bunch of location services on certain apps. (camera, camera+, cnn, compass, Facebook, twitter, iMovie, gas buddy, instagram, photos, reminders & safari); Noticed a huge difference so far. Not sure which app was draining my battery? At 9:30am my 4s was at 100%, 2:28pm I'm currently at 87% ... big improvement.
I figured out why my 4S was draining the battery in a matter of hours. Once I went under Settings>Icloud, configured an account and turned off everything except Find My Phone the battery life has stabilized and the Iphone is no longer warm to the touch.
I went through turning off everything suggested by people in a couple of different forums including the pain of restoring the phone. It would help to have some debug tools, but I guess that is beyond the Apple mentality. It would also help to have Apple engineering looking at forums like this or putting out some sort of bulletin.
This was about 10 hours of BS troubleshooting crap that should be obvious from field testing. The problem is probably that they have to keep the equipment secret to maintain their mystique.
I went through turning off everything suggested by people in a couple of different forums including the pain of restoring the phone. It would help to have some debug tools, but I guess that is beyond the Apple mentality. It would also help to have Apple engineering looking at forums like this or putting out some sort of bulletin.
This was about 10 hours of BS troubleshooting crap that should be obvious from field testing. The problem is probably that they have to keep the equipment secret to maintain their mystique.
Nhwhazup
macrumors 68040
Initially I was totally disappointed with the battery life of my new 4S. However, after shutting off the push function and some of the location services that want to run in the background, the battery life has been much better. It has gone from running down to 52% in 12 hours (of low usage and mostly standby) to down 50% in 15 hours. Each day has shown marked improvement.
A lot of apps defaulted to push notifications with iOS5. Based on this occation, I think you'd better find the reason or call their customer serive first for a longer help solution.
Must be said, I thought there might have been something up with my iPhones battery the firt time round, but having switched off my proximity sensor on Siri (lift to speak, or whatever its called) and it seems to be slowing down the consumption. It doesn't use any power during standby, which makes sense as I've switched off all the location services and push notifications and things to save the power. Connected to wifi, underneath a spotlight (so the screen has ramped up the brightness) and typing this, which has taken 1% off my battery. All seems to be going quite well.
I'm having same fast drain issues. I was fine until I had to travel for work. The signal is weak in my hotel and I don't get 3G. I turned all cellular data off and things went back to normal, even on wifi. Could the slow network speeds have anything to do with iCloud or anything else to cause the drain?
I am finding draining to 0 and charging to 100% in two cycles has helped for me. I find that using apps really is what eats up battery use more than it should and also makes the phone super hot.
Also, a hard reset helped the high standby drain rate.
Also, a hard reset helped the high standby drain rate.
slffl
macrumors 65816
My iPhone 4S has a lot shorter battery life. The thing is, we shouldn't have to turn features off that we used on the iPhone 4 to get the same battery out of the 4S.
I want the SAME battery life. Right now it's about 40-50% less than the iPhone 4.
Pagemakers
macrumors 68030
TERRIBLE battery life.
Worst of every iPhone Ive had by far - 30-40% worse then my ipHone 4 while do the same things.
Signal was better at home on my iPhone 4 and not noticed about the speed improvements but that a whole different topic.
Thank god for Siri because without it this is a huge cock up from Apple (and Im a fan)!!
Worst of every iPhone Ive had by far - 30-40% worse then my ipHone 4 while do the same things.
Signal was better at home on my iPhone 4 and not noticed about the speed improvements but that a whole different topic.
Thank god for Siri because without it this is a huge cock up from Apple (and Im a fan)!!
rocknblogger
macrumors 68020
I find that if I charge over night take it off the charger, let it run down a few percent then put it back on the charger until it reaches 100% and leave it a few more minutes, it then discharges at a much slower rate. I can go about fourteen hours and still have 25% to 35% left after moderate to heavy use.
Pagemakers
macrumors 68030
Not really sure why you should turning anything off or resetting things!!
I am using exactly the same services as my iPhone 4 did for years and I'm getting 30% worse battery life.
Every friend who upgraded to the 4S is telling me the same.
I am using exactly the same services as my iPhone 4 did for years and I'm getting 30% worse battery life.
Every friend who upgraded to the 4S is telling me the same.
After exchanging your phone for a new one are you still having the same problems?
TL24
macrumors 68000
Here's what I've done to preserve my battery, it's helped a ton since I also had the famous battery life issue.
1. Location Services -> System Services: Disable the following -----> Diagnostics & Usage, Location-Based iAds, Setting Time Zone and Traffic. (I left Cell Network Search on as well as Compass Calibration in case Google Maps needs it to better calibrate my location).
2. Location Services: Turn off anything that you're NOT using, in my case I had the usual such as Camera, Fantasy Football 2011, Find Friends, Find My iPhone (for now since my iPhone 4S is like glue) and any other app that you feel shouldn't use your location.
3. Go into all of the available apps under "Settings" and turn off Push-Notifications that you do not need. Since everyone uses Facebook differently I'll leave it up to you on whether you want to be notified for certain things.
4. Turn off Siri's "Raise to Speak" feature
5. Turn off Bluetooth under Settings -> General -> Bluetooth - IF you're not using any Bluetooth headset/device
6. Turn off Wi-Fi if you currently do not have Wi-Fi around.
As of right now I've used 2 Hours, 20 Minutes of Usage and 5 Hours, 40 Minutes of Standby Time and I still have 61% of battery left which isn't great but it's better than before. All this after moderate to high usage (browse the web, texts, phone calls, speed test at work and other things).
I hope this helps!
1. Location Services -> System Services: Disable the following -----> Diagnostics & Usage, Location-Based iAds, Setting Time Zone and Traffic. (I left Cell Network Search on as well as Compass Calibration in case Google Maps needs it to better calibrate my location).
2. Location Services: Turn off anything that you're NOT using, in my case I had the usual such as Camera, Fantasy Football 2011, Find Friends, Find My iPhone (for now since my iPhone 4S is like glue) and any other app that you feel shouldn't use your location.
3. Go into all of the available apps under "Settings" and turn off Push-Notifications that you do not need. Since everyone uses Facebook differently I'll leave it up to you on whether you want to be notified for certain things.
4. Turn off Siri's "Raise to Speak" feature
5. Turn off Bluetooth under Settings -> General -> Bluetooth - IF you're not using any Bluetooth headset/device
6. Turn off Wi-Fi if you currently do not have Wi-Fi around.
As of right now I've used 2 Hours, 20 Minutes of Usage and 5 Hours, 40 Minutes of Standby Time and I still have 61% of battery left which isn't great but it's better than before. All this after moderate to high usage (browse the web, texts, phone calls, speed test at work and other things).
I hope this helps!
Ok well he is my experience on this, my roommate has a white 16gb iPhone 4s on AT&T and his phone is all stock settings running 59% battery, 2 hours 50min of usage and 3 hours 46min standby. Now my phone is a 64 gb white on Sprint charged phone to 100% turned off all the things you said and I'm at 80% battery, 1hour 22min usage and 1 hour 37min standby. So from what it seems there's not much of a difference I also talked to an apple employee in Pasadena and he said there have been some defective batteries
TL24
macrumors 68000
True, it could be a defective battery? All I know is that the settings I mentioned above are working great for me. At this time of the day I would usually have around 30-40% left? I currently have 57% after all the mods I've made. Best of luck to everyone out there!
The thing I've learned with exchanges tho is to never do them especially with my luck, most likely I get a phone that has far worse problems then I'll be stuck in a defective circle
Ok now for my phone on sprint I am at 59% with only 2hr21min of usage and 3hr1min of standby, so I actually got worse battery turning everything off then my roommate who has all settings stock
TL24
macrumors 68000
Here's an update to my day:
Battery is at 31%
Usage: 3 Hours, 40 Minutes
Standby: 9 Hours, 41 Minutes
Again, all this from Moderate to High usage. Since I'm coming from Android (blah) and this is my first time on an iPhone/iOS please feel free to let me know if this is good or bad.
*UPDATE*
Here's my last update for the day before I charge it up, currently at 15%:
Battery is at 31%
Usage: 3 Hours, 40 Minutes
Standby: 9 Hours, 41 Minutes
Again, all this from Moderate to High usage. Since I'm coming from Android (blah) and this is my first time on an iPhone/iOS please feel free to let me know if this is good or bad.
*UPDATE*
Here's my last update for the day before I charge it up, currently at 15%:
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