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Battery Life Worse on iOS 5.1

MacBookPro13"

MacBookPro13"

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 25, 2011
589
0
Ireland
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9B179 Safari/7534.48.3)

I don't know about anyone else yet but since the 5.1 update I have found my battery life to be significantly worse.

Since taking off charge, 1hr 2mins ago and 40 mins usage - there is 83% of battery left.

The phone has been using 3G but I have been mainly using it lightly, couple of iMessages, Twitter (5 mins), Facebook (5 mins) and checking my email.


This would have taken maybe 5-7% on iOS 5.0.1 max. I can't believe it.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9B179 Safari/7534.48.3)

I can't believe mine, I've been using it for 26 mins since last full charge.. Made a call, playing games, web browsing, facebook, installing apps, and it's still at 100%!

EDIT: I've noticed that the usage and standby time go up at the same time. They're both at 29 mins now, battery still on 100%, and I haven't really had the phone on standby at all. I'll restart and throw it on charge overnight. May be a bit of a bug

EDIT 2: after a restart, the battery percentage is going down, but interestingly enough the standby and the usage time go up at the same time. Ah well. Battery seems pretty good though. Will let you know how it goes tomorrow.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9B179 Safari/7534.48.3)

Interesting. Thanks for the reply. Hopefully when I'm back home using Wi-Fi things will improve.
 
Too early for me to mention however I am noticing my iPad 1st generation is noticeably quicker, and now charges to 100% over the 99% previously.
 
This is ridiculous, iOS5.1 hasn't even been out for 24 hours yet and people are already claiming its worsening battery life. Making subjective judgements over such a short period of time are almost certainly going to be wrong. Test it for at least a week then see if its really had an impact on battery life, I'd be willing to bet that it hasn't.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9B179 Safari/7534.48.3)

So my phone dropping 16% after an hour is just fine? When on the previous OS version, it would have taken a lot longer to go down by that much (which was also considered poor).

It's too early for me to say its after worsening?
 
MacBookPro13";14456601 said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9B179 Safari/7534.48.3)

So my phone dropping 16% after an hour is just fine? When on the previous OS version, it would have taken a lot longer to go down by that much (which was also considered poor).

It's too early for me to say its after worsening?
Click to expand...

Yes it is too early. The battery might not be collaborating correctly yet with the new software.

This goes for the '3 hours use still at 100% battery' posts as well.
 
In my experience it is always a good idea to restore the phone and restore it from iCloud instead of updating.

All "other" data that was not included in iCloud will not be restored.
Somehow iOS feels smoother after doing that.

That's my subjective opinion.
 
Charging now from my laptop and going to be using the Wi-Fi in college so should see a difference there. Still pretty disappointing though.
 
SimonTheSoundMa said:
I charged my 4S before going to bed and then unplugged it. Normally it would fall to 60% after 8 hours not even being used, this morning it was at 91%.
Click to expand...

Strangely my battery performs better if i fully charge it before going to bed and then leave it idle while i sleep then if i leave it plugged in through the night.

It drains quicker from doing the latter :confused:
 
GUYS, after the update is done. Do a hard reset, holding sleep/wake button with home button until the device switches off and on. Then witness the magic of ios 5.1.................... :)
 
My battery life is definitely worse after 5.1 upgrade.

My battery stayed at 100% for about 20 minutes, gave me false hope because ever since its been dropping FAST! I'm at 24% with 3 hours since last charge and only mail app open, far less than I usually use.

Apple needs to fix ASAP.
 
MacBookPro13";14456816 said:
2 and a half hours off charge and the battery is at 50%. How can I get through my day like that?
Click to expand...

I had the same problem with my iPhone 4s drainning battery and even heating while in the pocket after I updated to iOS 5.1. I tried everything: closing all apps, rebooting, hard reseting, even disabling WiFI, 3G, mobile data, notifications, location services, Bluetooth, etc. Although "disabling everything" helps to prolong the life throughout the day it's not the solution :(
So, the final option was to try resetting to factory settings. I did double backup to iCloud and iTunes, transfered all purchases from iPhone to iTunes, did resetting to factory settings and restored from iTunes backup. I can confirm that this solves the problme and my phone went back to normal. The only downside of restoring from backup is that you need to put all non Apple apps back to folders manually, so it took for me few hours as far as I had more than 200 apps :). If you also have a lot of apps arranged into folders, I recomend to do screenshots (Home+Power buttons) of every screen and folder.
 
Broph said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9B179 Safari/7534.48.3)

I can't believe mine, I've been using it for 26 mins since last full charge.. Made a call, playing games, web browsing, facebook, installing apps, and it's still at 100%!

EDIT: I've noticed that the usage and standby time go up at the same time. They're both at 29 mins now, battery still on 100%, and I haven't really had the phone on standby at all. I'll restart and throw it on charge overnight. May be a bit of a bug

EDIT 2: after a restart, the battery percentage is going down, but interestingly enough the standby and the usage time go up at the same time. Ah well. Battery seems pretty good though. Will let you know how it goes tomorrow.
Click to expand...

if your usage and standby are the same, something isn't right.
 
p.s.
 

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Had same problem, was told here on the forum to try a hard reset. That seems to have done the trick.
 
I'm one of those who's very happy with the 5.1 update. Before the update my battery would be down to about 60% by noon during the week. Now it's more like 80%. Big difference in my book. It also seems to have resolved my issues with Safari on my iPad 1.
 
I created a similar thread under the title of 'my wife's iphone shows 'ghost usage time'.

After the upgrade to 5.1, the usage time and stand-by time is the same as previous posters noted. As a result, it loses 20% over night. It is specific to 5.1 as the phone was perfect before the upgrade.

Already the deepest clean-install was done at Genus bar but the problem persists.
Full recharge was also done. No fix.

Right now, I don't know what to do.
 
Last edited:
It's a PROBLEM and it's REAL people

Terrible battery life now days after the update and many complete drains and recharges. Absolutely didn't have this problem before the update.

"Restart the device!" "Reset and restore!" ...sounds like exactly the kind of balderdash the Apple crowd used to make fun of others for!
 
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