Batterygate??

[JRoDDz]

location system services

From another thread this is what some of these system services do:


1) When device is first turned on, searches for cells/wifi + GPS for 30 seconds, batch sent later.

2) When searching for network after call dropped, cells/wifi are collected and later batch sent.

3) If diagnostics are turned on, cell/wifi coordinates are collected at start/end of call to look for bad cell spots. Batch sent later.

4) When an app requests the current GPS location, any visible cells or hotspots are immediately sent up to Apple along with GPS coordinates.

5) Otherwise, as long as an LBS app is running, it does an intermittent collection which is batch sent every 12 hours.

Seems like a lot of GPS turning on and off here. And if you are in a bad signal area and getting dropped calls it would be worse.

 

[Grettman]

Controlled Study -- Anyone?

A lot of folks are sharing their usage times and standby times and mention in general terms the type of stuff they are doing with their phone; however, is anyone actually trying to measure the performance of their battery in a more scientific way? Meaning -- control variables and repeat the testing under the same conditions. Right now I am running pandora off 3G until the battery dies and then I will capture statistics. I will change settings and then recharge the phone and repeat the test to see if I get different results. In fact, I might just repeat the first test to see if the batter in fact performed differently under the second test compared to the first test.

I certainly think I have a battery problem but until I see the data, I don't know what exactly I can do. I feel as if I (and some of you) are chasing down "fixes" and doing a lot of guessing as to what the true performance of the battery is.

By the way, out of 4M phones sold, this thread and the one on Apple.com aren't getting enough hits to demonstrate a wide-spread problem. (a non-scientific guess of course )

 

[Versus]

Not to point out the obvious, but maybe some simple math can provide a little insight to those who have no idea what to expect?

These numbers are no way an absolute, but for all the people posting their stats and asking "is this good?", perhaps this may give you an approximate indication of your battery's performance.

Apple states:

3G usage time = 7h
Standby = 200h

So:

3G usage = 14.2% per hour or 0.23 per minute (4.35m = 1%)
Standby = 0.5% per hour

Here's a real life example:

Usage = 3 hours = 42.6&
Standby = 1d 9h (33h) = 16.5%
Percentage remaining = 46%
-------------------------------

T= 105%

Ok, so it's not a perfect science. Obviously it will all depend on what you have turned on/off and there's also wifi, apps, and audio/video playback to consider as well. Honestly, I don't have enough real world stats to compare that too, but it's worth a shot. At the very least, you really shouldn't be losing more than 1% every 2 hours on standby.

Speaking of which, to those who are still experiencing major drainage on standby, are you certain you're turning off all the relevant things in Settings? As was stated a bunch of times in here, it's very likely the 3 itmes mentioned in Location Services are the ones causing the majority of the problem.

 

[noTe on iPhone]

Yesterday I drained my battery to 0% and it auto powered off... then fully charged it last night.

From 8AM to 10:24am (right now) I'm at 90%... all stand by time. Much better so far.


Edit: Spoke too soon. Did some light use and it's now at 63% (12:07pm). Makes absolutely no sense and it is really ticking me off now.

 

[mapkos13]

Why??

My experience has been less than stellar as well.

First I had the 4 and updated to IOS % which noticeable decreased my battery life. It also happened on my girlfriends so it wasn't isolated.

Now I have the 4s and the battery is worse. I didn't have to re-calibrate the battery because the damn thing is dead half way through the day. Not an hour after I unplug from the night it drops as much as 15% and usually 3% within ten minutes. Mind you this is with ZERO calls and a few texts.

I have everything possible turned off on the phone except Siri. My emails except for my work is set to fetch. location services is just maps and Siri. My notifications are pretty much all off. GPS is not on and I'm still draining.

Here's my issue. Even if that helped the battery, what the heck is the point of having this great robust phone with all of these features if you can't even pick up the phone to use it without having to toggle things on and off?

BTW I did a full reset of the phone as well.

 

[Versus]

Yesterday I drained my battery to 0% and it auto powered off... then fully charged it last night.

From 8AM to 10:24am (right now) I'm at 90%... all stand by time. Much better so far.

Honestly, you shouldn't be losing more 1-2% during that amount of standby. You turned off "Setting Time Zone", "Diagnostics and Usage", and "Location Based iads" in location services?

 

[Grettman]

Not to point out the obvious, but maybe some simple math can provide a little insight to those who have no idea what to expect?

These numbers are no way an absolute, but for all the people posting their stats and asking "is this good?", perhaps this may give you an approximate indication of your battery's performance.

Apple states:

3G usage time = 7h
Standby = 200h

So:

3G usage = 14.2% per hour
Standby = 0.5% per hour

Here's a real life example:

Usage = 3 hours = 42.6&
Standby = 1d 9h (33h) = 16.5%
Percentage remaining = 46%
-------------------------------

T= 105%

Ok, so it's not a perfect science. Obviously it will all depend on what you have turned on/off and there's also wifi, apps, and audio/video playback to consider as well. Honestly, I don't have enough real world stats to compare that too, but it's worth a shot. At the very least, you really shouldn't be losing more than 1% every 2 hours on standby.

Speaking of which, to those who are still experiencing major drainage on standby, are you certain you're turning off all the relevant things in Settings? As was stated a bunch of times in here, it's very likely the 3 itmes mentioned in Location Services are the ones causing the majority of the problem.

I like the idea of bringing this down to simple math. As I mention in my earlier post above, some real science/math needs to be applied here. Based on my current test, I am projected to hit 7hours of continuous 3G service.

I also like that you point out the standby drainage. I think there are a couple different things going on here that are complicating things... Drainage during standby seems to be a different issue than draining during normal usage.

 

[Daniel.steel]

iCloud Push

Not sure if this is any help to anyone,

I was due to return my phone on Monday ( Short of stock! )

After three restores, basicly shutting of every feature of my phone and still leaking battery at an unacceptable rate.

However...... I think i have resolved the cause of my battery drain and maybe yours two..

I am an iCloud user with all features enabled, however it would seem the push settings are a little OTT.

Amending the settings in Setings > Mail, Contacts, Calenders > Fetch New Data > Turn Push off... AND head into Advanced > iCloud > Manual

This for me has fixed my issues along with all the other fixes everyone has mentioned.

I hope this helps someone.

 

[BrightCanon]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

I turned off the cell tower search and deleted the Facebook app and now use the safari Facebook app. It seems much better now. We will see.

 

[subq]

for some odd reason mine always reports the same time for usage and standby no matter how much I use it...anyone else seeing this?

max time I can get even after complete drain and charge is ~18.5 hours

 

[ikeyes]

Started to think it was getting better... then last night I plug it into AC charger before bed with 24% left and 7 hours later when I unplug the phone it's at 91%

I am calling Apple today, and asking about a cross shipment to replace the phone, I am done with this particular unit. If that's an issue, or will take more than a few days then I'll just return it for a refund.

Maybe in a few weeks it will work itself out, but maybe it won't and I'm not looking to sign a new contract with AT&T on a maybe... I can always buy another one in a month once this all get's squared away.

: /

 

[Thajtodad]

Omg

I have been on my phone surfing and texting for 3 hours on and off with a little above average use and went from full charge at 7:00 AM (100%) to 17% at 11:00 AM , this is not good...Most location based service are off and all other service are set to manual push. What gives? Is this typical or should I visit the genius bar?

 

[Civic Minded]

As aggravating as the problems you're facing are, realize that a lot of people do not have any problems.

What this says to me is the problems aren't endemic to all units, and may be some combination of iOS5, app compatibility with iOS5, and individual hardware issues on some phones.

Get Apple to swap yours out until you're working fine, or return it and sit on the sidelines until this is sorted out.

While it is true that not every single phone has these issues, it's pretty hard to ignore the fact that this thread has almost 75K views already. I'd say a fair bit of people are experiencing this problem, but not everybody is going to chime in about it.

That said, here are my experiences so far. It's nothing that hasn't already been said a hundred times over, but I wanted to add my name to the lengthy list of people experiencing these issues.

My first phone's battery was dropping at a rate of around 1-2 percent every 3-4 minutes, while doing absolutely nothing. Everything extra turned off, no apps running in the background, no siri, no wifi, no anything. Just standby mode. In fact, even turning it to airplane mode didn't help. Apple exchanged my phone for me last night for a brand new one, and lo and behold it's doing the exact same thing as my first one. It's no better at all. Hopefully they get all this sorted out soon.

 

[aarong50]

Last night I deleted I cloud, deleted gmail, did the other tips and did two hard reset. Today I took it off charge at 6am and I am at 85% right now at 11:30.

Yesterday I was at 55% so maybe those changes helped? It certainly is better today.

 

[ikeyes]

for some odd reason mine always reports the same time for usage and standby no matter how much I use it...anyone else seeing this?

max time I can get even after complete drain and charge is ~18.5 hours

Image

Add it to the list, after messing with this all week it just seems to me that iOS 5.0 is not calibrated on many levels with false readings on Usage and probably with the actual battery % is way off too.

Wild swings of data from hundreds of people... very little sign of constants in this thread!

 

[newyorksole]

BatteryGate is real. I went to bed with 100% battery and woke up with 35%!

That should NOT happen.

 

[ikeyes]

Apple exchanged my phone for me last night for a brand new one, and lo and behold it's doing the exact same thing as my first one. It's no better at all. Hopefully they get all this sorted out soon.

And this is why I am considering just a return and not even bothering with the exchange... I have to call AT&T and see how long I really have to decide.

Apple policy is 30-days but I bet AT&T is more like 14-days to avoid locking into the new contract... I'll post back when I find out though.

It's such a shame this is happening, b/c the phone is quite amazing otherwise.

 

[kriskay]

Just wanting to add my name to the list. Although it is only a forum thread every little helps right??? Would encourage people to add thier names to this list too if experiencing said problems.

Im having death grip issues far worse than the iphone 4 along with the battery drain. I though after such an extended period this would have all been worked out. Im a little dissapointed with

Anyone else loose signal with the death grip on the 4s Still?????

 

[PerplexShyt]

it boils down to the inconsistencies with the A5 chip

 

[deeddawg]

While it is true that not every single phone has these issues, it's pretty hard to ignore the fact that this thread has almost 75K views already. I'd say a fair bit of people are experiencing this problem, but not everybody is going to chime in about it.

Just replying to clarify that I do not intend to suggest there aren't a lot of people experiencing issues. I agree that not everyone experiencing an issue will chime in, nor will everyone not experiencing an issue chime in.

Clearly this affects a significant number of users. The difficulty is there's no way to know what proportion of users are affected. 10%, 50%, 90%? No idea. 75K views definitely indicates interest, but it's difficult to draw any quantitative conclusions since it doesn't capture anything indicating the number of unique users viewing the thread.

It will be interesting to see how this settles out, I am sure many are eager to see a quick resolution.

 

[maximus96]

DFU restored my phone last night, set up as new... about 2 hours off charger now. usage shows 49 min usage, 2hr 10 min standby and at 93%

I don't know where the 49 min came from, i checked email a few times, most definitely way less than 49 minutes of use...

 

[tim0409]

for some odd reason mine always reports the same time for usage and standby no matter how much I use it...anyone else seeing this?

max time I can get even after complete drain and charge is ~18.5 hours

Image

This is happening to me as well, even though nothing is running and I am not using the phone. Also, when I charge the phone up it never reaches 100% (only about 95%) and then falls by about 10% per hour on standby. I have tried all the "fixes" but nothing seems to work. Unless I hear from Apple by next week the phone will be returned.

 

[noTe on iPhone]

Honestly, you shouldn't be losing more 1-2% during that amount of standby. You turned off "Setting Time Zone", "Diagnostics and Usage", and "Location Based iads" in location services?

Yup, all turned off. Now reading 60% (12:12pm)

Time since last full charge:
Usage: 1 hour, 27 minutes
Standby: 4 hours, 2 minutes

All four mail accounts set to fetch every 30 minutes, bluetooth off, turned off Ping and I only have location services enabled for Camera, Facebook, Find Friends, Foursquare, Maps, and Siri. iCloud only has Contacts, Bookmarks, Notes, find my iphone enabled. (Photostream, documents & data set to only when on wi-fi)

 

[Enrico]

Not good at all

 

[trouble747]

I charged mine to 100% and left it unplugged last night. 8 hours later, I had lost 4%.

This is right in line with Apple's standby claims. I still feel like it's draining too quickly during use, however. I've been getting close to about 4 hours of use.