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Batterygate??

WannaGoMac said:
I am willing to bet most of these "low battery capacity" claims are due to user configuration issues. iOS has gotten quite complex, and typically are configuration based --- such as the above poster not understanding that iCloud would drain battery during the first uploads to the cloud of data.
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It seems to work fine for some people and awful for others. It's quite perplexing.

It's definitely something that can be corrected with an update, I just wish Apple would acknowledge it and let us know they are working on an update.

People shouldn't have to turn off all the features that make the iPhone great just to get a half-decent battery life. If you can't use what makes the iPhone great, might as well go to a different device.
 
NoHo said:
Has Apple acknowledged there's a problem yet? Only 4 hours of regular usage before your batter is dead is a pretty big deal and should be corrected.
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Yes, they are working it. I've provided special logs from my iPhone after they had me install a special program to watch my activity for a day. They are trying to collect data to determine what the issue is. They have seen many different things solve the issues for some. So it appears it isn't one thing that they have found yet.
 
cdp1276 said:
Yes, they are working it. I've provided special logs from my iPhone after they had me install a special program to watch my activity for a day. They are trying to collect data to determine what the issue is. They have seen many different things solve the issues for some. So it appears it isn't one thing that they have found yet.
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If this is in fact true this is encouraging. I am planning on sticking it out as I have already been to the Apple Store.

My experience was after they performed some diagnostics on my phone they determined the health of the battery was just fine. He did in fact notice that a bunch of CoreServices were crashing my Springboard (although I never did actually see a crash on my springboard, something was happening in the background). The Genius Bar went ahead and restored my phone as a new phone and I am noticing slightly better battery but not as good as it should be. He said he didn't find anything that warranted a replacement.

Hoping a simple 5.0.1 update will fix the problem along with other bugs. I am happy with sticking it out until this update before I go back to Apple Store to demand a replacement.
 
Doesn't really contribute anything to this thread, but figured I'd post this anyway. I went to the Apple Store yesterday to buy a case for my 4S. The girl who was processing my purchase asked me how I liked it so far. I told her I loved it, but that I get very poor battery life out of it. She then said "oh that's an easy fix, just disable location services, push email, notifications, iCloud, and wifi". I then asked her to think about how ridiculous that is, she thought about it and agreed. I told her crippling the capabilities of my phone is NOT a solution. She said that's what Apple has told them to tell people to do.

I have confidence that Apple will help the battery life through a software update, so I'm not freaking out about this. I do find it funny that they'd ask their customers to turn off some of the most used features of the phone.
 
shortman said:
Does anyone think I should bring the phone to apple for this kind of battery life?
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How is your phone configured? Was it set up using a backup from an older iPhone? Have you tried doing a hard reset or restore? How have you been using it? It's hard to advise you when we don't know how you have your phone set up. For example, if you get that type of battery life just playing music, then your battery is likely defective and you should have it looked at. On the other hand, if you are playing 3D games all day, that usage is about par for the course in my experience. It is definitely a bit low if all you've been doing is normal everyday things like checking email and browsing the web.

From reading this thread, I would say a replacement likely won't do you much good (though some people have had luck). It seems more likely that poor battery life is being caused by a software problem in iOS 5. Hopefully Apple will release an update to take care of it.
 
MacDevil7334 said:
How is your phone configured? Was it set up using a backup from an older iPhone? Have you tried doing a hard reset or restore? How have you been using it? It's hard to advise you when we don't know how you have your phone set up. For example, if you get that type of battery life just playing music, then your battery is likely defective and you should have it looked at. On the other hand, if you are playing 3D games all day, that usage is about par for the course in my experience. It is definitely a bit low if all you've been doing is normal everyday things like checking email and browsing the web.

From reading this thread, I would say a replacement likely won't do you much good (though some people have had luck). It seems more likely that poor battery life is being caused by a software problem in iOS 5. Hopefully Apple will release an update to take care of it.
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This is from today, I listened to music while doing some web usage for most of the usage time listed...is that to much usage? Seems like even my old droid got better battery life then that.
 
PaulieORF said:
Doesn't really contribute anything to this thread, but figured I'd post this anyway. I went to the Apple Store yesterday to buy a case for my 4S. The girl who was processing my purchase asked me how I liked it so far. I told her I loved it, but that I get very poor battery life out of it. She then said "oh that's an easy fix, just disable location services, push email, notifications, iCloud, and wifi". I then asked her to think about how ridiculous that is, she thought about it and agreed. I told her crippling the capabilities of my phone is NOT a solution. She said that's what Apple has told them to tell people to do.

I have confidence that Apple will help the battery life through a software update, so I'm not freaking out about this. I do find it funny that they'd ask their customers to turn off some of the most used features of the phone.
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But with all of these features enabled my iPhone 4 is 30% better then my 4S
 
No idea what you mean.

All I am saying, like for like with the same features enabled on both phones the 4's battery beats the 4's by about 30% in my case and that hold true for all of my mates who made the 4/4S upgrade too.
 
Pagemakers said:
No idea what you mean.

All I am saying, like for like with the same features enabled on both phones the 4's battery beats the 4's by about 30% in my case and that hold true for all of my mates who made the 4/4S upgrade too.
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When you said "but", it sounded like you were trying to argue against or contradict something I said, that's what "but' means. Thank you for clarifying.
 
Ahhhh, see what you mean. Sorry, it's been a long day. I agree wholeheartedly with that you say.

Apple telling us to turn the features off is bloody stupid.

The blurb says the battery is better. Fact is, it simply isn't - it's worse.
 
Pagemakers said:
Ahhhh, see what you mean. Sorry, it's been a long day. I agree wholeheartedly with that you say.

Apple telling us to turn the features off is bloody stupid.

The blurb says the battery is better. Fact is, it simply isn't - it's worse.
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Hopefully it will be better once they sort this all out. I was running iOS 5 on my iPhone 4 prior to to getting my 4S. I noticed battery life was worse on the 4 under iOS 5, but not quite as bad as it is on the 4S. Using all the same features, just like you said.
 
i just hope they figure it out soon. part of me is considering returning my 4s within the 30 days and getting a new 4 again. but then, i think about it, and the 4s does last me i think a day, it's just much closer to death at the end of the day than the 4 was.
 
maximus96 said:
DFU restored the phone last night, set up as new and did not sync over any apps, did not set up any mail, turned off icloud (i did turn it on to get the contacts back, then deleted the account on the phone) and all system location services besides the cell tower search.

full charged to this morning. right now it shows 93% left with 35 min usage (safari on wifi) and 2 hr standby...seems pretty crappy to me for a completely bone stock phone, with no extra apps, no push notifications, no icloud...

will keep monitoring it throughout the day...

...just dropped to 92% now...=(
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updating my battery status,

the battery is now at 65%, with 2.5hr Use and 7 Hr 13 min standby. usage is mostly safari on wifi and a few imessages. nothing else on phone, no exchange mail, icloud, apps, etc.

i made an appt with the apple store tomorrow, do you guys think its worthwhile for me to go for the battery issue? i'm not sure if they would consider this "normal"...
 
Try going into advanced features under mail stuff. I changed my push to every hour but I've got multiple accounts and it didn't touch the ones beneath that. After making the change battery life isn't dropping as rapidly and usage stats say 58 minutes used with 3 hrs 10 min of standby. I still wasn't on it for 58 minutes so I'm not entirely sure how that's tabulated.

By my personal opinion, usage should be for active stuff like the screen on and me doing things or if there's a transfer going on in the background. I believe it counts all manner of background processes as usage. Probably will require some firmware tweaks to put this under control. For example, I see no reason for GPS to be firing up at all hours. Locational reminders seem like a dumb idea since they'll chew up battery. The damn thing should just remain off until such time as I make a request that requires GPS and then activate for as long as required.
 
I think I may have a fix. When I went into notification center I noticed my calendar entries were flashing. My phone was running at 100% cpu (load actually showed 4.3, 4.6, and 4.4) and battery was already like 60% drained after only 4 hours of being unplugged (and NO voice calls)...

Since turning calendar notifications off, my phone battery drain appears to be normal and my phone is much snappier, so I think this may be a fix!
 
djrobsd said:
I think I may have a fix. When I went into notification center I noticed my calendar entries were flashing. My phone was running at 100% cpu (load actually showed 4.3, 4.6, and 4.4) and battery was already like 60% drained after only 4 hours of being unplugged (and NO voice calls)...

Since turning calendar notifications off, my phone battery drain appears to be normal and my phone is much snappier, so I think this may be a fix!
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What do you use to view processor usage?
 
shortman said:
Does anyone think I should bring the phone to apple for this kind of battery life?

[url=http://img818.imageshack.us/img818/3451/iphonez.png]Image[/URL]

Uploaded with ImageShack.us
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I would say so unless maybe you were playing hours of infinity blade or something. Here's a screenshot for me:
6284526174_5d3d30a87c.jpg

I know usage differs a lot, but I've got more usage, loads more standby at over a day and a half, and still 20 percent left. iCloud,photo stream, push notifications and all of that stuff is on/enabled. Not restored from a backup.
 
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if ya want to drain your battery fast.....

I noticed that within 20 minutes of being on App Store and downloading stuff...I brought it down from 10% to 0% in 20 minutes or less :)
 
the main reason I bought this phone is for looks only really...I guess I shouldn't be complaining about the battery since the purpose has been accomplished already with the looks :D
 
Definitely subpar compared to the iPhone 4 but its not disastrous.

-Wi-Fi On...mostly (ask to join off)
-BT Off
-Notifications On (excl some games)
-Location Services On (excl iAds, Time Zone & Diagnostics)
-40% Brightness
-Light music, surfing, maps, gaming and calls
-Heavy messaging
-Exchange Contacts and Calendar
-Fetch 2 Mail accounts hourly
-Siri on (raise to speak off)
-iCloud on (excl Contacts, Calendar and Photostream)
 

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