iPod touch Fed up with the 4G's battery

[outsidethebox]

I have had my iPod Touch 4G since Christmas, and it has been plagued with bad battery problems ever since I first used it. Especially overnight, it will almost always lose 50-70% of its battery.

I have read almost every thread about battery problems, and I have tried everything. I manually close every app after use, I don't play games, I don't use Facetime, I don't have Fetch on, screen brightness is only about 60%, etc.

I took two screenshots from last night and this morning, where after unplugging from a full charge I left it on the table overnight (8h) with no apps open, and when I woke up it had lost at least 50% of its charge. I had the same problem with two iPhone 4's last year before I returned them - it can't be that I'm getting lemons every time.

The only thing I leave on is Push and Wifi, which people tell me to turn off to improve the battery life. This is ridiculous. I bought the iPod to have instant access to my e-mails, not to turn all its functions off (which I almost already have). In any case, receiving ONE e-mail in the span of 8 hours cannot explain how it can lose 50% of its charge overnight. I don't know what else I can try, I am getting fed up with Apple portable devices.

 

[alust2013]

Keeping a wifi connection for that long does eat some battery, although I think that is a pretty severe case. I typically just go into settings and turn airplane mode on at night (not that much of a pain, it's right there on the first settings page), and it barely uses any battery. If I leave wifi on overnight, it will eat a bit of it, although not 50%. I'm still happy though as my first gen's battery was dying for a while, and eventually I was happy to get a day and a half without using wifi at all.

 

[LeighAnna Jones]

Settings Airple Mode=On
Close all the apps;
Brightness on 50 to 45;
TURN OFF SKYPE!

Don't let this ruin the iPod. You can have SUPPORT from an Apple person.
Replacement. Possibly.

I charge mine every night.

Alos; lock the iPod when you are not using it!! Don't let the screen fade itself!

 

[Bacong]

lol @ people who don't charge their devices overnight

 

[LeighAnna Jones]

lol @ people who don't charge their devices overnight

Really. I mean; it's not like you're going to be using it in your sleep is it?

 

[walterwhite]

lol @ people who don't charge their devices overnight

I gotta agree... Best accessory I ever bought for my iPhone is a clock radio with the cradle charger... so nice and now always charged for the day.

 

[wordoflife]

Guarantee you that turning off your WiFi will fix your issue.

 

[patp]

op mentioned he doesn't use Facetime, but didnt say if they actually went into settings to turn Facetime off.

I too was having battery issues, but once Facetime was turned off in settings, all of a sudden the battery life increased.

i can get almost 2 days of usage with medium to heavy internet usage, play some videos, songs etc.

 

[outsidethebox]

op mentioned he doesn't use Facetime, but didnt say if they actually went into settings to turn Facetime off.

I too was having battery issues, but once Facetime was turned off in settings, all of a sudden the battery life increased.

i can get almost 2 days of usage with medium to heavy internet usage, play some videos, songs etc.

I didn't even have Facetime set up, so I don't think that would have been affecting it. I just registered and turned it off, but I doubt that will make any difference.

As for turning WiFi off, I'm sure that will help the problem, but as I mentioned the entire reason I bought the touch is to I can access my e-mail and browse online - I shouldn't have to keep turning it on and off to get the "normal/acceptable" amounts of battery life that most other users (including all of my friends with the device) seem to get without having any problem whatsoever.

 

[wordoflife]

As for turning WiFi off, I'm sure that will help the problem, but as I mentioned the entire reason I bought the touch is to I can access my e-mail and browse online - I shouldn't have to keep turning it on and off to get the "normal/acceptable" amounts of battery life that most other users (including all of my friends with the device) seem to get without having any problem whatsoever.

I agree. At first my 3GS had this problem, but my 1st and 2nd generation iPod Touch didn't. Then I switched the encryption on my router, and only my 2G has the problem. I kinda got used to just turning WiFi on and off manually. Sucks, but oh well...

 

[Brucewl]

That's right, wifi should be turned off!

 

[TheIntruder]

As for turning WiFi off, I'm sure that will help the problem, but as I mentioned the entire reason I bought the touch is to I can access my e-mail and browse online - I shouldn't have to keep turning it on and off to get the "normal/acceptable" amounts of battery life that most other users (including all of my friends with the device) seem to get without having any problem whatsoever.

That's the jist of it.

Apple is known for tightly integrating how hardware and software works together to give the user a good experience.

In this instance, I think the software and hardware aren't quite on the same page.

A user shouldn't have to actively disable functions like wi-fi, or put the device into a lockdown mode just to keep it from depleting the battery while on standby.

Granted, iOS 4 does a lot more background processing, but iOS 3 didn't have issues with standby time, even with wi-fi and other features left on overnight.

The way iOS 4 upgrades also affect some older devices in the same manner suggests that either intentionally, or unintentionally, a change in the software is the culprit that Apple has yet to address.

Apple either needs to fix the software, or upgrade the hardware to restore parity, and give the user the same level of experience that prior devices offered.

 

[cheeseblock]

iOS 4 does a lot more background processing, but iOS 3 didn't have issues with standby time, even with wi-fi and other features left on overnight.
Apple either needs to fix the software, or upgrade the hardware to restore parity, and give the user the same level of experience that prior devices offered.

Very true.

I have had the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th generations of the iPod touch. I always leave wifi on, but am good at conserving power otherwise. The second and third gen touches i had were awesome. Their battery life lasted a good 3 days on average of playing lots of music and surfing the web a lot. Even with iOS4 on the 3rd gen, its battery didn't get any worse, and i had that one for a year. I sold it to upgrade to the 4th gen (waste of money)

Even when my 4th gen was brand new, it had very sucky battery life. I never made it through a whole day, even just with playing music. And it would lose tons of battery power just sitting in standby, especially overnight. Apple claims 40 hours of audio battery life: yeah, more like 40 hours of standby time. I sold it after only 2 months, on the day Verizon iPhone was announced

 

[Ainze]

The WiFi thing isn't a bug, it's a feature. It takes power to keep probing the internet all night. Things like Facetime and especially Skype are always on standby, and so always keeping your WiFi active. There are other apps too.

The OPs case does sound a little extreme and so might need a replacement, but it's certainly not normal for most iPods. I use mine at night the same way the OP does, and hardly get any drain while I sleep. My advice is kill all your multi-tasking apps before your sleep. Since I did that, I've never had a problem. And when I know I won't be using WiFi, I use Airplane mode. But killing the apps is the big one. Also, don't forget the little things like Location Services and all that stuff that also uses the internet.

Once again, not a bug. It's features. Features that, if you want them, will use up power! Can't have it both ways.

 

[JonLa]

Look at what apps are active when you go to bed, and which are likely to keep accessing the wifi - the killer for me on my iphone was push emails. I changed the settings to only check every hour and it's been much better.

 

[outsidethebox]

Look at what apps are active when you go to bed, and which are likely to keep accessing the wifi - the killer for me on my iphone was push emails. I changed the settings to only check every hour and it's been much better.

I don't have Fetch on, it is set to manual. I only leave Push on, and I didn't even receive any e-mails/messages or anything last night. I don't have Location Services on, and there are NO apps running in the background, I have made sure to close absolutely everything.

After disabling Facetime I woke up this morning to find I lost even more battery than the previous night, about 70%. I am going to try testing Airplane mode tonight, even though I don't want to and don't think I should have to.

I'm tempted to bring it back to the Apple store, but I did the same thing with my iPhone that had the same problem in September and they tested the battery and said it was fine, so I'm worried the same thing will just happen again.

 

[SpiritJb]

Earlier today, I just quoted myself to provide a solution to the problem. Then I realized that I am not doing much without providing any explanation. So here goes...

Q: Why does this happen? It never happen in iOS 3.x.
A: In iOS 3.x when you would put your iPod to sleep, your wifi would turn itself off within 15 minutes of sleeping. However, a new feature in iOS 4.x is something apple likes to call "persistent wifi". Essentially, this feature is suppose to keep an active wifi connection for VoIP, streaming music, safari download, and notification. However, this is where all the frustration comes to play. Some app developers think their app is the best thing in the world. Consequently they enable constant notification on their app. This feature tells the iPod to constantly check the Internet every X min to see if there is a new notification (update, text message, phone call, etc.). If you have these types of apps, then, while your iPod is asleep, it is really working and pinging your network. As a consequence, the device battery is constantly drained.

Q: Why do my friends have minimal drainage.
A: It all depends on what app they have, and how many of those apps are notification wifi hogs.

Q: Ok I am starting to understand, however this surely is not my issue! I have my notification system off, doesn't that nulify the aforementioned?
A: Nope, the truth is that many developers apps program the notification trigger incorrectly. As a consequence, turning off Notification in the settings app is no good.

Q:Ok I am believer. Stop with all this yacking!!! How can I fix this darn issue?
A:

Have a battery drain issue? Is it caused by having persistent wifi on all the time? Well I can assure you this problem arises from Apple’s poor Notification setup. As a result, to fix this issue all one really has to do is simi-disable Notification (disable only when iPod is sleeping) on their device. For some, including myself, disabling it via the setting app did not work.

Consequently, you will need to...

Navigate to: /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.apsd.plist

... and delete:

<key>keepalive</key>

Finally, reboot the device

Btw, you must be jailbroken an untethered for this to work.

Q: Sh** I have a new iPod with no shsh blobs backups (didn't you read? I got this for Christmas). Is there anything I can do?
A: Your last alternative would be to... Preform a fresh restore of your whole device (do NOT restore from backup). Upon the fresh restore, make sure you never allow any apps to enable notification on your device (aka always say no to the notification activation of an app). Essentially, you know notification is not activated if you enter the settings app, and you don't see it.

I hope this helps (btw I am on my iPod so please pardon my spelling mistakes--I am sure auto correct messed me up somewhere, and more than once).

 

[Macfool1]

battery charge

I got a new ipod touch for Christmas called the help line. They walked me through this process it worked. I felt totally stupid. But hey I was an old ipod user and the old way of shutting down was what I was used to...so I didn't read the manual. total duhuh moment. But I thought maybe some other old user stuck in their ways didn't read the manual either....

If the ipod is on.so that the screen with all the icons show..push the round button on the bottom twice. This brings up the submenu of what programs are running in the background. yep, I didn't know they had the submenu....then see the icons (in my case it was over 20 because the kids used the machine) push and hold the icon until a - (minus) sign shows up. tap the - (minus) sign to shut down that program. yeesh...I had a month of cursing and two phone service calls before we discovered that. yep....call me a macfool

 

[SpiritJb]

I got a new ipod touch for Christmas called the help line. They walked me through this process it worked. I felt totally stupid. But hey I was an old ipod user and the old way of shutting down was what I was used to...so I didn't read the manual. total duhuh moment. But I thought maybe some other old user stuck in their ways didn't read the manual either....

If the ipod is on.so that the screen with all the icons show..push the round button on the bottom twice. This brings up the submenu of what programs are running in the background. yep, I didn't know they had the submenu....then see the icons (in my case it was over 20 because the kids used the machine) push and hold the icon until a - (minus) sign shows up. tap the - (minus) sign to shut down that program. yeesh...I had a month of cursing and two phone service calls before we discovered that. yep....call me a macfool

...and this is related to the thread how???

 

[ExiledMafia]

Its Gonna Happen

Unfortunately at this point I feel like its becoming an industrial standard for cell phones and ipod touch to charge every night. These devices are basically becoming computers and eat the battery very quickly....

 

[ttpm15]

my itouch 4g battery

i left the ipod in standby overnight ( 8h ) with everything off ( no apps running, wifi off, bluetooth off, location service off, push notification off ) and it will eat around 5% of my battery, is that good or bad ?

i wish apple make the itouch a little thicker ( more space for battery ) so i can use my device without worry about constantly switch wifi on and off.

 

[YMark]

...and this is related to the thread how???

It is related because there can be programs running in the background that could be battery drainers. Shutting these down can save battery.

No need to be condescending.

 

[NT1440]

Have you gotten it looked at? My battery life is nothing short of amazing and I don't have overnight battery discharge.

 

[gumblecosby]

I had this battery drain problem. To kind of fix it I went through these steps:

-push notifications -off
-location services - off
-game centre- log out (I never used this app yet was I automatically logged in)
-mail - fetch data manually
-calenders - New invitation alerts - off
-facetime- log out (same situation as game centre)
-auto brightness - off, brightness set to about a third.
-regularly clear multitask bar
-skype- log out when not in use


I also went through settings in every 3rd party app and disabled anything to do with push just to be safe.

All of these settings were done after a clean restore where the apps were manually added, ie. did not restore from a backup.

This is not a proper solution as many features are now disabled but wifi now goes to sleep after 10 minutes in standby -> overnight drain is now not a problem.

 

[SpiritJb]

It is related because there can be programs running in the background that could be battery drainers. Shutting these down can save battery.

No need to be condescending.

I was not trying to be condescending. I only asked, because the thread starter mentioned that he had no apps running in the background.