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How's your iPhone 5S battery life
- Thread starter BSDanalyst
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My 5S battery started showing issues about two weeks ago. It would perform normally from full down to 80% or so, then the drain would be erratic, even in airplane mode. For example, it would drop from 60% to 53% in about 5 minutes while it sat idle (screen locked) in my pocket, then it would drain normally for a while, then back to rapid drops with no explanation.
I reset all settings, full battery calibration, and then restore/setup as new. It still acted the same.
The first trip to the genius bar was a waste of time, but a second trip a few nights ago was fruitful. The genius said the firmware could be out of whack even though the diagnostic test showed nothing was wrong with the phone. She asked if I wanted a replacement or keep trouble-shooting. I opted for the replacement. All has been good since.
That looks promising. Did you change any further settings after the fresh wipe/restore in itunes?
The max i can get out of my 5s is 5-6 hours of usage time...im thinking of restoring through itunes and setting it up as a new device.
I'm pretty sure my settings are the same, for the most part. It's been over a week or two since I did the restore; but for some reason now it is working normally.
It wouldn't hurt to try but I am just wanting to prepare you for *potential* disappointment. Even my iPhone 6 struggles to reach more than 6 hours of use on a charge. I have restored as new 3 times now, and there hasn't been much difference in battery performance at all. However right now I'm at 63% with 3 hours and 25 minutes of use which puts me close to 8-9 hours (I think, rough estimate). I went and turned off a couple more location services under system services and turned my brightness down from 20% to 10%. This is extremely annoying because I can hardly see the full beauty of the screen, anything with the brightness at 30% or more makes the phone warm and also results in much much faster drain. I'm sick of dumbing down the phone but I just want a decent battery life, like my iPad. That thing is incredible. 10-12 hours is pretty standard. If I see an 8 and a half hour charge I feel worried because it's so much less than usual. However on my phone I would kill for 8 and a half hours.
Cell service isn't my issue I don't think. I'm at around -105db for LTE, and I'm on wifi anyway. I saw another user here get 11 or so hours on a charge (there weren't any music apps in the usage list) with -112db or less. I'm connected to WiFi anyway so yeah.
My 5s runs for up to 3 days if I manage all the crap that wants to run in the background while I'm not using it. A quick visit with an Apple Genius on a Saturday morning showed me how to manage and control battery drain. Before I saw him, my battery lasted less than 8 hours, and ran very warm constantly. After I left, I usually get almost 3 days on a charge. You have a lot of control over how fast your battery drains.
Do share the things you have learned. Don't keep us in suspense. It's impossible for me, for example, to get more than 5 h usage out of my 5S now. The battery is still ok with 96% capacity left.
It wouldn't hurt to try but I am just wanting to prepare you for *potential* disappointment. Even my iPhone 6 struggles to reach more than 6 hours of use on a charge. I have restored as new 3 times now, and there hasn't been much difference in battery performance at all. However right now I'm at 63% with 3 hours and 25 minutes of use which puts me close to 8-9 hours (I think, rough estimate). I went and turned off a couple more location services under system services and turned my brightness down from 20% to 10%. This is extremely annoying because I can hardly see the full beauty of the screen, anything with the brightness at 30% or more makes the phone warm and also results in much much faster drain. I'm sick of dumbing down the phone but I just want a decent battery life, like my iPad. That thing is incredible. 10-12 hours is pretty standard. If I see an 8 and a half hour charge I feel worried because it's so much less than usual. However on my phone I would kill for 8 and a half hours.
Cell service isn't my issue I don't think. I'm at around -105db for LTE, and I'm on wifi anyway. I saw another user here get 11 or so hours on a charge (there weren't any music apps in the usage list) with -112db or less. I'm connected to WiFi anyway so yeah.
Well i went ahead and restored..standby time seems to have increased significantly so far.. will post results upon one full battery drain
Killing apps in the background is using more battery then letting them run. I only quit Facebook because that app uses really a lot when running in the background without background app refresh. But all other apps, you can let them run and have better battery life.
Location services is the biggest drain for me. I've got it set to 'never' for almost everything, but not all apps have a 'while using' option, and I do need it for some apps.
Whenever I have a day where my battery life is draining faster than usual, I turn it off and the drain stops.
Whenever I have a day where my battery life is draining faster than usual, I turn it off and the drain stops.
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Results
Here are the results from the first charge/discharge cycle post restoring as new..
Screen brightness: Auto
Location Services: On for google maps and weather only
Background refresh: On for facebook, linkedin, watsapp
3G/Wifi: 3G while at work, Wifi at home
Usage mainly included some texts, decent amount of phone calls, facebook, flipboard, web browsing and some real racing 3
Here are the results from the first charge/discharge cycle post restoring as new..
Screen brightness: Auto
Location Services: On for google maps and weather only
Background refresh: On for facebook, linkedin, watsapp
3G/Wifi: 3G while at work, Wifi at home
Usage mainly included some texts, decent amount of phone calls, facebook, flipboard, web browsing and some real racing 3
Attachments
One of the minor issue in iPhone 5S is having limited battery life. Its shares the same chassis as the 5, so there's not a lot of additional space to play with.
On the other hand iPhone 5S is much smaller as well as lighter. Allows the option of adding power pack case without becoming cumbersome.
On the other hand iPhone 5S is much smaller as well as lighter. Allows the option of adding power pack case without becoming cumbersome.
iBackupbot has ability to report battery health without jailbreaking.
Note this is an app you install on your mac, then open with your iPhone connected to the mac. (screenshot below is from "more information" after selecting the phone in the "Devices" section.
It is pretty expensive but has free trial mode which works.
Googling around it seems to have a mixed reputation, including not being accurate. But I have also seen a thread where it gave the same results as a jailbreak app. I have used it on a very old 3Gs, a less old 4s, my 6+ and now my wife's 5s, all with credible results.
"Battery Current Capacity" in screenshot is %
Applecare ran the diagnostics test on my wifes's iPhone 5s and said the battery was OK. Guess I have to believe them now.
I have absolutely no connection to iBackupbot.
Apologies if this has already been mentioned in this long thread.
Note this is an app you install on your mac, then open with your iPhone connected to the mac. (screenshot below is from "more information" after selecting the phone in the "Devices" section.
It is pretty expensive but has free trial mode which works.
Googling around it seems to have a mixed reputation, including not being accurate. But I have also seen a thread where it gave the same results as a jailbreak app. I have used it on a very old 3Gs, a less old 4s, my 6+ and now my wife's 5s, all with credible results.
"Battery Current Capacity" in screenshot is %
Applecare ran the diagnostics test on my wifes's iPhone 5s and said the battery was OK. Guess I have to believe them now.
I have absolutely no connection to iBackupbot.
Apologies if this has already been mentioned in this long thread.
Attachments
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When iOS7 installed on my old iPhone 5, the battery life was decimated by *hours* and no amount of clean installs helped, nor did any subsequent updates to iOS7. The battery life was effectively ruined by iOS7 and my battery checked out fine with Apple (as did the phone itself), and iBackupbot. I never found a solution.
This is yet another reason why we need an iOS 9 performance/bug fixing update. They could easily use iOS 9 to catch up on all the issues started with iOS 7. Battery life is a huge one. UI performance is another huge one as well, especially on iPad.
2nd discharge results after restoring as new. Used it heavily today. Mind you, out of the total usage time more than 90% was screen on time. So that's not bad considering most comparable android devices give roughly 4 hours of screen on time..still not as good as iOS 7 battery life though
