iOS 5.1 Battery update!!!

[AlphaVictor87]

After this morning i REALLY think its similar to the problem with the signal bars they had last year with the 4. (not on the beta, running 5.0.1)

I woke up this morning with my phone "fully charged" to 96%, an instant hard reset showed it was actually 100%. Theres some bug in there that is saying its not 100% even when it is.

I'll be draining my battery today to re-calibrate it

really hoping 5.1 helps fix the correct calculations

 

[Burton8219]

I'm starting to think it's hardware too. A quick google search will turn up several articles about how 5.1 doesn't fix the battery drain for some folks. I think Apple may be claiming it is software to avoid having to do a recall. I'm pretty annoyed because I have held on to the phone well beyond the return period thinking the battery issues would be fixed in a software update and there is nothing in sight. Looks like it may be time to try an exchange at the apple store.

As long as the common theory is still that it can be fixed with a software update, I would think you will have a hard time getting an exchange. You'll ask and their response will be "There's an update coming out that should fix it".

 

[quagmire]

I'm starting to think it's hardware too. A quick google search will turn up several articles about how 5.1 doesn't fix the battery drain for some folks. I think Apple may be claiming it is software to avoid having to do a recall. I'm pretty annoyed because I have held on to the phone well beyond the return period thinking the battery issues would be fixed in a software update and there is nothing in sight. Looks like it may be time to try an exchange at the apple store.

If it was hardware, then it would just affect the 4S. People with the 4 also have experience worse battery life with iOS 5.

I used to get around 6 hours usage out of my 4 before hitting 20% when I recharge it. With iOS 5, I get 4 hours. The battery indicator can say 31% and 30 minutes later of standby time it drops to 28%.

 

[mikeglongo]

In for updates

 

[Morac]

From my observations with my iPhone 4S, it's not a hardware problem or even a battery problem, but a calibration problem. That can be easily seen by looking at the images on the first page of this thread where the person had 90 minutes of usage while staying at 1%.

Here's things I've seen that make me think the iPhone is simply reporting the wrong battery status at times (all of these were with 5.0.1 on an iPhone 4S AT&T):
1. Battery shows 96% and plug icon. In other words the phone thinks it's fully charged at 96%. When I turned the phone off and on, that jumped to 98%. I then did a reset and charged up to 100%. I've only seen this once.
2. Phone stays on when it hits 1% and remains on for a long time despite a lot of use (including GPS, wifi, gaming, etc).
3. Phone shows 100% a/c after charge and immediately drops to 97% when unplugged.

All of those tell me it's not a battery problem, but a problem with accurately reporting the battery status.


Though I've also seen phantom usage where the phone says I've been using it for much longer than I have when there wasn't a lot of background usage (push, mail, iCloud, etc).

I've also seen cases, like today, where I was at work and checked my phone and it was still at 100% battery, despite 3 hours of standby and a few minutes of usage. The phone didn't have any phantom usage today. Currently the battery is at 78% battery with 1 hour and 40 minutes of usage and 15 hours and 25 minutes of standby. Yesterday, my phone hit 78% battery after about an hour of usage and 5 hours of standby. A few weekends ago I was at 38% battery with 2 hours and 54 minutes of usage and 2 days and 14 hours of standby.

 

[Burton8219]

From my observations with my iPhone 4S, it's not a hardware problem or even a battery problem, but a calibration problem. That can be easily seen by looking at the images on the first page of this thread where the person had 90 minutes of usage while staying at 1%.

Here's things I've seen that make me think the iPhone is simply reporting the wrong battery status at times (all of these were with 5.0.1 on an iPhone 4S AT&T):
1. Battery shows 96% and plug icon. In other words the phone thinks it's fully charged at 96%. When I turned the phone off and on, that jumped to 98%. I then did a reset and charged up to 100%. I've only seen this once.
2. Phone stays on when it hits 1% and remains on for a long time despite a lot of use (including GPS, wifi, gaming, etc).
3. Phone shows 100% a/c after charge and immediately drops to 97% when unplugged.

All of those tell me it's not a battery problem, but a problem with accurately reporting the battery status.


Though I've also seen phantom usage where the phone says I've been using it for much longer than I have when there wasn't a lot of background usage (push, mail, iCloud, etc).

I've also seen cases, like today, where I was at work and checked my phone and it was still at 100% battery, despite 3 hours of standby and a few minutes of usage. The phone didn't have any phantom usage today. Currently the battery is at 78% battery with 1 hour and 40 minutes of usage and 15 hours and 25 minutes of standby. Yesterday, my phone hit 78% battery after about an hour of usage and 5 hours of standby. A few weekends ago I was at 38% battery with 2 hours and 54 minutes of usage and 2 days and 14 hours of standby.

Definitely agree with you to a certain extent... There is definitely some inconsistency in the reporting of the battery, but the battery still doesn't last as long as it could and should.

 

[chairguru22]

All of a sudden my phone started draining battery like it was when I first got it pre-5.1 update. Shortly after the update everything appeared to be better since I was experiencing 1.5 days of charge at least. This has gotta be some sort of weird software glitch...

 

[superdudeo]

From my observations with my iPhone 4S, it's not a hardware problem or even a battery problem, but a calibration problem. That can be easily seen by looking at the images on the first page of this thread where the person had 90 minutes of usage while staying at 1%.

Here's things I've seen that make me think the iPhone is simply reporting the wrong battery status at times (all of these were with 5.0.1 on an iPhone 4S AT&T):
1. Battery shows 96% and plug icon. In other words the phone thinks it's fully charged at 96%. When I turned the phone off and on, that jumped to 98%. I then did a reset and charged up to 100%. I've only seen this once.
2. Phone stays on when it hits 1% and remains on for a long time despite a lot of use (including GPS, wifi, gaming, etc).
3. Phone shows 100% a/c after charge and immediately drops to 97% when unplugged.

All of those tell me it's not a battery problem, but a problem with accurately reporting the battery status.


Though I've also seen phantom usage where the phone says I've been using it for much longer than I have when there wasn't a lot of background usage (push, mail, iCloud, etc).

I've also seen cases, like today, where I was at work and checked my phone and it was still at 100% battery, despite 3 hours of standby and a few minutes of usage. The phone didn't have any phantom usage today. Currently the battery is at 78% battery with 1 hour and 40 minutes of usage and 15 hours and 25 minutes of standby. Yesterday, my phone hit 78% battery after about an hour of usage and 5 hours of standby. A few weekends ago I was at 38% battery with 2 hours and 54 minutes of usage and 2 days and 14 hours of standby.

There might be a slight problem with the battery calibration but this doesn't explain why the 4s barely lasts 12 hours whilst my 4 lasted over 24 hours. It's not a calibration fault.

 

[El3ctronics]

From my observations with my iPhone 4S, it's not a hardware problem or even a battery problem, but a calibration problem. That can be easily seen by looking at the images on the first page of this thread where the person had 90 minutes of usage while staying at 1%.

Here's things I've seen that make me think the iPhone is simply reporting the wrong battery status at times (all of these were with 5.0.1 on an iPhone 4S AT&T):
1. Battery shows 96% and plug icon. In other words the phone thinks it's fully charged at 96%. When I turned the phone off and on, that jumped to 98%. I then did a reset and charged up to 100%. I've only seen this once.
2. Phone stays on when it hits 1% and remains on for a long time despite a lot of use (including GPS, wifi, gaming, etc).
3. Phone shows 100% a/c after charge and immediately drops to 97% when unplugged.

All of those tell me it's not a battery problem, but a problem with accurately reporting the battery status.


Though I've also seen phantom usage where the phone says I've been using it for much longer than I have when there wasn't a lot of background usage (push, mail, iCloud, etc).

I've also seen cases, like today, where I was at work and checked my phone and it was still at 100% battery, despite 3 hours of standby and a few minutes of usage. The phone didn't have any phantom usage today. Currently the battery is at 78% battery with 1 hour and 40 minutes of usage and 15 hours and 25 minutes of standby. Yesterday, my phone hit 78% battery after about an hour of usage and 5 hours of standby. A few weekends ago I was at 38% battery with 2 hours and 54 minutes of usage and 2 days and 14 hours of standby.

I posted two screen shots at 1% where the usage was absolutely pathetic. It's not a calibration issue.

 

[AlphaVictor87]

From my observations with my iPhone 4S, it's not a hardware problem or even a battery problem, but a calibration problem. That can be easily seen by looking at the images on the first page of this thread where the person had 90 minutes of usage while staying at 1%.

Here's things I've seen that make me think the iPhone is simply reporting the wrong battery status at times (all of these were with 5.0.1 on an iPhone 4S AT&T):
1. Battery shows 96% and plug icon. In other words the phone thinks it's fully charged at 96%. When I turned the phone off and on, that jumped to 98%. I then did a reset and charged up to 100%. I've only seen this once.
2. Phone stays on when it hits 1% and remains on for a long time despite a lot of use (including GPS, wifi, gaming, etc).
3. Phone shows 100% a/c after charge and immediately drops to 97% when unplugged.

All of those tell me it's not a battery problem, but a problem with accurately reporting the battery status.


Though I've also seen phantom usage where the phone says I've been using it for much longer than I have when there wasn't a lot of background usage (push, mail, iCloud, etc).

I've also seen cases, like today, where I was at work and checked my phone and it was still at 100% battery, despite 3 hours of standby and a few minutes of usage. The phone didn't have any phantom usage today. Currently the battery is at 78% battery with 1 hour and 40 minutes of usage and 15 hours and 25 minutes of standby. Yesterday, my phone hit 78% battery after about an hour of usage and 5 hours of standby. A few weekends ago I was at 38% battery with 2 hours and 54 minutes of usage and 2 days and 14 hours of standby.

i'm right there with you 100% on your number 1 and 2.
I've actually posted a thread similar to number 1 https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1285564/

and in that story when i was trying to drain my battery it sat at 1% for what seemed longer than any other percentage drop that day, nothing i was doing was making my phone die, finally i had to put the brightness up to 100% and play music out of the speaker at full volume to kill it (which is loud as HELL on the 4s!! love that btw, my 3gs speaker sucked)

anyways i'm right there with you.

 

[noobinator]

I streamed Netflix for 3 hr 30 min and was at 1%. My phone died an hour later. So the final 1% took an hour so mine definitely has a calibration issue.

 

[sportsfrk214]

Its unfortunate but I think the main issue with battery drain is how strong the signal strength is in your area. I go to school on a campus that has very weak coverage in classrooms and cafeterias (1-2 bars) and I find that I can only get about 4 1/2 - 5 hours in this environment. However on a weekend for example, when I'm either home or in areas with good service, I've gotten up to 8 hours of usage. I tried turning off cell network tower search in location settings but it's made no difference. The biggest issue seems to be that when in an area of bad service, the iPhone is looking for better service in a way that is not power efficient. My old phone had to deal with being on this campus and never experience battery drain like this. Granted, it wasn't a smartphone, but there was a negligible difference in battery life between being in bad coverage and good coverage areas, so Apple needs to find a way if possible to fix this issue.

 

[Tonecrafter]

My battery on 5.0 is very good. I'm currently at 20 hours stand-by and 3.5 hours usage... 67% battery. I'm hoping any future updates don't ruin what I've got.

 

[Morac]

Its unfortunate but I think the main issue with battery drain is how strong the signal strength is in your area. I go to school on a campus that has very weak coverage in classrooms and cafeterias (1-2 bars) and I find that I can only get about 4 1/2 - 5 hours in this environment. However on a weekend for example, when I'm either home or in areas with good service, I've gotten up to 8 hours of usage. I tried turning off cell network tower search in location settings but it's made no difference. The biggest issue seems to be that when in an area of bad service, the iPhone is looking for better service in a way that is not power efficient. My old phone had to deal with being on this campus and never experience battery drain like this. Granted, it wasn't a smartphone, but there was a negligible difference in battery life between being in bad coverage and good coverage areas, so Apple needs to find a way if possible to fix this issue.

Battery drain has always been greater in weak cell areas (at least for the iPhone) since the phone has to ramp of the transmitter power to talk to the tower. Apple actually recommends either putting the phone in airplane mode or turning off 3G (switch to 2G) in weak areas. The problem with that suggestion is that Apple removed the ability to turn off 3G on the iPhone 4S.

 

[dommo92]

I just had my Black AT&T 32GB iP4S delivered here to me in Japan.

I finished the calibrating the battery on my iP4S and just got done doing a full battery test today. For through 4 hours 30 minutes of usage with 18 hours of standby.

 

[Offshore1]

One of my friends swore that the "Battery Doctor" app helped his 4S battery life.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/battery-doctor-pro-max-our/id340171033?mt=8

I decided to give it a try. Not sure why/how/what it does, but my battery life has gotten better for some reason. I can get 2 sometimes 3 days of "my" use out of it. My iPhone 4 would get about 4 days of "my" use. I am not connected in anyway to the app or trying to promote it. For whatever reason it seems to have helped me.

The pic below shows what I have. (It was plugged into my computer for about 2 min for a back up)

 

[dommo92]

One of my friends swore that the "Battery Doctor" app helped his 4S battery life.

I decided to give it a try. Not sure why/how/what it does, but my battery life has gotten better for some reason. I can get 2 sometimes 3 days of "my" use out of it. My iPhone 4 would get about 4 days of "my" use. I am not connected in anyway to the app or trying to promote it. For whatever reason it seems to have helped me.

The pic below shows what I have. (It was plugged into my computer for about 2 min for a back up)

FUUUAAARK! Are you using a 4S?!

 

[Offshore1]

FUUUAAARK! Are you using a 4S?!

Yes.

 

[pdxa4]

In for updates

Same here...

 

[syc23]

I bought an iPhone 4 8gb last Friday as there wasn't enough killer features on the 4S but so far on iOS 5.1, my battery performance for moderate use has been pretty decent:

Usage 4 Hours, 48 Minutes
Standby 1 Day, 20 Hours

 

[sbailey4]

try reset?

Wondering if any of you guys here have tried the following from a post in another forum? It seems to really be working for a lot of people. Its simple enough to do as well. 5.0.1 update, this process and turning off wi-fi sync (not wi-fi ) has gotten me the following results: 22% remaining, 1 day/10hrs standby, 3hr 55min usage. Just a thought. I would guess it would have the same effect on a 5.1 build:

[credit to DavidCH for coming up with this]
For anyone new to the thread be sure to go through these steps to address the battery after updating to iOS 5.0.1:

1. Reset all settings (settings app-> general-> reset)

2 a. Go through initial setup steps (lang, wifi, siri, enable location, etc) and choose setup as new phone (don't worry your apps, data, contacts, mail will still be there). Do NOT restore from iCloud or iTunes (It can copy back corrupt settings)

2 b. If you do get the complete new setup screen with language setup and setup as new phone or restore from iTune/iCloud backup, be sure to go back to #1 and reset all settings again (it should happen the second time)

3. Turn off system location services timezone and iAd (settings -> location services -> system services)

4. Fully discharge battery (until you get the spinning wheel and it shuts off)

5. Fully recharge battery (overnight if possible)

In my experience this improves the Standby battery drain issue significantly in most cases. It reduces drain from 2-4% or more per hr to 0.5% or less. It has worked for many, many users now.

 

[tarasis]

One of my friends swore that the "Battery Doctor" app helped his 4S battery life.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/battery-doctor-pro-max-our/id340171033?mt=8

I decided to give it a try. Not sure why/how/what it does, but my battery life has gotten better for some reason.

The pic below shows what I have. (It was plugged into my computer for about 2 min for a back up)

Sorry but there is no way the app could do anything to really help the battery performance. That's down to either the OS or HW.

I have never run it, I am testing 5.1 and my current states are 57% left, Usage 2h 29 minutes and Standby 18 hours 42 minutes. I have done a full discharge cycle but that's about it.

 

[sbailey4]

Sorry but there is no way the app could do anything to really help the battery performance. That's down to either the OS or HW.

I have never run it, I am testing 5.1 and my current states are 57% left, Usage 2h 29 minutes and Standby 18 hours 42 minutes. I have done a full discharge cycle but that's about it.

Sounds like you dont need to. That looks pretty decent. The calibration helps as well.

 

[SweetLou122]

Sorry but there is no way the app could do anything to really help the battery performance. That's down to either the OS or HW.

I have never run it, I am testing 5.1 and my current states are 57% left, Usage 2h 29 minutes and Standby 18 hours 42 minutes. I have done a full discharge cycle but that's about it.

Thats pretty good, I have that percentage with same usage but half that standby...they need to fix this asap