Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
I really hope this isn't just a glitch. :eek:

I've been texting and using Facebook on and off since I've unplugged it. :D Normally It'd be at 97% after 30 mins.

EDIT: It hit the 99% mark after exactly 31 minutes of usage.

Surely that is a glitch as otherwise you'd get 50 hours of on/off usage. The update has also made mine stay on 100% but this in itself does not mean battery life has improved, just that it's not calibrated properly
 
I too had mine say 100% for quite a while. I think it's just a glitch.

Pesonally I don't think much will have changed with battery life. I think that Apple had it programmed so that the last 20% was "more loaded" than the rest. Anyone who's taken their battery down to DEAD knows what I mean. It seems like the last 20% really lasts a long time. However the average joe probably never got down that far to notice. Therefore a simple software update would "free up" some of that bottom-loaded battery so that it would be more uniform across the percent meter.

That's just my speculation, I could be very very wrong.
 
My battery life has improved significantly

Before the 5.1 update my battery, with my iPhone 4S, drained like 10 - 15 percent an hour, even when I wasn't using it. Now it will last me an entire day.

The 4 hours and 44 mins of usage was pretty heavy. Games, Web browsing (mostly over 3G), pictures, 1080p video recording, etc. I had work and school so it was in standby a lot. I was so happy with it i wanted to see how much it would drain over night. It drained 6% over night :D which might not be as good as you think but it's a lot better than what it was. I had wifi on all night too.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_0314.PNG
    IMG_0314.PNG
    120.7 KB · Views: 122
My battery life does not seem to be improving so I wanted to give this a shot. If someone who uses this method could post a rough step by step of how they execute, that'd be awesome!

Thanks!

This. I would really appreciate if somebody posted the steps as well.
 
jwtraglia



Thats kinda bad i guess when i was on 5.0 i got 6hrs of battery life. I upgraded to 5.1 and i have 20% and 5hr usage. will post a pic later but im letting it drain to see what i get out of 5.1
 
Thats kinda bad i guess when i was on 5.0 i got 6hrs of battery life. I upgraded to 5.1 and i have 20% and 5hr usage. will post a pic later but im letting it drain to see what i get out of 5.1

I think I could have used mine a lot more. I'll test it out tomorrow and tell you how it goes.
 
I have a 4S, and my battery life today showed to be total ass. I updated to 5.1 the day it came out wirelessly, not over iTunes.

I was listening to a baseball game via the mlb app over 3G. When I started around 2:40PM today, it was at about 52%. When I stopped about half an hour later, it was at 17 or 18%. Good lord, that was a lot. I know 3G uses more juice than Wifi, but 35% in about half an hour? That's a bit nuts.

Anyone know any other battery hog apps? I have Dataman, which I've heard can be a battery hog, but that much?

I let it drain to zero when I got home, and it's currently charging now. Hoping that will fix it. If it doesn't, I was gonna try a clean install of iOS 5.1. My only concern with THAT is data and progress from various programs and games.

Is there any way to save that data if your'e starting over from scratch? WITHOUT jailbreaking?
 
Last edited:
Is there any way to save that data if your'e starting over from scratch?
If you start it fresh I think you're gonna lose everything. Only way to keep it is to load your backup back onto it.

Not 100% sure though so I may be wrong.
 
I updated on Wednesday and the first 2 days were awesome. The battery seemed much better. I was using it for light browsing and texting etc - getting about 5% an hour. Now it's literally dropping before my eyes. I've been browsing the forum and it's gone from 90 to 87% in a matter of 5 or so minutes. Also there are no usage statistics showing up in my settings (it's blank). I'm going to try a reset and hope to hell that fixes it. >:O
 
is it better to do the clean restore (as new phone) ?

I used the OTA upgrade to 5.1 and I found it a lot better than when I bought it with the 5.01..

Usually with the 5.01 after I charged it until 100% and open my twitter acount for 5-10 minutes the battery stats already showing 95-96%, but now it stay in 99-100%.. I'm happy with the improvement... :)

If I do a clean restore, will it be better or the same.. sorry if this off topic..

I set up the phone as new and than loaded my apps from scratch. I did not use iCloud to restore after the fact.
 
Also there are no usage statistics showing up in my settings (it's blank). I'm going to try a reset and hope to hell that fixes it. >:O

I believe a reboot causes the usage numbers to disappear until the phone is fully charged and disconnected from the power source again. Are you sure you didn't power it off?
 
I believe a reboot causes the usage numbers to disappear until the phone is fully charged and disconnected from the power source again. Are you sure you didn't power it off?

Good thinking, I was totally unaware of that. That's the issue, thanks so much! Maybe I'll try a full battery discharge / charge and see if that helps the battery.
 
Not sure if this is normal for an iPhone 4S battery or not...any input?

EDIT: wifi on, Bluetooth on, listening to pandora, rhapsody, and siriusxm. Also spent time browsing forums. Two YouTube videos about 5 min in length a piece.
 

Attachments

  • ImageUploadedByTapatalk1331350626.035978.jpg
    ImageUploadedByTapatalk1331350626.035978.jpg
    105 KB · Views: 132
Last edited:
It's a little better for me. I noticed that under 5.1 my battery doesn't drain as fast while web browsing or while in standby.
 
For those guy who've wondered why their battery drops to 99% after 30 min of usage, I think I can answer that.

The past weeks I've been using a tool called BatteryInfo Lite to exactly measure the mAh usage of my iphone 4s.

The full charge capacity of my iphone is 1430 mAh, but after using it continuously for a while, it's at around 1300 mAh while it still remains 100% at the battery gauge. The battery start to drop to 99% under 1300 mAh

Maybe it's just my phone, or maybe Apple set the battery usage percentage start at 1300mAh. That's why your phone battery is constantly at 100%.

by the way, when I turn off push mail, only use 2G and let it standby, my phone consume around 10 mAh per hour on iOS 5.0.1. Theoretically, if I turn off 2G, find my iphone, wifi, Siri etc... and not install jailbreak software (SBSettings, Activator etc..) I should be close to 200 hours of standby
My wife's iphone 4 has auto check mail each 1 hour, and consume 15 mAh.
If you want to measure correctly the standby battery usage, better jailbreak your phone and install this phone. If you turn off push mail, 3G like me, and your phone consume much more battery per hour, then you really have problem.

btw, my phone's usage time should be around 8 hours of normal usage (3G internet, games), and 17 hours of standby
 
Last edited:
Wow is all I can say

Just got my best usage stats ever on my iPhone better than what I ever got on my 4 too

8 hours, 3 minutes usage
1 day, 12 hours standby

Was down to 1% when I just put it back on charge

Really impressed.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.