iOS 7.0.3 battery life even WORSE than 7.0.2

[Max(IT)]

I witnessed first hand tonight that poor cell signal strength can cause HORRIBLE battery life. At my girl friend's house my battery drained from 38% to 3% in 3 hours with only 30 minutes of usage.

I think in most of the cases poor network signal strength is the responsible for a poor battery life.
Especially when there is basically no significant drain when the iPhone is in idle condition, like mine (6 hrs standby overnight and battery still is at 100%, as soon as I start using it in the morning the battery goes down quickly).

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I have ALL the new iOS7 settings switched off and a lot of the iOS6 settings are off too. In fact I am running my iPhone 5 on the exact same settings as it ran on iOS6 yet I have experienced dreadful battery drain and overheating with all three iOS7 updates. I can't think for one moment that I suddenly and coincidentally developed a hardware issue at the same time as installing iOS7, yet nor can I understand how some people are experiencing zero issues. It's extremely strange but also completely unacceptable. My iPhone 5 is barely four months old yet the battery is performing like a three year old, heavily used handset.

I'm experiencing the same frustration, but I'm sure it's not hardware related.
My iPhone 5 is just 6 months old, and the battery was perfect until the exact day I installed iOS 7. What a coincidence .....

Yesterday around noon I was complaining about my battery drain (38% or so) and a friend of mine told me "my iPhone is perfect with iOS 7", showing me his around 70%.
I asked to see his statistics, and while he had similar standby time he was at 59 minutes usage time I was over two hours !!!
So I suspect most of the people saying their battery drain is fine are just using their iPhones less than me (in the same network condition I mean).

 

[mrsketch]

looks like it didn't work. after 2 hours i am down to 70%

UGH

Ah man.

2 hours of usage or standby?

2 hours of usage would actually be pretty good and would equate to roughly 7-7.5 hours of usage time

What about turning LTE off? Or background app refresh? Or Settings - Privacy - Location Services - System Services and turning off "Frequent Locations"? Turning off dynamic wallpaper?

If you're draining 30% in 2 hours of standby time there has to be some kind of background process that's draining your battery. Under Settings - Privacy - Location Services - System Services you can tell it to display the location services arrow in the status bar to see if there's some runaway location service in the system that is draining your battery.

I'm sorry you're having so much trouble man.

 

[davelanger]

Ah man.

2 hours of usage or standby?

2 hours of usage would actually be pretty good and would equate to roughly 7-7.5 hours of usage time

What about turning LTE off? Or background app refresh? Or Settings - Privacy - Location Services - System Services and turning off "Frequent Locations"? Turning off dynamic wallpaper?

If you're draining 30% in 2 hours of standby time there has to be some kind of background process that's draining your battery. Under Settings - Privacy - Location Services - System Services you can tell it to display the location services arrow in the status bar to see if there's some runaway location service in the system that is draining your battery.

I'm sorry you're having so much trouble man.

It was an hour of usage and an hour of standby.

I am on the 4s if that matters so I don't have LTE. I did turn off all that stuff you suggested before unplugging it.

What I am going to do is run it down til it dies since I have not done that since the install and see if that fixes anything.

What is a good rule of thumb for usage and standby before it dies?

I remember a year ago I could go two days with decent usage before having to recharge now it seems if I wake up at 7, after about 12 hours I am below 10%.

Now it seems like I can get 4 hours and usage and 8 hours and standby and its dying.

I guess as long as I can get through 12 hours before it dies, then that should be ok. Its just annoying to see it drop 1% every couple of minutes. I can always shut off the show % if it bugs me that much.


btw this may be a dumb question but if I have an alarm set, is that going to cause battery drain since it could always be checking the time to make sure its not time yet for the alarm to go off.

 

[sunking101]

It was an hour of usage and an hour of standby.

I am on the 4s if that matters so I don't have LTE. I did turn off all that stuff you suggested before unplugging it.

What I am going to do is run it down til it dies since I have not done that since the install and see if that fixes anything.

What is a good rule of thumb for usage and standby before it dies?

I remember a year ago I could go two days with decent usage before having to recharge now it seems if I wake up at 7, after about 12 hours I am below 10%.

Now it seems like I can get 4 hours and usage and 8 hours and standby and its dying.

I guess as long as I can get through 12 hours before it dies, then that should be ok. Its just annoying to see it drop 1% every couple of minutes. I can always shut off the show % if it bugs me that much.


btw this may be a dumb question but if I have an alarm set, is that going to cause battery drain since it could always be checking the time to make sure its not time yet for the alarm to go off.

I have an almost 4 month old iPhone 5. When I got it the iOS6 software generally gave me 9 hours of usage time. Once I updated to iOS7 my battery life dramatically worsened overnight and I now get approx 5 hours of usage time if I'm lucky. Heavy 3G internet use will return 3 hours of usage time before the battery dies. I'm using my phone in the same areas and am employing the same usage patterns, so weak signal strength etc cannot possibly be the reason.

I have done four clean installs, haven't used a back up and have every possible battery saving tactic utilised within the system settings. I'm actually running iOS7 with less features switched on than when I ran iOS6.

Curiously, when I updated to iOS 7.0.3 the battery life appeared much improved until I switched my phone off at bedtime. The following morning the horrific drain was back again....

 

[Max(IT)]

I have an almost 4 month old iPhone 5. When I got it the iOS6 software generally gave me 9 hours of usage time. Once I updated to iOS7 my battery life dramatically worsened overnight and I now get approx 5 hours of usage time if I'm lucky. Heavy 3G internet use will return 3 hours of usage time before the battery dies. I'm using my phone in the same areas and am employing the same usage patterns, so weak signal strength etc cannot possibly be the reason.

I have done four clean installs, haven't used a back up and have every possible battery saving tactic utilised within the system settings. I'm actually running iOS7 with less features switched on than when I ran iOS6.

Curiously, when I updated to iOS 7.0.3 the battery life appeared much improved until I switched my phone off at bedtime. The following morning the horrific drain was back again....

I have same problems, but I still think it's related to weak signal strength, and specifically the way ios 7 deal with it.
Maybe iOS 7 is much more "aggressive" in the network search and this kill the battery quickly compared to iOS 6.
I tried EVERYTHING and I repeat everything suggested and nothing changed the results: 4-5 hrs usage time at best (sometimes 3 and a half hours !!!! ) vs 7-8 hrs I used to have with iOS 6.

Absolutely unacceptable ...

 

[TyPod]

I feel like my battery life has improved. Didn't charge my phone last night like I always do and I'm still at over 30%.

 

[acfusion29]

iOS6 would have been showing 85% of battery with this usage for me.

Image

how could you even determine that?

that 1 hour 35 minutes on gaming will eat up more percentage than 1 hour 35 minutes on fb/twitter/instagram/texting/email/web/etc.

 

[glacies]

how could you even determine that?

that 1 hour 35 minutes on gaming will eat up more percentage than 1 hour 35 minutes on fb/twitter/instagram/texting/email/web/etc.

I'm guessing that he/she based it on previous experience with same usage patterns on iOS6.

Pure speculation btw.

 

[rhett7660]

Do you have any apps running in the background like dropbox or another that is set to run in the background and do automatic updates?

 

[Beelzbub]

My battery life is great on my 4S since the update, have not had to reset anything.

 

[Godf1st]

I feel like my battery life has improved. Didn't charge my phone last night like I always do and I'm still at over 30%.

Agree, since moving to 7.0.3, my ip5s has been great on battery. 5 and a half of usage with 50 percent left. I was barely getting that much usage on 7.0.2.

 

[pooleman]

I was getting great battery life on my iPhone 5 when on iOS 7.0.2. Now that I upgraded to 7.0.3 I have found that my battery life is aweful. I upgraded over the air so tonight after work I am going to reinstall the iOS via iTunes and set up as a new phone. That's what I did to acheive great battery life on the previous iOS.

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I have also noticed that when AT&T throttles me my batery gets a lot worse. IT just so happens that I got throttled the day after the upgrade. With the slower speeds the phone has to work harder and longer to get the same nformation, so it makes sense that the batery would drain faster.

 

[glacies]

My battery life is great on my 4S since the update, have not had to reset anything.

I would be glad if I get this amount of usage. Mine is about 5-ish hour with good 3G signal (4-5 dots) and WIFI for most of the day.

What do you have on/off?

Mine:
Safari sync off
Increase contrast
Reduce motion
Spotlight to contacts and apps only
On-screen notifications off for IM (Line and FB)
Siri off
Background app off
System location services all off
Push on for one iCloud account
Fetch 30 minutes for Gmail/Gcal/Gcontact
iMessage and FaceTime on

 

[sunking101]

how could you even determine that?

that 1 hour 35 minutes on gaming will eat up more percentage than 1 hour 35 minutes on fb/twitter/instagram/texting/email/web/etc.

....because I have almost the exact-same usage patterns every single day.

 

[davelanger]

I have an almost 4 month old iPhone 5. When I got it the iOS6 software generally gave me 9 hours of usage time. Once I updated to iOS7 my battery life dramatically worsened overnight and I now get approx 5 hours of usage time if I'm lucky. Heavy 3G internet use will return 3 hours of usage time before the battery dies. I'm using my phone in the same areas and am employing the same usage patterns, so weak signal strength etc cannot possibly be the reason.

I have done four clean installs, haven't used a back up and have every possible battery saving tactic utilised within the system settings. I'm actually running iOS7 with less features switched on than when I ran iOS6.

Curiously, when I updated to iOS 7.0.3 the battery life appeared much improved until I switched my phone off at bedtime. The following morning the horrific drain was back again....

So if I am getting 4-5 hours of usage and 12 hours of stand by before it dies that is good?

 

[Beelzbub]

I would be glad if I get this amount of usage. Mine is about 5-ish hour with good 3G signal (4-5 dots) and WIFI for most of the day.

What do you have on/off?

Mine:
Safari sync off
Increase contrast
Reduce motion
Spotlight to contacts and apps only
On-screen notifications off for IM (Line and FB)
Siri off
Background app off
System location services all off
Push on for one iCloud account
Fetch 30 minutes for Gmail/Gcal/Gcontact
iMessage and FaceTime on

I have Safari On, Notes On, Find My iPhone On,Reduce Motion On, iMessage & FaceTime both On, Auto-Brightness On, WiFi On, Location Services On (but I only allow certain Apps), BlueTooth Off. I have 2 mail accounts, (Outlook.com & Exchange). Only game I play is Words With Friends, I text quite a bit during the day, made one Skype phone call yesterday over 4G, chat within Skype a lot, make phone calls, check my email and so on. Only time I listen to music is when I plug it into my speaker dock, and I do not do that all the time as I use my iPad mostly for doing that. I check the weather a lot. I do not use FaceBook or Twitter. And I do use Maps to give me turn my turn directions once and a while or to look something up. I am on WiFi at home and at work, so I am on WiFi a lot, but there are times when I am not on WiFi for long periods of time, but I still leave it enabled and I do use my hotspot. I use safari quite a bit too to read news and I use the ESPN Fantasy Football app a lot.

I did my updates over the air, and have not had any problems. I guess I am one of the lucky ones. And now I am over 7 hours usage and just got off a phone call, I will probably charge it now on my speaker dock and stream SiriusXM for a while.

 

[Beelzbub]

Had to make another phone call, charging now

 

[glacies]

Thanks for such a detailed answer. My usage pattern is not so much different from yours. Oh well.

 

[pmcjr]

Something is just plain screwy with the battery drain. When I upgraded my 4S to ios7.02 from ios6, I had these problems. It was bad. Then after two weeks or less, as if by magic, it improved significantly. No more problem. I upgraded to 7.03 this week and the problem did not reoccur. Go figure.

 

[alexberry]

Despite my previous sarcastic post, I've actually had a very positive experience with battery life on ios 7.0.3

However, not until today!

Last few days, the phone has been running down through 50% by lunchtime after a full overnight charge.

Today, early evening and I'm still at 80%. I don't think I've used the phone less or differently today.

Did I read somewhere that the iPhone 5S and ios 7 learn your habits and over time adapt their use of the battery so it's used more efficiently? If so, then it looks like it's kicked in for me...

 

[iAdamator]

Would you guys consider this good? I have felt I have had awful Battery life ever since I got iOS 7. My iPhone 5 is only a few months old, I got it in July. I was even thinking of going to an Apple Store and seeing if they can do anything. I guess this is just the way it is.

As a sort of test yesterday I drained my battery dead and then charged it up. I have not plugged it in since at all, even over night which I usually do. This is the result as of this morning. My usage is mostly internet, some videos and a lot of audio like podcasts. I have background app refresh on but only for maybe 4 apps.

For those of you who try to set your device up as new to alleviate battery issues, do you set it up new and KEEP it that way or restore a back up after? I just don't have the option to do that. I have apps with data I could not start over on. How do you manage not restoring all your stuff?

 

[davelanger]

Would you guys consider this good? I have felt I have had awful Battery life ever since I got iOS 7. My iPhone 5 is only a few months old, I got it in July. I was even thinking of going to an Apple Store and seeing if they can do anything. I guess this is just the way it is.

As a sort of test yesterday I drained my battery dead and then charged it up. I have not plugged it in since at all, even over night which I usually do. This is the result as of this morning. My usage is mostly internet, some videos and a lot of audio like podcasts. I have background app refresh on but only for maybe 4 apps.

For those of you who try to set your device up as new to alleviate battery issues, do you set it up new and KEEP it that way or restore a back up after? I just don't have the option to do that. I have apps with data I could not start over on. How do you manage not restoring all your stuff?

Image

I wish I got that

Right now my phone is at 4 hours of usage and 16 hours (8 of which were over night) of standby and its at 25%

 

[richpuer]

setting up as new did nothing for me.

yesterday my rand down my batter to 55% with 1.5 hr standby and 1hr usage.

 

[iAdamator]

I wish my iPhone 5 got the life it did when I first got it with iOS 6 in July.

 

[salesguy]

Battery life seems the same if not better on 7.0.3