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iPhone 4S Battery Life Worse for 3G Data and Media as Compared to iPhone 4

Battery-Gate?

Great lets here how many people are mortified by this issue that they werent having, but now seem to have a story to provide as evidence of the issue....
 
Apple is the very definition of fooling some of the people all of the time.

Hopefully, the nonsense will stop soon.
 
That's remarkable. They were able to preserve the battery life within a few percent, running essentially double the hardware... Very nicely done.



Can't wait to see this higher density battery technology spread to the iPad.
 
I have determined that turning off location services in iOS 5 has a much bigger impact than it did in iOS 4.

Looks like I'm going to have to get used to turning it back on when I need it, although I'm also hopeful that a software update will improve iOS 5 battery performance.

If it doesn't then I'll be trying to find out how to downgrade to iOS 4. Location based reminders (despite me thinking of them myself a long time ago) just aren't worth the extra resources.
 
My 4S heats up a lot and battery life drains a lot faster than the 3GS. Going to return it to Sprint and go back to the old phone.
 
The only thing that really stands out is the 3G data time.

(Three categories are not significantly different; video recording is understandable because of the higher resolution video.)

I hope they can improve that in an update.

I have to say though, the 4S antenna kicks butt.
When comparing my old 3GS to my wife's 4, she could often get a signal where I couldn't. Now with the 4S, I can get a signal where my wife's 4 can't. If loss of some battery life is the cost of better reception, I'll take the reception.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

I must agree. The battery life is worse for when I'm browsing compared to my iPhone 4.
 
It's a bad idea to get the 4S anyway. Whenever you buy an iPhone, a new one is going to come out after. You should invest your $200+ in a revolutionary iPhone like the iP5 that will not get much better for a while, not an evolutionary 4S that will be greatly improved in the iPhone 5.
 
Not very surprising. Compare the iPhone to Nokia 3210. Much worse battery. Apple is the one company making the most sacrifices to keep battery life good for everyone without thinking too much about exiting apps manually etc. etc. With this much more power compared to the iPhone 4 and the extra 3G-speeds I expected a loss of battery life when 3G-surfing at higher speeds. Look at the good side, you need less time to load sites, so maybe it's not as bad as it looks on paper?
 
iSee said:
The only thing that really stands out is the 3G data time.

(Three categories are not significantly different; video recording is understandable because of the higher resolution video.)

I hope they can improve that in an update.

I have to say though, the 4S antenna kicks butt.
When comparing my old 3GS to my wife's 4, she could often get a signal where I couldn't. Now with the 4S, I can get a signal where my wife's 4 can't. If loss of some battery life is the cost of better reception, I'll take the reception.
Click to expand...

Greater SIGNAL strength or are you noticing you can make calls where she can't? Because the bar indication means nothing in my opinion - you either can make a call/use data or can't. How many bars is pretty useless as it's all how the phone/software is programmed....
 
Good. Thought I was going crazy. It's even worse with the use of Siri. I miss my iP4.
 
Using Blackberry Messenger on my Bold 9650, it would exhibit battery usage identical to that as if I was texting.

Using iMessage on the 4S drains my battery a significant amount more than SMS. 10 minutes straight of iMessage will drain my battery a good 5%, right before my eyes. It can't be that intensive of a process.

I know the two phones are completely different in nature, but it's odd to me that the data-based messaging battery consumption varies so much between the two. Does anyone else feel this way, or has noticed the same issue?

My 4S is the Sprint model, on Wi-Fi+3G. Perhaps iOS5.1 will include some fixes. I'm hoping it just needs some optimization, as the Sprint phones really weren't in the wild during all of the iOS betas.

There will be updates, so I'll be hanging on.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

Just buy a mophie air. Great protection and awesome battery!!!
 
CrAkD said:
You keep doing everything you have to to validate your decision to wait another 12 months for a new phone.....the rest of us will enjoy the 4S :rolleyes:

The battery is a little worse but its seemed to get better as time went on as I charge and run it down. Now to the point it's only about 10% less then my 4 by the end of the day.
Click to expand...

Enjoying the 4S is expensive. I'd rather wait for the 5 and buy it then so I won't be that outdated for a while. The time difference between the 4S and 5 will be smaller than the 5 and 6 (if there is a 5S, it won't be much of an upgrade).

I actually don't really see the point of upgrading your iPhone at all. Does it really matter?
 
Might this have something to do with the new dual antenna? :confused: It seems to me that powering separate antennas for transmit and receive would consume more power. Especially if using 3G is one of the most used features of the phone.
 
samcraig said:
Greater SIGNAL strength or are you noticing you can make calls where she can't? Because the bar indication means nothing in my opinion - you either can make a call/use data or can't. How many bars is pretty useless as it's all how the phone/software is programmed....
Click to expand...

My phone sometimes says "no service" or gets really choppy when I have full bars, and that's not right after bootup or anything.
 
If you are using you phone for web browsing for 6+ hours in a day... Your life pretty much sucks anyway. I dock my phone each night on my nightstand, and I don't think I've ever been less than 40%. I'm not sure why people freak out about things like this.
 
faroZ06 said:
Enjoying the 4S is expensive. I'd rather wait for the 5 and buy it then so I won't be that outdated for a while. The time difference between the 4S and 5 will be smaller than the 5 and 6 (if there is a 5S, it won't be much of an upgrade).

I actually don't really see the point of upgrading your iPhone at all. Does it really matter?
Click to expand...

It will be 12 months until the iPhone 5 (at least), yar too long to have waited with my 3GS. If you own a 4, I can understand waiting, although anyone with a 4 saying the 4S isn't a better phone than the 4 is in denial.
 
burnout8488 said:
Using Blackberry Messenger on my Bold 9650, it would exhibit battery usage identical to that as if I was texting.

Using iMessage on the 4S drains my battery a significant amount more than SMS. 10 minutes straight of iMessage will drain my battery a good 5%, right before my eyes. It can't be that intensive of a process.
Click to expand...

I have the 4. And with iOS 5 - I have noticed a decrease in battery life. It's possible the iOS 5 is more intensive as well - and that it's not JUST the phone.

That being said - I think iMessage battery drain might be because unlike a text message - iMessage might be constantly "polling" to see if someone is typing so it can give you the "..." indicator. Perhaps that is set to poll for a few minutes during a conversation but after (for example) 5 minutes of inactivity - it stops polling until the person actually begins typing in which case it reconnects. No idea...
 
*LTD* said:
Changes don't appear to be significant.
Click to expand...

How utterly predictable, of course if the changes were opposite you would be raving about the brilliance And genius of apple and their ability to make the greatest invention in history even better.
 
ng-design said:
Another person who clearly isn't smart enough to understand how phones work.

#1. People did not buy the same phone twice. The iPhone's internal parts are completely upgraded. The speed has been doubled, if you bought the AT&T model, the signal has been doubled too. And the photo/video quality alone makes it comparable to many point and shoot cameras, if not greater. It is a completely different phone. I swear to God, if Apple had just slapped a "5" on the phone and slightly altered its appearance, trolls like you would be satisfied.
Click to expand...

THIS. People were completely unsatisfied because Apple didn't change the already amazing iPhone 4 exterior on the 4S. It's like complaining that Apple didn't change the exterior of an iMac sufficiently from one gen to the next, even though it changed all the internal components... :rolleyes:
 
*LTD* said:
Changes don't appear to be significant.
Click to expand...

Appearances or not, my 4S is distinctly worse than my 4 (concerning battery life). I get it, the A5 (and new GPU) do require greater draw...but this should only be noticeable under load (IMHO).

I'm hoping that some software fixes and battery conditioning will alleviate the issues...but for reference, my phone was charged to 100% at midnight; when I woke up at 7:20, it was at 93%.

No WiFi, no Bluetooth, no Location Services, no iCloud Sync, brightness at 1/3, email was set to 30min intervals (not push). Only App that was active was the clock/alarm.

I dont care how you slice it, that is pathetic and not the experience Apple has earned it's fantastic reputation providing us loyal fans.
 
Alisstar said:
I did notice that last night. I let it drain completely and went back to check a message 30 minutes into the charge and it was above 50%.
Click to expand...

I got up to 80% in around an hour and ten minutes. Very impressive.

I'm still trying not to plug it in during the day. But a half hour top up during lunch should be more than enough to keep it going strong if that is what it comes down to.
 
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