iPhone battery horrible when around a lot of people?

[millerrh]

I noticed a very strange thing this weekend when I spent the entire weekend at an outdoor music festival with 60,000+ people (Austin City Limits).

Usually at the end of the day of normal use, my battery will be down to about 80% full. I can usually squeeze a couple/few days before I need to recharge. But at ACL, my phone was noticeably hot the entire day and even by the time 10:00 rolled around was almost completely drained. And I hardly used it at all.

Does anyone know what could have caused premature battery draining in this situation? My girlfriends RAZR didn't behave differently at all.

 

[Tweak3D]

I know at work we get a lot of people with smarth phones with wifi on and the iphone picks them up as adhoc networks which in turn uses the battery life quicker because it is constantly detecting these networks coming and going. thats the only thing I can think of. would also explain the extra heat.

 

[PhatBoyG]

I'm guessing it would be the Chronic...




...lack of signal strength causing more drain on the transmitter.

 

[ChrisBrightwell]

Cingular / AT&T had problems at Bonnaroo (80k people) to the point where people couldn't use their phones to make calls, all incoming calls went straight to voicemail, and text messages to or from the AT&T network took an hour or more to get to their destination.

I don't know how they did on battery life (I'm using Verizon, who had no problems), but I imagine all the network trouble may have put the phone into high-drain "search" mode, looking for a better tower.

 

[millerrh]

Cingular / AT&T had problems at Bonnaroo (80k people) to the point where people couldn't use their phones to make calls, all incoming calls went straight to voicemail, and text messages to or from the AT&T network took an hour or more to get to their destination.

I don't know how they did on battery life (I'm using Verizon, who had no problems), but I imagine all the network trouble may have put the phone into high-drain "search" mode, looking for a better tower.

That could have been it. Texts were delayed about an hour and calls often times went straight to voice mail.

 

[gceo]

This has happened to me 3 times now...(randomly) When the phone is hot/warm to the touch and you're not using it, you need to 'quit' out of the apps.

To do this, go into an app (Safari, youtube, etc...) and hold the home key down until you are returned to the home screen. Shortly there after the iPhone should go back to room temperature.

 

[MarkW19]

Your iPhone is 80% full at the end of a normal day?? Don't you use it?

My iPhone is 50% full, if that, at the end of a normal day - that's a few short calls, a few texts, a bit of emailing, quite a bit of calendar use, and maybe an hour tops safari use. All over Wifi. Bluetooth is on (but not connected) all day, but turning it off doesn't improve things. Ask to join networks is also turned off. Brightness is about 80% bright, with Auto on.

What am I doing wrong?!

 

[millerrh]

Your iPhone is 80% full at the end of a normal day?? Don't you use it?

My iPhone is 50% full, if that, at the end of a normal day - that's a few short calls, a few texts, a bit of emailing, quite a bit of calendar use, and maybe an hour tops safari use. All over Wifi. Bluetooth is on (but not connected) all day, but turning it off doesn't improve things. Ask to join networks is also turned off. Brightness is about 80% bright, with Auto on.

What am I doing wrong?!

I actually don't use it a whole lot. One or two calls tops and for not very long. A handful of texts. Maybe 15-30 mins of safari use. A few calendar entries/checks. I do have bluetooth on all the time since my car has hands free in it though. I bet if I used Safari twice as much and called a bit more it would be about what you are seeing.

The crazy part about the festival is that I used it probably even less than normal and the battery was just draining as fast as can be. May have been due to Safari open in the background like the previous poster said. I did have the schedule up on a web page and would check it time to time to see what band to go see next.

 

[MarkW19]

Cool, guess mine isn't too bad then! It seems to be Safari that does it though!

I try to fully restart my phone every day or two, as a habit.

 

[oxeneers]

After some heavy usage: 2-3 calls, over 100 text messages, 1 hour of Safari use, and some heavy e-mail use, I'm at 20% of battery at the end of the day.. And my iPhone is usually hot to the touch after heavy use.

And anyone notice that charging from the wall will charge way faster than charging from the USB port on the computer?