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iPhone battery won't even last me half a day

petrucci666

petrucci666

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 30, 2009
714
14
Los Angeles, CA
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8H7 Safari/6533.18.5)

What more can I do to get more juice out of my iPhone?

It's been optimized for location services, notifications, push services etc. to just use the bare minimum of what I need. Screen brightness is at approx. 60-70%, I don't talk that much, I use it mostly for web browsing, the camera, twitter, maybe some games and that's it!

Of course I don't expect to get 3 days out of it, but the battery was at 30% by 3PM (started using it at around 9AM).

I'm running 4.3.2 jailbroken with SBSettings
 
screen brightness is still a little high. I keep mine around 25% and still see it fine
 
Restore to stock.

Turn off notifications.

Try It for a few days to see if that improves battery life.

"optimized for push, notifications" doesn't mean jack because some people get 10-20 emails/notifications a day while others get 200 emails/notifications a day.

Turn off Bluetooth.

Do u get full bars where u live?

If battery life is still poor after all these adjustments take it in to apple. Don't restore for apple. They want to see your usage. That's why I said to run stock is for a few days.
 
I would reduce the screen brightness, I leave mine at 50% with auto brightness on but I notice when I turn it off that it really hits the battery hard. I would imagine this is especially true if you are gaming.

Also, are we talking about an iPhone 4? I never had good battery life with the previous generations.
 
I have the same problem after I upgraded to 4.3.3 from 4.1. I set everything up the same way as before. I was jailbroken on 4.1 and 4.3.3. My battery use to last the entire day with no problem. Now by half day my phone is down to 30%. I have used my phone the same way as before. I just did the upgrade over the weekend. The only thing different is, I installed Find iPhone app and set it up. Does that app really drain the battery that bad or is 4.3.3 a battery hog.
 
try this,

one night let it get almost dead, and plug it in then turn it off and let it charge while off the whole night.

I know, I know, the battery doenst care, but I did it and it worked.
 
SB settings hated my battery. Try uninstalling that.
Also, I didn't see in your post if you turned off wi fi and bluetooth.
 
eastercat said:
SB settings hated my battery. Try uninstalling that.
Also, I didn't see in your post if you turned off wi fi and bluetooth.
Click to expand...

Apart from SB settings, I have Lockinfo, biteSMS, RemoveBG and Calllock (second IP4 in a row with a lousy proximity sensor). I am running 4.3.3 and get between 6 1/2 - 7 hours usage a day including 2 hours of 3G talk time. Lots of email notifications (some 50 a day using pushmail) etc. Wifi turned off and Bluetooth off. Really happy with my battery life.

Edit: Brightness is at roughly 65% with auto brightness on.
 
Last edited:
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Thanks to everyone for their and sorry for not fully describing ths situation.

I have unltd data so wifi is always off, bluetooth as well. It's an iPhone 4 with 4.3.2 installed and jailbroken.

As far as signal strength - at the house it's mostly 3-4 bars (never 5)

I think notifications and location services can be optimized because I use the bare minimum of notifications and location services that I need. Locations services are only on for Camera and Google Maps while I turned off all notifications except for texts and Skype.

I don't even get notificationa for emails (except for the badge of course), but I only receive 10-15 emails a day so this can't possibly be a strain on the battery.
I'll go ahead and try what chakraj said and see if it does something for me.

I'll keep you posted.
 
OP how old is your iphone?
im a 'heavy' user of my iphone 4 and after almost 12 months my battery was shot. My settings are less than battery friendly...

also jailbroken on latest ios. battery was only getting around 4 hours of usage, it was that bad. when the phone was stock for tests it was only marginally better.

I got a battery off ebay, and replaced my battery, my 'usage time' went up to about 6/7 hours. i had a hunch that the battery i got off ebay was NOT new... so i went to iFix-It and ordered another new battery... whala, im back to 9-10 hours of usage and more than 24 hours of standby... just how the phone performed when i got it new...

swapping the battery literally takes less than 5 minutes.

I prob could have gone to apple for replacement phone but didnt feel like going through another restore ect and making the trip...
 
Can not attest to what Jailbreaking does as I've not tested it my self but I will say I keep my iPhone brightness at no more than 50% unless I literally have battery to run dead. I turn my wifi off when Im not using it though my school has it but with blocks so I toggle Wifi/Cellular depending on the content (ie: Youtube, Facebook, and MR are all blocked on school wifi). I have push notifications, check email every 30 mins, and I usually have music playing and its at 20%~ by 8:30AM so it barely chugs along.
 
B737 said:
OP how old is your iphone?
Click to expand...



I got it right before Christmas, so it's exactly 6 months old. The battery shouldn't be this bad.


My iPhone is also factory unlocked and I'm using it on AT&T without a contract, so if I take it to an Apple store and get it replaced - what will happen with the unlock?
 
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Mines draining really fast too. Went to bed at 1:30, woke up at 8:30. Battery went from 75% to 15%. Under usage, it says I've used my phone for 13 hours, then standby is also 13 hours. Something is running in the background, but there really is nothing.


iOS 4.3.3
iPhone 3 32GB
Non-Jailbroken

Since waking up at 8:30 (now 8:50) my battery is down to 9%. Dropping really fast. It even drops fast in airline mode with all background apps shut down. I just did a full reset a week ago. Something isn't right.
 
Since your phone is jailbroken there are apps on Cydia that help optimize battery life. You can get one of those which, for example, will shut off 3G while you are in lock mode. I know there are more can't think of them though right now, might not hurt to look into that.
 
how many bars of service are you typically getting during the day? This will probably affect battery life more than anything else. The phone is constantly searching for 3G signals and is always workin looking for those signals.

my phones battery goes crappy when its in a weak signal area (low bars).
 
mrockm01 said:
screen brightness is still a little high. I keep mine around 25% and still see it fine
Click to expand...

25%???. I keep my brightness at 75%-80% with lots of use throughout the day and still have PLENTY of juice by the time I plug it in at night. No reason to turn it down that low...
 
patp said:
how many bars of service are you typically getting during the day? This will probably affect battery life more than anything else. The phone is constantly searching for 3G signals and is always workin looking for those signals.

my phones battery goes crappy when its in a weak signal area (low bars).
Click to expand...

I get 3-4 bars most of the time so I don't think that's the problem.

Peterg2 said:
Depending with what you jailbroke your phone this link may perhaps help:

http://www.iphonehacks.com/2011/05/updated-redsn0w-for-ios-4-3-3-may-fix-battery-drain-issue.html

To quote: .""Stefan Essar has also revealed that the fix may also decrease the battery drain that you may have observed after jailbreaking your iOS device with Redsn0w 0.9.6rc15, PwnageTool 4.3.3 or Sn0wbreeze 2.7
Click to expand...

I did it with redsn0w. It was the first thing that came to mind so...



Today I got an 'astonishing' 5 hours and 18 minutes of usage. And it was mild usage, no texts at all, a few emails, no calls, just some Safari and Rdio for 1-2 hours (streaming music). And that gets me 5 hours of battery.


I'll update it to 4.3.3. now and see how long it can last unjailbroken. If it's the same or similar, I'm taking it to an Apple Store because this is ridiculous.

Another question I had was - my iPhone is factory unlocked (from Europe) but I live in the US now (I'm with AT&T but no contract, just month to month). If they swap the phone for me - do I keep the unlock?

Thanks
 
I used to worry about my battery percentage when I got my new phone. Now that I don't, i feel my battery life has increased up to 3 times.

just stop looking at the bar or the %, and it will last longer.
 
The battery has always been embarrasingly bad, imo. It barely lasts me the same amount but I admit to using it often during the day. So, I don't complain too loud b/c I dont think any phones period would last long with how much I use it.

I do bring a charger with me wherever I go and it helps.
 
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