I've come to the final conclusion I had about the Battery life of 4s

[PerplexShyt]

It is simply the "new" antenna of the iphone 4.

The automatic switch crap it does when locating the best signal. That has to be it.

My wife's regular iphone 4 doesn't have this problem. She still has the choice to choose between 3G and edge, which the iphone 4s no longer has that luxury.

That's why all that other crap isn't working (location services, icloud, wifi) I mean FFS SHE has all that stuff on too!.

It all boils down to the differences in the iphone 4 and the 4s. So what are the differences?

-SIRI
-New Antenna (With automatic switching - "worldphone" )
-camera
-A5 Chip

Well, its not siri, its not the camera -- so that leaves the A5 chip, and the new antenna.

Hmmmm but whats that you say? Some people don't have BATTERY problems at ALL?

Well i think that safely rules out the A5 chip, and then points the finger to the antenna. I can safely think that its about the coverage (whether good or bad) in your area. The 4s's antenna is "working its magic" to find you the best signal constantly -- since now there is no feature to enable/disable 3G.

That's why the iphone 4 doesn't have this problem, and thats why battery life differs amongst different people.

 

[staccato83]

That's some PerplexShyt right there.

 

[tsduke]

I was honestly thinking the same thing earlier today. I have fairly week signal at inside at work. Flips from Vzw to extended(US Cellular) from time to time. Loses 3G etc.

I lose easily twice the battery life on my 4S while it sits on my desk unused all day as compared to my previous 4.

 

[PerplexShyt]

I was honestly thinking the same thing earlier today. I have fairly week signal at inside at work. Flips from Vzw to extended(US Cellular) from time to time. Loses 3G etc.

I lose easily twice the battery life on my 4S while it sits on my desk unused all day as compared to my previous 4.

Right but its flip flop for me. I have a great signal at work (right next to a tower), but then at home my signal sucks, and i get great loss of life

 

[Megalobyte]

Sorry to blow your theory, but I spend most of my time at home, I work from home, I'm getting decent battery life, at least 7 hrs of a good mix of wifi and 3G, I use the phone pretty hard, very little iPod use, and here's the thing, I have extremely inconsistent 3G in my house. It's fluctuating all the time, I often have 3-4 bars, but just as often I have 1-2, and half the time it's switching between 3G and edge. So, if anybody's selective antennas were working hard, it's mine, and yet, 7-7.5 hours hard use per charge, I definitely am not babying it, I use it pretty hard.

 

[lnferno]

For me, it was the wifi-syncing with iTunes that killed my battery. I made sure that was turned off in iTunes and that completely solved the issue for me.

 

[piddonkadonk]

I honestly think this could be a legit reason for the low battery life on some people's phones right now. I had the Droid X on Verizon before the iPhone 4. Because it was a dual band phone and I am in a horrible location at my house in an urban city (literally downtown, but my block is a dead zone, no matter the service provider), the phone tries to use both GSM and CDMA to find a signal. My battery life was diminishing twice as fast until I found other Droid X users saying to turn the GSM part of the phone off.

Now, when I'm at work with my 4S and have great service, my phone drains at normal pace, but when I'm at home, I literally watch it go down 1% every few minutes when I check it. Was on the couch last night and couldn't believe how fast it ran out.

How do we turn off GSM for a little testing? Anyone know?

 

[sgrrsh26]

and standby drain in airplane mode?
how do you explain that

 

[piddonkadonk]

and standby drain in airplane mode?
how do you explain that

Please note the use of the word "some" in this sentence:

"I honestly think this could be a legit reason for the low battery life on some people's phones right now."

I'm not claiming to have solved the rubix cube here.

 

[drb1992]

I know its not the A5 chip because dual core processors are better for battery life than single core processors.

 

[PerplexShyt]

Sorry to blow your theory, but I spend most of my time at home, I work from home, I'm getting decent battery life, at least 7 hrs of a good mix of wifi and 3G, I use the phone pretty hard, very little iPod use, and here's the thing, I have extremely inconsistent 3G in my house. It's fluctuating all the time, I often have 3-4 bars, but just as often I have 1-2, and half the time it's switching between 3G and edge. So, if anybody's selective antennas were working hard, it's mine, and yet, 7-7.5 hours hard use per charge, I definitely am not babying it, I use it pretty hard.

that's the thing. im not exactly saying the drain is strictly correlated to a bad signal situation...but how your phone handles good OR bad signals through the antenna.....

it think there is some complex underlying afoot but obviously without a high level knowledge of the specifications behind this antenna ill never know.

i just feel like the ANTENNA is basically the real reason why the 4S is only receiving such ******* battery life.

 

[jamesarm97]

For me, it was the wifi-syncing with iTunes that killed my battery. I made sure that was turned off in iTunes and that completely solved the issue for me.

I thought iTunes wifi syncing only synced when the iPhone was plugged into power or you manually start it. I might turn mine off and see how it does. My old iPhone 4 with ios5 and cellular off (on, but no active sim) has 2 days + standby time so far and 1.5 hours usage (wifi on).

 

[piddonkadonk]

Check out this thread:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3399616?start=0&tstart=0

"Here's the update: Verizon tech support has confirmed that Apple needs to modify the configuration options so in an area that has both GSM and CDMA, the user can select which network they will use (similar to what can be done on the Blackberry Storm 2, and perhaps other devices). Verizon does not have a timeline for the fix, but said that Apple is quite responsive. Let's hope so..."

 

[chemistry76]

For me, it was the wifi-syncing with iTunes that killed my battery. I made sure that was turned off in iTunes and that completely solved the issue for me.

Automatic wifi syncing with iTunes only occurs when you attach your iOS device to a power source...

 

[C DM]

It is simply the "new" antenna of the iphone 4.

The automatic switch crap it does when locating the best signal. That has to be it.

My wife's regular iphone 4 doesn't have this problem. She still has the choice to choose between 3G and edge, which the iphone 4s no longer has that luxury.

That's why all that other crap isn't working (location services, icloud, wifi) I mean FFS SHE has all that stuff on too!.

It all boils down to the differences in the iphone 4 and the 4s. So what are the differences?

-SIRI
-New Antenna (With automatic switching - "worldphone" )
-camera
-A5 Chip

Well, its not siri, its not the camera -- so that leaves the A5 chip, and the new antenna.

Hmmmm but whats that you say? Some people don't have BATTERY problems at ALL?

Well i think that safely rules out the A5 chip, and then points the finger to the antenna. I can safely think that its about the coverage (whether good or bad) in your area. The 4s's antenna is "working its magic" to find you the best signal constantly -- since now there is no feature to enable/disable 3G.

That's why the iphone 4 doesn't have this problem, and thats why battery life differs amongst different people.

Well, there are quite a few people with iPhone 4 who put iOS 5 on and have been reporting pretty much the same battery issues since then. No battery drain issues with iOS 4 and then increased drain in iOS 5.

Granted, at least some of them are probably those with Verizon (CDMA) iPhone 4 that also has a somewhat redesigned antenna (although still not completely the same as 4S), but there are likely quite a few with the AT&T/etc. (GSM) iPhone 4 that are experiencing the battery as well all of a sudden.

----------

Automatic wifi syncing with iTunes only occurs when you attach your iOS device to a power source...

Yeah, it doesn't really make sense that that would do it, at least not for everyone.

 

[3460169]

I alluded to cell signal problems being the culprit in Batterygate. Not really believing it though because my wife's phone was losing power faster than mine and hers has been in Airplane mode while mine has all radio except BT on.

The 4S has new hardware which means new software (low level OS stuff, kernel drivers and such). This particular iOS firmware has not been tested by the collective "us" for more than a week. I have faith in Apple's QA but they are, relatively speaking, a much smaller crowd than the 4 million people that bought phones over the weekend. Bottom line is it's new hardware, it's new software, all of which has not been as thoroughly used as previous gen hardware and software. Best we thing we can all do to help make this all better is make Apple aware of our experiences with the 4S.

 

[Megalobyte]

How true. I've watched each iPhone version get launched through this forum's eyes, and it's pretty much the same thing every time. It ends up getting fixed. Except perhaps the ip4's antenna, which was a true hardware issue that could only be partially compensated for with firmware.

 

[piddonkadonk]

I just got off phone with Apple techs and not to toot my own horn or anything, they definitely confirmed that searching for a GSM signal when on CDMA could be an issue and are escalating this.

 

[aggieastrosfan]

Hubby and I were just talking about this. We're both on Verizon, he with the 4, me with my upgrade to the 4s. He's not a gadget junkie, per se, so while he's upgraded to iOS 5 (well, I upgraded for him), he doesn't use his phone any different than he did before. But he's having the same problems I am with the battery. Maybe it's the cloud? That's the only thing I can think of that's different on his phone besides the software.

 

[lnferno]

Automatic wifi syncing with iTunes only occurs when you attach your iOS device to a power source...

But even if your iPhone isn't plugged in, it will still recognize it on the wifi network and your phone will recognize that it can do a MANUAL sync. Note in the image below that the phone is NOT charging, yet iTunes recognizes it and the iPhone recognizes iTunes on the network. That constant polling was draining my battery. Ever since I turned off that option, my battery life went back to normal.

 

[Jimbo47]

But even if your iPhone isn't plugged in, it will still recognize it on the wifi network and your phone will recognize that it can do a MANUAL sync.

Where exactly in iTunes do you disable this? I can't find it anywhere.

 

[lnferno]

Where exactly in iTunes do you disable this? I can't find it anywhere.

Your phone has to be plugged in. It will be on the Summary page, specifically in the options section. Turn off "Sync this iPhone over Wi-Fi".

 

[VTMac]

My battery drain issue was fixed by disabling wireless sync and disabling sending troubleshooting data to apple. The former fixed my daytime drain. The latter fixed my overnight drain. I was losing 20% in 10 hours overnight.

 

[urkel]

Hmmmm but whats that you say? Some people don't have BATTERY problems at ALL?

My lack of trust in Apple users is due to years and years of hypocrisy and flipflopping so whenever I hear someone say "I have no battery issues at all" then I instantly assume they're lying in order to defend the mothership.

So while I like the antenna theory and it may be valid, I think it doesnt eliinate all the other theories being thrown around (faster hardware, poorly optimized programs, being a new and not fully refined OS, too many apps unecessarily using location services etc).

 

[pcorrado]

My Battery Issues Solved

While my fix certainly may only work for me but everyone has shared an anecdote so will I.

I have had my 4S (Black AT&T since launch) and My Wife has has hers (White AT&T) a few days. We both had battery issues. Specifically, I would find my battery drained to 11% by lunch time (5 or hours of stand-by). Well I read the forums and tried some old tricks and now at 10PM after 13 hours off the charger and a day of typical use - I am looking at a battery of around 40% for boy phones. Here is what I did:

1) Under location services -> system services -> I turned off a) traffic b) compass calibration c) location iAds and d) diagnostics. I have no idea what these things really do to benefit with and so far I have noticed no difference in operation. I should also note that all of these items used the GPS periodically throughout the day.

2) With these new settings I restarted the phone.

3) Turned off iCloud back-up and iTunes Sync. They only work when connected to power, however, if there is a memory leak somewhere - perhaps the cause is there? I then restarted the phone and turned both items back on because they are features I use. I restarted the phone again.

4) An old trick with the iPhone 4 battery from last years launch to improve battery was to turn off location services completely, restart the phone, and turn it back on - I did this with my 4S.

5) Drained the battery to the point where the phone turned off (not so hard while I was having issues) and let it charge completely.

Now my battery seems normal. based upon the amount of talk time, surf time, and data time I have used to day and based upon Apple own statistics (e.g.: .5% drain per hour in stand-by; 20% drain per hour in 3G data/web surfing; 14% drain per hour in talk time) Both phone's batteries are completely normal.

Like I said YMMV may vary and I don't know if all the steps above are necessary - but what do you have to lose but a few minutes of time?