New iPad Battery Issues

[tmp0404]

Greetings all, so I've searched all through the iPad forums and elsewhere regarding all of the hints related to the new iPad and poor battery life. I've picked mine up a few months back at an ATT store, so I do have their data 3g data plan.

So following all of the hints that I could, I basically have everything turned off but wireless, and if the iPad is fully charged and not being used, in about 4-5 days, the battery is completely drained. I also have the first gen iPad, and it can sit there being unused for way more than a week, and it still has plenty of battery.

So, even though I did not buy the new iPad at an Apple store, can I take it to my local store and will they be able to check it out for some kind of battery issue. Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[jomirrivera]

Yes you can take it to an apple store, but try a restore first, but a clean restore dont restore from your backup!

 

[kyellowness]

I've experienced same problem with my iPad 2 when I first bought it. I took it to the Apple store and they fixed it. and all my previous apps were gone. Apparently, I had to back it up before I took it to the store, which I didn't know about. Never making that stupid mistake again.

 

[tmp0404]

Just a quick update, took my new iPad to the Apple store last night, and the genius felt that by doing a restore, this had a pretty good chance of fixing the poor battery life. I don't feel the same, but at least it's there's now an official record with Apple about the iPad and battery.

I was told to drain then fully charge it and see if the battery performs any better, if not, it's back to the store for a replacement. It's just kind of disappointing to know that if the iPad needs to be replace, I'll be getting a refurb even though it's less than a year old, and I have Apple care.

 

[Dino F]

I've had my iPad 2 since February and I will say I'm quite a heavy user on it - regularly browsing the web, Twitter, Facebook, forums, etc for over an hour at a time. If the battery starts at 100% I can typically see it drop down by at least 10% with this kind of usage.

Is this normal?!

 

[scaredpoet]

Just a quick update, took my new iPad to the Apple store last night, and the genius felt that by doing a restore, this had a pretty good chance of fixing the poor battery life. I don't feel the same, but at least it's there's now an official record with Apple about the iPad and battery.

I was told to drain then fully charge it and see if the battery performs any better, if not, it's back to the store for a replacement.

First off, chances are, you probably won't need a replacement. The new iPad does use more of the battery than the iPad 2, and that's just a fact of it having way more pixels to drive and more GPU muscle behind that. More silicon needs more power.

Another thing I've noticed is that there are some apps which will sometimes do some activity in the background when maybe it shouldn't be, and that will also eat up battery life. Usually I've found this behavior goes away if I just force quit all running apps and start over.

So in a way, the genius could well be right that a full restore might help, though it's probably a bit of overkill.

Lastly, if the iPad is really new, it's going to take a few charge cycles to really get the battery cycled in an running at full capacity. This isn't just the case with iPads, pretty much any device relying on a LiIon battery is going to have some erratic battery life the first couple of cycles.

It's just kind of disappointing to know that if the iPad needs to be replace, I'll be getting a refurb even though it's less than a year old, and I have Apple care.

As stated many times on here, A "refurb" from Apple isn't so much a "refurb" as it is a remanufactured device. In nearly all cases, it's as good as and sometimes even better than a "new" model because of the level of attention they get from Apple before they walk out the door. I doubt you'll really need to get it replaced, but if you do, I wouldn't be too worried about it.

 

[tmp0404]

Thanks for your comments scaredpoet, I agree with you about your refurb comments, but again, my iPad is only a couple of months old, and has not been used too much.

I must mention that when I went to the Apple store, the genius did run some diagnostics on my iPad, I think it was via entering a link in the Safari browser, I wish I would have paid closer attention to that link. Any ways, he showed me the results, I do remember seeing the results indicate that the battery was normal (displayed in green) but the diagnostics did indicate some strange results related to the charging cycles. Again, this was his rationale for doing the restore as per his experience, in doing so, battery life improved. I'll provide an update again after a week of so of use.

 

[Rodster]

Thanks for your comments scaredpoet, I agree with you about your refurb comments, but again, my iPad is only a couple of months old, and has not been used too much.

Neither have the tens of thousand iPad 3's returned after a day/week/month of use or returned immediately because the buyer was not 100% happy.

 

[Fruit Cake]

Is probably something holding the data connection open, do you have an IM app installed? Skype is notorious for chewing battery life (I get about 5hrs battery life after opening Skype on iPhone)

 

[Rodster]

I find I get better life if I turn off wifi and Bluetooth. I do this if i'm playing a game and don't need a wireless connection.

 

[ixodes]

I find I get better life if I turn off wifi and Bluetooth. I do this if i'm playing a game and don't need a wireless connection.

I've separated a lot of the tasks I do on mine to offline and online. By turning off connectivity when not needed I get some really great battery run times.

 

[transphasic]

The biggest drain I've noticed when the device is in sleep mode is the cell connection. If you leave that on, the battery drip each hour is like 2%, so over a 3-4 day period i can see the entire unit being drained.

I only turn on the cell connectivity when i am using it, and then shut it off along with all notifications. With that approach i can go weeks without having to recharge, though i don't play games on my device. The heaviest user of power i use is either watching videos/movies or Goodreader.

 

[tmp0404]

So another brief update, again, as mentioned in the original post, I only have wireless running when the iPad is not in use. My experience has been, that I was losing about 15-20% of battery per day, and I was not using the device, just turning it on to see how much the battery had dropped.

So it was restored at the Apple store on 8/8 in the evening. I went home, downloaded all of my purchased apps, set up email again, and made some other basic iPad settings. When I turned it off that night, ~ 48% battery was left. Turned it on the next evening and had about 46% battery left (only checked the weather, didn't do too much. Turned it on this morning (Friday) and had 43% battery left.

Hoping this trend continues, and it appears the restore did the trick. I'll post again if something changes to the worse. Keeping my fingers crossed.

 

[augustya]

I must mention that when I went to the Apple store, the genius did run some diagnostics on my iPad, I think it was via entering a link in the Safari browser, I wish I would have paid closer attention to that link.

Geez ! Seriously you could have helped a lot of people here had you carefully watched and observed what URL's & Tools the genius is running to determine if the battery is working fine or not ? Do you think you are gonna be visiting that store again, can you ask him again what URL's did he run ? I am not in the United States so I can't do that just incase if u were gonna suggest why dont I do it

 

[tmp0404]

Geez ! Seriously you could have helped a lot of people here had you carefully watched and observed what URL's & Tools the genius is running to determine if the battery is working fine or not ? Do you think you are gonna be visiting that store again, can you ask him again what URL's did he run ? I am not in the United States so I can't do that just incase if u were gonna suggest why dont I do it

I know I know, but I was in the Apple store, and it was very busy that hot summer evening and I was very distracted because there were a plethora of lovely female customers wandering about, my bad!

Maybe someone else who is/was more attentive than me can answer your question.

 

[augustya]

Does anybody else knows the secret to this ?

 

[PatrickW98]

Turn your device off and don't use it. Then it won't drain.

 

[Uabcar]

I’m observing the exactly the same poor battery experience that the as the OP had with his Ipad3 (glad it seems to be resolved now).

I’ve had a wifi iPad1 since launch day. To this day its battery unbelievable, it can sit idle for days w/o a charge and still be north of 85-90%. My new iPad is a ATT LTE model- so there is that new variable - but even when I disable all radio’s except wifi, turn off iCloud, push etc. I’m still losing 10%-12% each night.

I’ve done a lot of reading on various internet forums to see if this experience is normal. It seems that is it not typical. My conclusion is that while I shouldn’t expect iPad1 levels of battery life/duration/performance - it should be much better than it is. It seems that losing 2-4% overnight w/o use is more typical. I read somewhere that doing an DFU restore could fix the problem – so I did this - unfortunately this has not resolved the issue.

I’ve got a Genius appt on Thursday to have it checked out. There are several instances where Apple/Genius sees something in their diagnostic tests and simply switches it out. As with the iPad1, I got this one on launch day- so perhaps there is a batch with problems.

 

[tmp0404]

Uabcar, good luck with you Apple appointment, again they did a restore on mine, so I had to re-install all of my apps, set up email again and tweak various other setting to my liking. As others have mentioned, you can do the restore on your own, but in taking your iPad to the store, they will have an official service record for it, and if your battery problems continue (and I hope they don't) you should have no issues getting the iPad replaced.

Since I had my iPad restored, about 6 days ago, my battery was about 49% charged and since then with light daily use, as of last night it was about 20% remaining, so I'm very pleased. I plan on letting the battery drain completely before I re-charge again, I think that's what the genius told me to do.

Good luck and hoping/betting the restore will fix you up.