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iPod touch new iPod touch 4G, battery life appalling

M

MrMister111

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Jan 28, 2009
3,900
382
UK
My daughter got 4G touch 8Gb for Xmas. using it, I added al my apps from my iTunes (I have a iPhone 4).

However I feel, although I know the battery life is not as good as iPhone 4's, that the battery life is appalling.

I even took it into an Apple Store and had it exchanged for a new one - but same. The Apple Genius said after plugging in seems fine, however eg Over night it had more than half battery shown. She left WiFi on, but touch was asleep, woke up this morning and it was flat, wouldn't switch on.

This happens all the time, with both touch's we have had. Is it me? What is up, is the battrey life on the touch's just that bad?

As I say using it the battery life is fine, it seems to be overnight, or not used for a while.

I even killed all the apps in the multi task bar, it had some battery life after overnight, but still not brilliant.

Can anyone help, share their experiences please.

cheers
 
There are may threads on workarounds for this problem ... but, IMHO, the solution is to make Apple fix the problem. I had the identical symptoms with my 1G Touch running iOS v2. Apple replaced it 3 times, the 4th finally worked as it should ... did not loose it's flavor on the bedpost overnight :D

In addition to the 1G I have a 4G running the most current iOS. I don't turn off wifi, put it in airplane mode or close down most apps. Yes, I will close down Facetime, Pandora, and Skype, know battery hogs but not my others like Mail, Meebo, Facebook, Weather, etc. I also have about a dozen apps that do push. Took the 4G off charge last evening, used it a little, sat on the night table overnight (not charging) and used it this morning (watched a little video, checked e-mail, weather ....). BatteryMagic says I still have 95% charge.

My advice, I know others will differ, is keep having Apple replace it until you get one that works. If everyone requests replacements, maybe Apple will be forced to do something about it.
 
iOS 4 includes a feature that keeps the Wi-Fi on, even if the device is asleep. The best thing you can do is put the device in Airplane Mode and see if that helps. Disable things like Bluetooth, Push Notifications, and Wi-Fi when they are not being used.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

I'm wondering if I still have a faulty unit I really am. I understand about keeping some stuff switched off but I have to say I'm not happy at all with the battery life.

I've told her to switch off WiFi when not using it.

I have battery doctor app on my iPhone 4, should I put this on the touch to monitor (if I does that?) the battery?

Or should I return it to Apple store again? The 1st one after he plugged it into his Mac for diagnostics he said was fine though
 
LeighAnna Jones said:
Airplane Mode: On
WiFi: Off
Brightness: 50 or 40
Kill All Apps In Multitasking Bar
Turn Off Facetime
Click to expand...

If so then please explain ... I have:
Airplane Mode: Off
WiFi: On
Brightness: about 60%, Auto brightness: On
Some apps on multitasking bar
Facetime: On but not running on the multitasking bar
and use <5% battery overnight. Battery usage has never been an issue on my 4g. Only explanation I can think of why others are having this problem and I'm not is either some rogue app or a hardware issue Apple must address. Anyway, we shouldn't need these workarounds, if they even work at all.
 
Does your iPhone 4 have similar battery drainage? It could be because of your wifi. At my college dorm with wifi, my i4 drains ~15% a night on standby. Back at home with my wifi, I drain ~3% per night
 
forcetactic said:
Does your iPhone 4 have similar battery drainage? It could be because of your wifi. At my college dorm with wifi, my i4 drains ~15% a night on standby. Back at home with my wifi, I drain ~3% per night
Click to expand...

No my iPhone 4 is ok, nothing like the touch 4G
 
MrMister111 said:
My daughter got 4G touch 8Gb for Xmas. using it, I added al my apps from my iTunes (I have a iPhone 4).

However I feel, although I know the battery life is not as good as iPhone 4's, that the battery life is appalling.

I even took it into an Apple Store and had it exchanged for a new one - but same. The Apple Genius said after plugging in seems fine, however eg Over night it had more than half battery shown. She left WiFi on, but touch was asleep, woke up this morning and it was flat, wouldn't switch on.

This happens all the time, with both touch's we have had. Is it me? What is up, is the battrey life on the touch's just that bad?

As I say using it the battery life is fine, it seems to be overnight, or not used for a while.

I even killed all the apps in the multi task bar, it had some battery life after overnight, but still not brilliant.

Can anyone help, share their experiences please.

cheers
543.jpg
Click to expand...

Battery life gets much better after 10 full cycles.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)

Simple solution: plug it in and recharge at night.
 
apaulct said:
If so then please explain ... I have:
Airplane Mode: Off
WiFi: On
Brightness: about 60%, Auto brightness: On
Some apps on multitasking bar
Facetime: On but not running on the multitasking bar
and use <5% battery overnight. Battery usage has never been an issue on my 4g. Only explanation I can think of why others are having this problem and I'm not is either some rogue app or a hardware issue Apple must address. Anyway, we shouldn't need these workarounds, if they even work at all.
Click to expand...


Turn facetime off in settings. its still running.
 
viperGTS said:
Turn facetime off in settings. its still running.
Click to expand...

It ain't broke ... I don't have a battery issue with Facetime running so why should I turn it off??????? You missed the point, I'm doing the opposite of what's recommended here and don't have an issue.
 
elan123 said:
Battery life gets much better after 10 full cycles.
Click to expand...

I agree. Have you every done a full-cycle charge? It is helpful to use them about one a month after you do your first few. A full cycle charge is one that is when you run down your battery life to make the battery shut itself off or to about 10%. Also, completely shutting it of overnight will help on battery life.
 
MrMister111 said:
As I say using it the battery life is fine, it seems to be overnight, or not used for a while.

I even killed all the apps in the multi task bar, it had some battery life after overnight, but still not brilliant.

Can anyone help, share their experiences please.

cheers
Click to expand...

You ask for people to share their experience. Well I have a for sure fix for you. However, people in the past, have chosen to ignore my solution. I hope you at least consider this advice. Anyhow, here is a post I made on another thread.

Q: Why does this happen? It never happen in iOS 3.x.
A: In iOS 3.x when you would put your iPod to sleep, your wifi would turn itself off within 15 minutes of sleeping. However, a new feature in iOS 4.x is something apple likes to call "persistent wifi". Essentially, this feature is suppose to keep an active wifi connection for VoIP, streaming music, safari download, and notification. However, this is where all the frustration comes to play. Some app developers think their app is the best thing in the world. Consequently they enable constant notification on their app. This feature tells the iPod to constantly check the Internet every X min to see if there is a new notification (update, text message, phone call, etc.). If you have these types of apps, then, while your iPod is asleep, it is really working and pinging your network. As a consequence, the device battery is constantly drained.

Q: Why do my friends have minimal drainage.
A: It all depends on what app they have, and how many of those apps are notification wifi hogs.

Q: Ok I am starting to understand, however this surely is not my issue! I have my notification system off, doesn't that nulify the aforementioned?
A: Nope, the truth is that many app developers program the notification trigger incorrectly. As a consequence, turning off Notification in the settings app is no good.

Q:Ok I am believer. Stop with all this yacking!!! How can I fix this darn issue?
A:
Quote:
Have a battery drain issue? Is it caused by having persistent wifi on all the time? Well I can assure you this problem arises from Apple’s poor Notification setup. As a result, to fix this issue all one really has to do is simi-disable Notification (disable only when iPod is sleeping) on their device. For some, including myself, disabling it via the setting app did not work.

Consequently, you will need to...

Navigate to: /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.apsd.plist

... and delete:

Code:
<key>keepalive</key>
Finally, reboot the device
Btw, you must be jailbroken untethered for this to work.

Q: Sh** I have a new iPod with no shsh blobs backups (didn't you read? I got this for Christmas). Is there anything I can do?
A: Your last alternative would be to... Preform a fresh restore of your whole device (do NOT restore from backup). Upon the fresh restore, make sure you never allow any apps to enable notification on your device (aka always say no to the notification activation of an app). Essentially, you know notification is not activated if you enter the settings app, and you don't see it.

I hope this helps (btw I am on my iPod so please pardon my spelling mistakes--I am sure auto correct messed me up somewhere, and more than once).
 
Last edited:
For me i turned off notification, and some location. and i logged out of game center and my battery was 97% after a whole day
 
I have no problems with my battery draining at night because I just put mine on the charger all night and take it off when I wake up. :) Plus I can charge mine at school on my netbook in some classes, so I don't really run out of juice that often. :)

However, when my iPod does die (forget my cord at home, forget to put it on the charger at night), it takes much longer than my little brother's iPod touch 2nd-Gen to turn back on when I put it back on the charger. Instead of charging to like 5% before turning back on, it charges to about 40% before turning back on. It makes me lose a lot of Facebook chat time or Textfree time, but it's not that big of an issue. Does anyone know anything about that? :confused:

Also, when you need to save more battery, close all apps in multitasking and turn off Wifi and Bluetooth. (I never really have Bluetooth on anyways, so not that big of a deal to me when it's off)
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

Me too! I hate how my 4g Touch dies and it takes some time to get it back on. I think that this 4g Touch has died on me at least twice as much as my 3g Touch. I suppose it's the fact that I know my new iPod Touch has longer battery life and I keep stalling to plug in my iPod Touch until it's too late.

Another issue that I haven't seen anyone mention about is the poor Wi-Fi reception. Most of the time I have think about how to grip the Touch whenever I'm at 2 bars since even with the antenna relocated near the glass, reception is still poor.
 
Left wifi on and wasted all of 50% battery? That's aweful!, I opened wifi for a whole day and the battery is only 20% off:eek:
 
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