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Push and battery life

anjinha

anjinha

macrumors 604
Original poster
Oct 21, 2006
7,324
206
San Francisco, CA
I wanted to see how much Push would affect battery life. So yesterday when I came home, I charged my iPhone while cooking dinner. As soon as it was charged I turned off 3G, Wifi and GPS and left push on and took it of the charger.

So I had dinner, watched some tv, went to bed, and never touched my iPhone. Today when I woke up battery was at 44%!!! I checked the usage stats and it said about 4h usage and 11h standby. During that time I got 5 emails and 3 text messages.

Is the battery really supposed to drain this fast with push? I don't think my battery is defective since it lasts almost 2 days without push but push is really useful to me.
 
Push is a real battery hog!!:(:( Btw, are you only using Push email or are you also using the Push Calendar,Contacts?
 
Similar experience here. I turned Push on for a day. Without Push, I usually have 60-70% battery by the end of the usual work day (6PM to 7PM). With Push turned oh, I got the 20% warning by 5PM.

Needless to say, I've turned it off. I don't even bother with Fetch, I just check my mail when I feel like it.
 
That's seriously weird. Push is supposed to be easier on battery life than fetch (since fetch opens a full internet connection every 15 minutes and push pings the server and only connects when there's something to grab.)

It's possible the iPhone had trouble with push, but it's unlikely that push itself has battery issues. Look at the blackberries and winmob devices with push enabled.
 
question fear said:
That's seriously weird. Push is supposed to be easier on battery life than fetch (since fetch opens a full internet connection every 15 minutes and push pings the server and only connects when there's something to grab.)

It's possible the iPhone had trouble with push, but it's unlikely that push itself has battery issues. Look at the blackberries and winmob devices with push enabled.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I know. Well, if it's the iPhone that has some trouble with push I just hope that apple fixes it.
 
It's really noticeable. If I turn on my numerical battery, I can see the juice drain away like a slow leak.
question fear said:
That's seriously weird. Push is supposed to be easier on battery life than fetch (since fetch opens a full internet connection every 15 minutes and push pings the server and only connects when there's something to grab.
Click to expand...
That's only if you set fetch to every 15 minutes. Every 30 minutes gives noticeably better battery life than push.
 
i have push and fetch on for 30min for my gmail account and i get over 1 day of standby and about 3 1/2 hrs of use, and pretty much all of that usage is talking with 3g on.
 
anjinhamarota said:
This is not how I thought Push would work. This doesn't even feel like Push, it feels like constant fetching.
Click to expand...

That's because "push", on anything but a Blackberry, really is constant fetching in a way.

The way it works is that the phone makes a request to the server. The server doesn't reply until it has something to send. Therefore, in theory, the reply looks just like a "push" because it's immediate.

In reality, carriers and other routing devices drop lifeless connections in anywhere from five to thirty minutes or so. Therefore the phone must adapt to the current connection conditions and make its request as often as is needed ... to keep the connection going.
 
kdarling said:
That's because "push", on anything but a Blackberry, really is constant fetching in a way.

The way it works is that the phone makes a request to the server. The server doesn't reply until it has something to send. Therefore, in theory, the reply looks just like a "push" because it's immediate.

In reality, carriers and other routing devices drop lifeless connections in anywhere from five to thirty minutes or so. Therefore the phone must adapt to the current connection conditions and make its request as often as is needed ... to keep the connection going.
Click to expand...

Why is the Blackberry different?
 
I've been running Push for everything: mail, calendar, contacts, etc. and haven't noticed any unusual battery drain. Just for kicks, I'm going to do the same test that you did when I go to bed tonight.

I'll report back tomorrow with my results.

Bryan
 
How may bars did you have all that time? The rate of push drain depends on the transmitter power. Less bars means the phone turns its transmitter power up to try and get a signal through.


.
 
firewood said:
How may bars did you have all that time? The rate of push drain depends on the transmitter power. Less bars means the phone turns its transmitter power up to try and get a signal through.


.
Click to expand...

I didn't really notice but usually at home I always have full bars.
 
anjinhamarota said:
Why is the Blackberry different?
Click to expand...

RIM paid a half billion (that's with a B) dollars for a patent that allows it to do push without constantly using up the battery doing pings.

Unlike other common push implementations (Exchange, IMAP, etc), which require a phone to constantly ping the server in order to keep the connection going, RIM's push method does not have to talk until there is data to send.

While other phones send an IP request with a long timeout and wait for a response, RIM's phones just wait for their network operating center to send a one-way UDP notification packet.
 
kdarling said:
RIM paid a half billion (that's with a B) dollars for a patent that allows it to do push without constantly using up the battery doing pings.

Unlike other common push implementations (Exchange, IMAP, etc), which require a phone to constantly ping the server in order to keep the connection going, RIM's push method does not have to talk until there is data to send.

While other phones send an IP request with a long timeout and wait for a response, RIM's phones just wait for their network operating center to send a one-way UDP notification packet.
Click to expand...

Maybe Apple can "reinvent" the way our emails get pushed by throwing more money at it then RIM:p
 
kdarling said:
RIM paid a half billion (that's with a B) dollars for a patent that allows it to do push without constantly using up the battery doing pings.

Unlike other common push implementations (Exchange, IMAP, etc), which require a phone to constantly ping the server in order to keep the connection going, RIM's push method does not have to talk until there is data to send.

While other phones send an IP request with a long timeout and wait for a response, RIM's phones just wait for their network operating center to send a one-way UDP notification packet.
Click to expand...

Now there's some information we can chew on. Good info to know.

Thanks kdarling!
 
How does Goodlink's version of push differ from RIM's? I thought the GL version used some kind of 'behind the scenes' SMS to trigger a server sync, but that might not be accurate.
 
Ok, I decided to test the battery life again, so I did the exact same thing but before I calibrated the battery and rebooted the iPhone. Now the battery is lasting at least twice as before with push enabled. :D
 
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