Strange Battery Occurence

[gjkubel]

I got my 16gb 3GS about 3 weeks ago. My battery life sucked, barely making it through a day of low-moderate usage.

About a week ago, I came back to my office and found my iphone very warm and the battery nearly dead. I charged it that night, and ever since my battery life has been kickass, easily making it through 3 days of normal usage.

So, is this good or bad? I'm loving my battery life now, but does this sound like a) hardware or b) software? Has anyone else had a similar thing happen?

 

[guydude193]

It had to be calibrated first.

 

[BPresley321]

Is all this actually true about having to run your battery dry then charge it back up to get maximum usage out of it? I know everyone says this is the case but does apple back that up? Seems like all I hear about battery usage but haven't seen apple say the same thing...

 

[Magsec4]

What everyone has been saying about Lithium-Ion batteries for a long time is that when it's new, it's a good idea to go through a couple full cycles with it (full charge -> full discharge, repeat).

What people have been saying it, is not only calibrates the battery meter, it also sets up the battery for a long life.

After the initial few full cycles Li-Ion batteries prefer partial cycles ("topping up" the battery before it's fully drained).

Here's a good article http://batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm

And I had another good one on the topic bookmarked somewhere but can't find it right now...

 

[-aggie-]

Is all this actually true about having to run your battery dry then charge it back up to get maximum usage out of it? I know everyone says this is the case but does apple back that up? Seems like all I hear about battery usage but haven't seen apple say the same thing...

All this does is calibrate the battery meter. It has nothing to do with making the battery operate better. Frequent total discharges are actually bad for the battery. As far as the OP's battery goes, it isn't normal for it to get that warm, but it seems to be working fine now, since it was probably a software issue.