Sudden loss in iPhone 3GS battery?

[NewSc2]

Bought the 3GS on launch day. Other than the first day of heavy use, I'd never experienced any battery life issues. I could go through the day listening to music, checking e-mail, taking a few phone calls, etc., and still end with about 40-50% battery life.

Then boom -- yesterday, I checked my phone in the afternoon and it was at 19%. No heavy use, just the usual listening to a couple hours of music, taking a couple phone calls. To be safe, I disabled push notifications (which I'd always kept on before, for AIM, which I rarely use).

The weird thing yesterday was around 10-20% the battery life indicator started to jump around. One minute it was at 9%, the next at 80% (!!), and then back down to 22%, until it finally settled around 15% and drained out with about half an hour of listening to music. I went home, charged it, and within 45 minutes the charge went back to full (odd?).

Now today, I'm at work, and I have NOT used the phone at all -- no music, not even for checking e-mail or browsing the internet. 3 hours since my last full charge, and the battery life is already at 70%.

Has this happened to anyone?

 

[-aggie-]

This could be a battery calibration issue, since you've owned it about a month. You might want to try that, however, the meter going up and down that quick is certainly weird. Maybe a restore is in order.

 

[NewSc2]

This could be a battery calibration issue, since you've owned it about a month. You might want to try that, however, the meter going up and down that quick is certainly weird. Maybe a restore is in order.

Didn't I calibrate the battery by letting it drain all the way down and powering it back up? I might have to go ahead and restore -- I'm literally watching the % drop pretty much every few minutes.

 

[LEGALROMA]

Didn't I calibrate the battery by letting it drain all the way down and powering it back up? I might have to go ahead and restore -- I'm literally watching the % drop pretty much every few minutes.

Have you tried sending any email with attacment or videos that are too large? Are they hanging up in outbox?

Could be source of drain.

 

[NewSc2]

Have you tried sending any email with attacment or videos that are too large? Are they hanging up in outbox?

Could be source of drain.

Nope. Nothing. I thought it might have been a one-off from yesterday, but nothing new today would warrant the weird behavior. I mean, heck, I even downloaded Hero of Sparta and the Myst update over the iPhone's wifi, and that didn't drain my battery quite this fast. I just went online for about 5 minutes on the phone, and my battery life dropped 5% (over wifi).

 

[-aggie-]

Didn't I calibrate the battery by letting it drain all the way down and powering it back up? I might have to go ahead and restore -- I'm literally watching the % drop pretty much every few minutes.

Perhaps, but charging back to 100% in 45 minutes is not normal. The next time it drains you may want to wait a couple hours to recharge (someone posted that recommendation, IDK if it matters) to see if that helps. Other than that a restore or go back to the store.

 

[djjclark]

would look to see if it is having troubles connecting to the cell towers. I have never drained the battery faster then when I went to an area with no cell service and it kept searching for a signal.

 

[croy]

I just had this problem start last weekend. After calling tech support, having them reset my iPhone, then have me reset my network, then rest my settings, still nothing.

So next they told me to restore my iPhone & not use a backup, so create a new profile. Did that, same problem. Called back today & my new 3G-S is in the mail. No answer to why it did this.

Yes, I did calibrate the battery within the first week of owning the 3G-S.

 

[frunze]

I can't speak about the sudden jumps back and forth, but what I did notice is that if you have an app that uses internet constantly, it drains the battery faster than a percent a minute (thus you can completely drain your phone in less than 1.5 hrs). I used Trapster (which I found lame and useless by the way), and even if you turn off the phone, it continues to track and drain power even though you don't even know it's on. So maybe you had an app that was using wi-fi or 3G and you didn't realize it was running?