This might also be a fault of iOS 10. I used to charge my 5s once a week, but since installing iOS 10 I need to charge once a day. I've even turned off Background App Refresh and it still doesn't matter. The culprit was the Music app which I ended up removing (thank God we can now remove stock apps). The funny thing is that I never sync/load ANY music on my Phone... I've never even opened the Music app. But, for some reason the Music app takes 90% of my battery every day, even though I don't use it and nothing is playing (the app isn't even open). I've restored twice and done 2 fresh installs and the Music app drains my battery even though there is no music on my device, I do not have a Music subscription, and I've never opened the Music app (except to try and turn off settings). I have to remove the App entirely to get my battery to act normally. I never had any problems with my phone before iOS 10.
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Which? Magazine Claims iPhone 7 Has 'Poor Battery Life' Compared to Rival Smartphones
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I know you guys don't want to believe me but battery life is not that great on the iPhone. Pretty consistently I have to charge my phone if I want to leave the house at night with my 6s.
I'm not even a heavy user, most of my email is done on my laptop at work, maybe a call or two and a handful of texts, browsing social media during lunch, and the occasional web search when I'm not at my desk. I unplug my phone at 6AM and when I get home at 3:30PM I'm usually around 40-45%. Other than short drive time where I'm not streaming music or anything I am on WiFi. So if I'm just sitting on the couch watching TV/working around the house I have to plug my phone in around 7-8PM just so it doesn't die before I go to bed at 11PM. Now I have to make sure I've got portable chargers on me all the time so I don't have to worry about a dead phone while I'm on the go.
I'm not even a heavy user, most of my email is done on my laptop at work, maybe a call or two and a handful of texts, browsing social media during lunch, and the occasional web search when I'm not at my desk. I unplug my phone at 6AM and when I get home at 3:30PM I'm usually around 40-45%. Other than short drive time where I'm not streaming music or anything I am on WiFi. So if I'm just sitting on the couch watching TV/working around the house I have to plug my phone in around 7-8PM just so it doesn't die before I go to bed at 11PM. Now I have to make sure I've got portable chargers on me all the time so I don't have to worry about a dead phone while I'm on the go.
I suspect the testers checked the iPhone 7 during it's first boot "optimization" and "indexing" stage. My iPhone 7 now gets great life despite the new always listening Siri and "Raise to Wake" features. I went from days with 37% remaining on iPhone 6 to 48% remaining on the 7. The first few days were terrible though, because a fresh OS runs optimizations.
Same here with my 6+.
Truth in advertising: I do not live in parts of the Nevada desert or the Arctic Circle where only 3G service might be available.
As did my 6 plus, however...my 7 plus beats it with the same usage.
FTFY!
In your experience......others are seeing different results. I'm regularly seeing 36-48hrs standby with upto 12hrs usage.
I make very few calls on my iPhone, and if you look at the battery threads, a lot of people are the same......at least judging by the lack of "Phone" in the battery usage screenshots.
Yes, thankfully.But, at least the iPhone is micro-thin amirite?
With moderate use (including bursts of gaming) I never have to charge my iPhone 7 during the day. I used to charge my iPhone 6 in late afternoon to last me until bedtime but my 7 lasts all day.
The headline isn't misleading, the test just isn't very good.
Also, while I do make phone calls on my iPhone, that's a minority use for me - email, streaming audio, social media, texting, etc. all make up much more of my time using the phone.
I suspect iOS 10 may be affecting battery life adversely. I particularly notice it on my 5S and to a lesser extent on my SE compared with the final version of iOS 9.
Given it's a phone, why would 3G tests not be appropriate?
I leave home, I'm on 3G all day until I return. My work does not allow wifi access to non work issued devices. Nor would I trust "free wifi" if I happen across a hotspot.
I live in London. Why would an iPhone not be for me?
Do you get wifi access everywhere in San Francisco?
U.K. Consumers' Association magazine Which? has concluded that the iPhone 7 offers the worst battery life when compared against the current crop of rival flagship smartphones.
Using a series of tests designed to account for everyday usage variables, the subscriber-only magazine compared Apple's 4.7-inch phone against the Samsung Galaxy S7, HTC 10, and LG 5, and called the results "staggering".
Internet browsing time measurements were less contrasting, nevertheless the iPhone 7 still came last.
The new iPhone's poor results in the battery test shouldn't come as a surprise, given the physical limitations of a 4.7-inch handset's battery cell compared to its physically larger rivals (5.1-5.3 inches). Measured in milliampere hours, the iPhone 7 has a 1,960mAh battery, compared to the HTC 10's 3,000mAh cell, for instance, yet Which? describes this as a 'fault' of the phone.
The larger iPhone 7 Plus, on the other hand, features a 2,900 mAh battery, but wasn't mentioned in the test, perhaps because it was perceived as belonging in the 5.5-inch handset bracket populated by devices like the Galaxy S7 Edge (3600mAh) and the HTC 10 Desire (2700 mAh).
The test doesn't mention that Apple's own product specifications show that the iPhone 7 has a higher-capacity battery than the iPhone 6s (1,810mAh), and seems to continue a recent negative trend where media reports have criticized Apple's new flagship phone on the basis of its battery life. For example, last month, The Guardian ran an iPhone 7 story titled "How good can a phone be if the battery doesn't last even a day?" and claimed that its holding charge was worse than the iPhone 6s.
Article Link: Which? Magazine Claims iPhone 7 Has 'Poor Battery Life' Compared to Rival Smartphones
Bull. I use mine all day. GPS on for 6 hours, two email accounts, tons of browsing. The screen literally never turns off and I get at the bare minimum 6 hours. But your claiming 6 hours with low use? Get real.
Lots of ADULTS still use their phones to make calls, myself included. Probably 2-3 hours a day on average, and yes, the iPhone's battery drops like a rock when on phone calls - always has. Some people do things like attend meetings, talk to colleagues, chat with their spouse/family, etc.
If you don't fall into this category and don't understand why people make phone calls, then enjoy your time catching Pokemon and snapchatting and doing whatever other ridiculous things people are into these days.
Wow,people actually use their iPhone to make calls!
Yeah, you know what it's like... when you're 712 minutes in on an important phone call & your phone "suddenly" dies!
& you be all: "Wtf?! That phone call was only like 11 hours & 50 minutes! I couldn't have got to a charger for the tail end... Ugh. Flipping Apple! Next time I'm getting an Android; I'd STILL be talking right now- I'm trying to beat my personal record of 16 hours straight, talking on my cell without stopping to charge it, eat, sleep, use the restroom, or breathe!". ;0)
As I said, if your usage is predominately voice phone calls, and you only have 3G service available, there are better choices available. That is, if the goal is to maximize battery life.
No, WiFi access is not available everywhere in SF. But 4G LTE is pretty much universal.
Ive favors thinness over functionality. This is an ongoing phenomena.
Actually the tests are reasonably consistent. It's just that the Ars article omits phone call usage. The rest of the tests are consistent within a reasonable margins of error, showing all the phones tested being pretty close. That's a win for Apple, considering they are doing it with a smaller phone with a much smaller battery.
Given that, the Which? conclusions are weird. The iPhone 7's "terrible" battery can handle "only" 12 hours of phone calls between charges. Twelve hours? What percentage of people are on their cell phone for even four hours per day? Less than 1%? On the other hand, plenty of people are on the internet for many hours per day-- it's a totally different usage profile.
Meh, it works for me. I don't get the battery hype. I guess I'm not enough of a "power user." I wake up, unplug my phone, go about my day, plug in the charger before I go to bed. It just works. At the end of the day the battery is at some amount of discharge... 50%? 1%, I really haven't a clue. I can't think of the last time I discharged the phone to the point where it powered off. Apple has always built products for a particular use case - not all use cases. Speaking of cases, buy the battery case and you'll get the bigger phone and longer battery life you're longing for.
As a GS7 Edge user for two months before the iPhone 7, these results seem totally bogus. My GS7 would be down to ~70% before I even left the house at 8 or 9am and would drain between 10-20% every hour or two. When I would get home from work I would have to charge it, or it would be dead by 6pm.
I think this is a flaw with the 6S. I ended up trading mine in for a 7.