iPhone battery degredation bug??

[blackhawk]

In my group, we have 4 iPhones, three are 3GS and one is 3G.

Every one of the 3GS phones (and one of them twice) has had to undergo a complete Restore as a New Phone process in order to overcome the quick battery degredation issue.

I have tested a restore from backup and the problem of quick battery drain occurs again. This seems to indicate that there is some software problem that is causing this.

What makes matters more interesting, is that one of the phones went into this mode but had no new applications installed on it since it was first set up. How can this be? I spoke with a Genious Bar rep about this, he mentioned that the iPhone downloads and uses information over the AT&T network to try to adjust to network usage and the surrounding environment. Is this really true?

If so, then I pose the following:

• How many people with 3GS phones have experienced this issue?
• Could this be a bug?
• Has anyone figured out what is AT&T downloading to our iPhones that could lead to this battery drain? Or how we can stop it?

I can already tell that one of the iPhone's battery is starting to get into this mode of battery drain and will have to restore it once again. I would like to figure this out and prevent it from happening. It is pretty inconvenient to have to go through this each time.

 

[flyingember]

are they all on 3.1.2? Apple released a battery life patch.

 

[Hack-My-i]

these devices are known for battery drainage...its all over this forum. Its one of the biggest complaints we have.

...battery life patch doesnt make a difference from what i've experienced

 

[blackhawk]

Yes, they are all on 3.1.2 (7D11).

 

[blackhawk]

these devices are known for battery drainage...its all over this forum. Its one of the biggest complaints we have.

...battery life patch doesnt make a difference from what i've experienced

I am aware that there are battery complaints, but most of them seem to be centered around newbies not used to iPhone, push notifications and jail broken apps.

Mine is more concerned about recurring degredation over time that seems to be tied to (potentially) AT&T network.

What I notice is that my usage time seems to grow over time until it nearly reaches standby time. When it gets to that point, the battery only lasts 4 hours or so, even when the phone has not been used.

Then I do the restore as new phone and voila, all is right again. This is very troublesome. What is going on that we cannot see?

 

[Hack-My-i]

yea i know what u mean and it SUCKS...hopefully the new iPhone will have this issue worked out, SERIOUSLY!

 

[blackhawk]

You know, I wonder about something.....

Are there any t-Mobile users that have experienced the same problem or is this just AT&T?

 

[Hack-My-i]

i had tmobile when i had the 2G and i had no battery issues whatsoever but thats a good Q concerning the 3Gs

 

[Earless Puppy]

Keeping SSH running in the background will do this, but I am unjailbroken and have had this issue once, I dont think it is a battery issue more an application even though seems to be closed is continuing to run and drains the battery fast

 

[stringbeanie]

Definitely something wrong...I'm not a newbie

There is definitely something wrong with the battery in just the last few days. My husband's 3GS, daughter's 3G and my 3GS phone have watched the battery just drop without hardly any use. My phone showed 1 hour and 34 minutes of use and was giving the low battery warning today. I have never had this problem prior to the last few days. I have even tried turning off notifications, push, etc. Nothing is helping. I think this must be widespread given that all 3 iphones at our home have experienced this in the last few days without addition of new programs or increased usage.

 

[flyingember]

1 hour and 34 minutes of use is your active use time.

it uses battery when idle too.

 

[SaberSerene]

1 hour and 34 minutes of use is your active use time.

it uses battery when idle too.

For me when I do use Mail, iPod I make sure I force quit them after using them, but these apps are made to turn themselves on for easy use. Mail, iPod, Safari, Phone, its there core functionality.

 

[drian]

seems to depend which apps you are using, no?

 

[SaberSerene]

Right but what if I'm on Edge all day and have my iPhone in sleep mode and the battery reduces. This has happened to me.

 

[jibby#IM]

I bought my 3Gs this past November ('09). I live in an area with Edge. Until a few days ago, I could easily get around 4 days of standby time with minimal use. But on 1-12-10, I realized my battery was draining faster. Now it discharges in less than two days without use. I've restored from back-up recently -- no good. So I'm guessing I'll have to restore as a new device.

In case anyone is curious, yes, I have wi-fi, push, fetch, roll-over, sit, beg,and all that stuff all OFF. The only thing can I say is that putting the phone in Airplane Mode takes care of this problem. I didn't have to do that before and would rather not have to keep doing it. It's a pain and doesn't resolve the core problem.

Anyone ever pinpoint this thing battery thing that seems to be linked to service? FYI, signal (my bars) seem ok too.

 

[SaberSerene]

ok I know why the iPhone 3GS's battery is draining so fast. If you take your phone off the charge at 100% you won't get much out of the battery. It'll drop drastically. What you do to get the most out of your battery is too leave it charging over night. You'll get a lot of use out of your iPhone through out the day.

 

[flyingember]

ok I know why the iPhone 3GS's battery is draining so fast. If you take your phone off the charge at 100% you won't get much out of the battery. It'll drop drastically. What you do to get the most out of your battery is too leave it charging over night. You'll get a lot of use out of your iPhone through out the day.

it will actually only drop depending on the amount of need.

"a lot" is subjective

 

[jibby#IM]

Ok, so I restored as a new device, even changed the name of the phone. I did not sync anything at first. I unchecked the sync options that come up and clicked "Done", or whatever the button says. I shut the phone down, restarted, and plugged it in to the charger until 100% (until the little plug icon came up).

This did no good. The battery still drains like crazy. Before going to bed last night, I turned "Airplane Mode" on, and I turned the Wireless on (I set it up with my router). So with Airplane Mode on and Wireless on for ~8hrs, I had no drop in the % battery charge overnight. Guess it does a good job of going to sleep with the wireless on.

I do notice the signal bars fluctuate from 3 to 5 to 3 to 2 to 1. This occurred while watching it for 5 minutes. I even saw the "o" symbol pop up once (as opposed to the usual E for Edge).

Not sure if it's the phone or the tower. We've had bad weather the past week (lots of cloud cover), but that never seemed to bother the phone much before. I'll probably wait it out for a bit as I don't have an Apple store anywhere nearby.

I'll try to update this in a few days in case someone's curious.

 

[Hack-My-i]

When i charge my phone overnight, why when i pull it off the charger it goes down to 99% instantly?

 

[jibby#IM]

And when I referred to "signal bars" above, I was referring to the AT&T radio signal, not my wifi signal. The wifi holds pretty well.