Battery life issues?

[davidra]

First iPhone: multiple battery questions. I am on Sprint and spend every weekend in a Verizon roaming area. My previous phone had a patch that allowed me to set the phone to "roam only" which effectively doubled my battery life. Additionally, I am out on the water a lot with weak roaming signals (and no Sprint signal at all). I have no doubt this contributed to my fairly heavy battery loss this weekend. I did all the battery tips (screen brightness down, turned off two email accounts, stopped location services) today and if anything it seemed a bit worse. I suspect that most people's battery problems will improve after a few cycles, but I know I will continue to have this problem on weekends....thus the following questions:
1. Does anyone make a high quality plug-in battery extender? Just by chance, if someone has one, I'm curious as to whether or not it would fit a Lifeproof case, which I will have to get because of being on the water.
2. Good charging cables....are there particular non-OEM brands that are recommended by folks?
3. I have a large number of plug-ins for USB cords. All so far seem to work fine charging through an OEM cable, both car and wall, but are there any concerns? I assume we're looking for 5 volts out. I have an Igo wall charger with a tip made for an iPod (old) and when I plug it in I get a "not made for this accessory" message. Do old chargers not work? I'm talking about the tips with the little locks on them; I have two and neither seem to work with this phone.

Appreciate any suggestions....

 

[Jacoblee27]

Yeah, it may be because I'm on extended coverage as well. I thought Wifi would help with this issue, but I suppose its still searching for signal. My real concern now though is why the phone charges to 100% and then begins to decline while it remains plugged in.

Why would wifi help? I've heard this before, but never understood why.

 

[Premium1]

Why would wifi help? I've heard this before, but never understood why.

Because on wifi the phone wouldn't be searching for a signal so that wouldn't drain battery as fast.

 

[Jacoblee27]

Because on wifi the phone wouldn't be searching for a signal so that wouldn't drain battery as fast.

But wifi will not allow you to text or make phone calls though right, so how would this help?

 

[DrewBear]

...I am out on the water a lot with weak roaming signals (and no Sprint signal at all). I have no doubt this contributed to my fairly heavy battery loss this weekend.

Unless you are anticipating a phone call, I would activate Airplane Mode and turn it off when you think you will be able to make a call.

While airplane mode is on, appears in the status bar at the top of the screen. No phone, radio, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth signals are emitted from iPhone and Global Positioning System (GPS) reception is turned off, disabling many of iPhone?s features.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1355

 

[ObiGeorge]

Mine seemed worse, till i did the old drain it to 0% trick. Now all good.

 

[Premium1]

But wifi will not allow you to text or make phone calls though right, so how would this help?

Well he was just asking how to get better battery life. I mean obviously you wouldnt do it if you wanted to make calls right then or get messages. Then again I think imessage would work over wifi so if the person you were messaging had that then you would be fine.

 

[chrisvee]

Eh, seems a bit early to gauge battery life. I'll be monitoring it during the week.

 

[Jacoblee27]

Well he was just asking how to get better battery life. I mean obviously you wouldnt do it if you wanted to make calls right then or get messages. Then again I think imessage would work over wifi so if the person you were messaging had that then you would be fine.

I always thought having wifi on made it worse. So my phone won't search for a signal as often of I have wifi on?

 

[Premium1]

I always thought having wifi on made it worse. So my phone won't search for a signal as often of I have wifi on?

if you turn 3g off and put wifi on it wont search for signal at all until you turn 3g back on. If you leave 3g on then it is still going to be searching for a signal.

 

[Jacoblee27]

if you turn 3g off and put wifi on it wont search for signal at all until you turn 3g back on. If you leave 3g on then it is still going to be searching for a signal.

I most of the time only get "Extended network coverage" through US Cellular. To my knowledge, there isn't a way to turn 3G off, through the 4S. Does anyone know if this is true?

 

[anon(39328)]

I most of the time only get "Extended network coverage" through US Cellular. To my knowledge, there isn't a way to turn 3G off, through the 4S. Does anyone know if this is true?

Check in settings/general/network.

 

[davidra]

Unless you are anticipating a phone call, I would activate Airplane Mode and turn it off when you think you will be able to make a call.

That I knew...but I do want to be able to get phone calls (and the occasional text). Not interested in email, and I gather this phone does not allow you to be that selective. If I turn off all email accounts, one would think that would be same as turning off push. If I turn off push, I assume I won't be able to get any text messages.

 

[DrewBear]

That I knew...but I do want to be able to get phone calls (and the occasional text). Not interested in email, and I gather this phone does not allow you to be that selective. If I turn off all email accounts, one would think that would be same as turning off push. If I turn off push, I assume I won't be able to get any text messages.

I'm not entirely sure, but I suspect it's the phone signal searching/roaming (or whatever you call it) that really eats up the battery. I remember that was an issue with the old feature phones whenever I was in spotty cell coverage areas. The data portion is probably a secondary drain.

Have you considered installing one of those cell amplifiers in your boat? I use one in my RV and it makes a huge difference when traveling in remote areas. The amp does the heavy lifting and the phone simply has to connect (wirelessly) to the amp.

 

[Premium1]

That I knew...but I do want to be able to get phone calls (and the occasional text). Not interested in email, and I gather this phone does not allow you to be that selective. If I turn off all email accounts, one would think that would be same as turning off push. If I turn off push, I assume I won't be able to get any text messages.

Push has nothing to do with you receiving text messages.

 

[Kylazin]

I'm starting to wonder if the block charger that I got with my iPhone was no good. I charged my phone via usb on my macbook, and the so far the charge is holding much better, and the phone didn't start discharging at 100%. When I plug it into the wall and it hits 100, it starts losing its charge while plugged in. Maybe the wall charger isn't charging my phone properly.

 

[Premium1]

I'm starting to wonder if the block charger that I got with my iPhone was no good. I charged my phone via usb on my macbook, and the so far the charge is holding much better, and the phone didn't start discharging at 100%. When I plug it into the wall and it hits 100, it starts losing its charge while plugged in. Maybe the wall charger isn't charging my phone properly.

That is weird because mine when I charge it with the wall charger it does not discharge once it reaches 100%.

 

[Kylazin]

I know, thats why I'm thinking the charger that they gave me might not be any good.

 

[count123]

Ok. This thread is making me slightly uncomfortable. Battery life was supposed to be the one thing I wouldn't have to worry about coming to the iPhone. Now it seems that I will be dealing with the same issues I dealt with on android. Except with android all I had to do is buy an extended battery and problem solved. Wondering if there are extended batteries for the iPhone. Because isn't the battery built into the phone where it cannot be replaced with a bigger one? Does that mean the extended battery is something that hangs off of the phone? I haven't received my phone yet but when I do I would like to know what my options are. Any info is appreciated.

Count

 

[LyndaP]

I thought my battery was draining faster than my iPhone 4, and it was. I went into settings and turned off a whole lot of location services that I knew I didn't need, and changed notifications to only those few things I really wanted to be notified about - and today it's perfectly fine and using battery at the rate my iPhone 4 did. I really like this phone!