Battery life issues?

Fausty82

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I iPhone 4S Usage Manifesto:

My battery life is "ok", but I am taking a stand and drawing a line in the sand. No longer will I turn off features only to increase battery life. Certainly I will turn them off if I have no need to use them (bluetooth, for example). And I have adjusted things like push mail and screen brightness... but enough is enough. I work from home and have access to a wall charger, car charger and external battery charger (Richard Solo), so I say "screw it", and I am going to use my phone, and all of it's neat, useful and awesome features. If I need to charge it more often, so be it.

I expect that Apple will release a patch/update to iOS 5 soon to address some of the battery issues, but it is, after all, a device that I bought to use, not just to charge it up and then "nurse" it through the day.
 

mellisnj

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I am pleasantly surprised with the battery life I got from yesterday to today. I used that thing heavily and 27 hours later it was finally down to 20%. It almost makes me not want to adjust or add any more apps to it. My Evo 4G ran through 3 batteries a day.
 

johnraggio

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When you guys say "full restore" or "restore as new" am I to understand that you completely wipe the phone with a new OS install and then do not restore from a backup? You then install apps and setup email etc. from scratch? I would guess that if you restore as new and then restore from a backup you'd be back where you started, or am I missing something?

Thanks,
John

I'd appreciate a reply to my question above and also thought you'd all enjoy this Siri mockup as we are suffering from battery issues:

www . cultofmac . com/126143/the-horrible-truth-the-iphone-4s-sucks/

John
 

DrewBear

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When you guys say "full restore" or "restore as new" am I to understand that you completely wipe the phone with a new OS install and then do not restore from a backup? You then install apps and setup email etc. from scratch?

Yes. But first have you tried simply turning the phone off, then on again?
 

Dark_Blu

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I am pleasantly surprised with the battery life I got from yesterday to today. I used that thing heavily and 27 hours later it was finally down to 20%. It almost makes me not want to adjust or add any more apps to it. My Evo 4G ran through 3 batteries a day.

Compared to my EVO, which required an extended battery to make it through a full day, the iPhone 4S battery life is superlative. Whenever I'm in the car, I top off the charge and I'm good. Makes it through a full day and all I've really adjusted is Facebook notifications. I keep the screen brightness to half and that pretty much takes care of it.
 

MECM

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I upgraded from the 4 to the 4s. If I plug in my 4s overnight, I wake up and it's at 94%. Yesterday I let it die and charged it to 100% and took it off the charger around 1pm. Right now I'm at 7%. I have 9:34 of usage and 19:33 of standby. I went to bed and it was at 47%, woke up and it was at 25%. My 4 never did this. I have Bluetooth shut off..but I'm leaving everything else because if the 4 could handle it, why can't the 4s?? I'm lost. When I plugged in my 4 I'd wake up to a phone charged 100%, but the 4s charges down when it's on the charger?
 

leharris22

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This is my first iPhone so I'm new to this. I tried to implement some battery-saving tips I know from BlackBerry. I turned off Bluetooth and Wifi (though I may turn that on when I want to use WiFi). Usually I turn off GPS but I find I want to use apps that need it, so I'm leaving it on. I dimmed the backlight and turned the lock to 1 minute. I'm not sure what else I can aside from not using it. I turned the phone on at 7:30 AM and it's 1 and sitting at 63%. I did play with it a lot at lunch. Is this normal? Usually my BB would be sitting around 65% after 12 hrs of moderate usage. Now, I know this probably has alot to do with a touch screen device.
 

Dark_Blu

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This is my first iPhone too. I installed Battery Doctor since day one. Just wanted a battery utility to monitor battery usage. Ended up buying the paid version. That gave me "quick charge" which allows the phone to charge up at amazing speed whether using the car charger, wall charger, or USB cable. I started out this morning taking it off the charger at 100% at 6am. Normal usage brought that down to 84%. Used the car charger on the way in to work. By the time I arrived at 9am, it was at 96% after the 20 minute trip. It is now 3:14pm and I am at 71%. Will use the car charger on the way home. Did the same yesterday and by the time I went to bed and put it on the charger at 1am, it was at 30%. I think Battery Doctor helps it last longer.
 

_heatherly

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I iPhone 4S Usage Manifesto:

My battery life is "ok", but I am taking a stand and drawing a line in the sand. No longer will I turn off features only to increase battery life. Certainly I will turn them off if I have no need to use them (bluetooth, for example). And I have adjusted things like push mail and screen brightness... but enough is enough. I work from home and have access to a wall charger, car charger and external battery charger (Richard Solo), so I say "screw it", and I am going to use my phone, and all of it's neat, useful and awesome features. If I need to charge it more often, so be it.

I expect that Apple will release a patch/update to iOS 5 soon to address some of the battery issues, but it is, after all, a device that I bought to use, not just to charge it up and then "nurse" it through the day.

Agreed. Turning off all sorts of stuff just to conserve battery life seems a little pointless... what's the point of having a cool phone?

I still keep location services on because I like to check into Foursquare, enable Find My Phone and like to check the weather. I don't want to have to enable location services every time I want to use an app.

With car chargers, office chargers, and chargers at home, there is no point in worrying too much about your battery. Stick it on the charger when you're not using it to top it off. You'll be good to go. :)
 

johnraggio

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Yes. But first have you tried simply turning the phone off, then on again?

Yes I have trie that using the standard power off and the "hard reset" holding home and sleep until the apple shows up. I noticed that my standby time is actually pretty good, but when doing light browsing on twitter, G+, Reeder, Facebook for 30 minutes r so I can lose 15-20%. Will probably give the restore a chance tomorrow given it seems to have made a difference for some folks. Probably burn a couple of hours in the background while working from home...

John
 
Feb 23, 2011
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Some reviewers have mentioned that turning Siri's "Raise to Speak" option off helps a lot with battery life when the phone is in use. Supposedly, when this option is on and you have the screen on, the sensor is constantly on waiting for you to use it.

I turned it off (I don't use that feature anyway) tonight, and I'll report tomorrow if it helped at all.
 

nycfly

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Yes I have trie that using the standard power off and the "hard reset" holding home and sleep until the apple shows up. I noticed that my standby time is actually pretty good, but when doing light browsing on twitter, G+, Reeder, Facebook for 30 minutes r so I can lose 15-20%. Will probably give the restore a chance tomorrow given it seems to have made a difference for some folks. Probably burn a couple of hours in the background while working from home...

John

can you please let me know if this worked for you? im having the same problem as you, good standby time but if i even use an app it declines rapidly. even texting i can lose 7% just in 5 or 10 minutes.

PM me or repost here, please!
 

DrewBear

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no apps are running in my background. always close them

I realize you're trying to solve a problem, but that really should not be necessary. Apple has claimed that it is not necessary, so I would hold them to that claim. So far I've not had to close apps in my 4S "active" drawer. I do sometimes close apps running video in my iPad 1 to free up some RAM, but even that is not a frequent event.
 

Dark_Blu

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Does anyone know if Apple is acknowledging this as a software bug, a physical battery issue, or just a faster processor doing more with less?