Apple is aware of battery life problem on 4s and iphone 4

[Bluering]

My iPhone 4 with the new iOS5 has no battery problem at all, actually it has imporved. I listen to streaming radio at night and often fall asleep and it runs all night.
Before the iOS5, I had 37% battery life left in the morning, now I have around 76%.

 

[Skull One]

Your theories unfortunately don't hold up under the known facts at present. Lets look at some simple facts about iOS 5.

1) The iPad doesn't show any odd behaviors.
2) The iPhone 4 doesn't show any odd behaviors.
3) People are reporting that a factory reset without restoring their data has cured their battery issue.

That means that the version of iOS 5 LOADED at that factory from Apple is a different version than the one released to the general public for all other devices.

There is PURELY a coding issue involved here and it has to do with data that iOS relies on for proper operation.


BTW, have you seen any reports on the new iPhone 4 8GB that has a BRAND NEW BATTERY in it having this issue with iOS 5? The answer is no. So even the battery condition theory doesn't hold water right now for the 4S.

 

[Rocko]

Are all the people with battery issues having bad standby time also?

My battery seems great when I am not using it(i know sounds funny), I am seeing about 0.5 to 1% drop per hour of non use. But I can only get about 3-4 hours of use max. This use includes reading emails, looking at apps, having wifi on. Brightness is about 50%. Does that sound right?

 

[Skull One]

I am averaging 6.5 hours with 24 hours of standby. And that is 1.5 less than it should be.

 

[Rocko]

I am averaging 6.5 hours with 24 hours of standby. And that is 1.5 less than it should be.

Ok, I fully charged my phone last night and now there are no stats in the 'Time since last usage' section of the settings. Just a line like this - where the hours should be.

 

[Skull One]

IF the phone doesn't believe it reached 100% charge, it will not reset properly. The biggest cause I have seen of this is pulling the phone off the charger and doing an immediate reboot. That will cause the phone to clear the stats and not see 100%.

 

[Rocko]

IF the phone doesn't believe it reached 100% charge, it will not reset properly. The biggest cause I have seen of this is pulling the phone off the charger and doing an immediate reboot. That will cause the phone to clear the stats and not see 100%.

This is exactly what I did. I wanted to 'start fresh' so to speak. Thanks for letting me know.

 

[microsnook]

Coming from Android, I think the battery life is awesome. If they release an update and make it even better, that is going to be outstanding!

 

[codysanborn]

There is no training then battery's in these phones man, it's not a 1991 Nokia.
Jut charge the Dam thing stop playing with it all day and you'll be good

 

[Skull One]

There is no training then battery's in these phones man, it's not a 1991 Nokia.
Jut charge the Dam thing stop playing with it all day and you'll be good

You are 100% incorrect.

Consumer grade Lithium-Ion batteries require periodic deep cycle charges to reset the ON BOARD circuit that determines the peak charge and depleted level. This circuit is MANDATED BY LAW. This circuit also has built in protection for over-charging, heat and super deep discharging. And the circuit can only be reset by a specific protocol. I can also guarantee that iOS has a tracking piece of software as well to be able to determine the 1% percentage indication. The reason that software has to exist is because Lithium-Ion batteries have a sever "rubber-band" effect during the first 15% of the discharge and last 20% of the discharge. Which gives false readings if measured directly and require software to "smooth" out the result.

Please feel free to use Google and research "lithium ion battery conditioning". The first result should be from batteryuniversity.com.

 

[Skull One]

You need to read my assertions more carefully, Skull - as not one of your points refutes my assertions. Your point about factory loaded iOS5 versions compared to upgrades can be ANOTHER factor in the variability we're hearing but it is NOT the defining one per my study of all the cases I'm reading in scores of web pages on the topic. And your explanation can not account for the differences in the 4S's themselves - some with perfect battery life from factory and others, not - even given similar usage patterns of the users and 'supposed' exact iOS5 factory installs.

And read again my 1st assertion which actually would be inclusive of your point. The reason I know for 100% sure that my #2 point is at least in this equation is because there are scores of threads on these forums on battery life problems at the roll out of the 3GS and the 4 when they each came out. That proves that poor understanding of rechargeable battery physics is at least IN the equation.

I think we can agree that it's not just ONE issue.

Even if we have to agree to disagree on my points above - let me ask you what your thoughts are on the reason why Apple would fill their factory 4S' with a different iOS than the download for upgrading? Other than, of course, the need for the sub routines for Siri and other unique 4S features.

I wasn't trying to refute your points directly. My points are the basis of why this issue is specific to the 4S and the fact that they loaded a version of iOS 5 that wasn't fully tested nor the same version that was released for all other devices. I no longer see this as a physical battery issue. The iPhone 4 8GB would show the issue if that was true. It doesn't.

It took me a while to figure out what the core issue was. And if I hadn't gone back thru my notes about Android, I would have never realized what the issue is.

They have a threading problem and the phone is not going to sleep properly when the screen times out or the sleep button is pressed. Android had the SAME EXACT issue with some of the kernels (brains for the CPU). And I believe the problem gets worse with certain setting combinations. Which is why no one can pin point an exact cause. They also have an issue with the GPU taking too much power because the screen is refreshing more times than it needs to per second. See this post for the explanation- http://www.iphoneforums.net/forum/i...-heating-up-during-gameplay-25420/#post130242

As for the assertion it is a different version of iOS 5:

They released iOS 5 GM on Oct 4th. The phone went on sale Oct 14th. How do you load 4 million phones with iOS 5 plus the extra needed files for Siri in less than 7 days (since they had to have them in stores before then)? Answer, you can't. You have to load iOS, boot it once to certify the install is good and then you have to package the phone. At best they may be able to do that in 2 weeks using 1000 install stations at 5 minutes a pop for each iPhone working 24/7. I doubt they have that many install stations spun up for just the 4S. Maybe for the entire line of phones they are currently making but I think that is stretching it still. That means it can't be the same exact version. Close, yes. But exact, highly doubtful.

This has all the hallmarks of a rushed to market product. They thought they could get away with it because the iPad 2 had the A5 in it and they thought they had worked out all the threading kinks. But the iPhone 4S is a different beast. It has new support chips. New timing requirements. This creates issues if everything isn't certified properly. Android learned this the hard way on the first dual core CPU devices.

 

[Col.bris]

I have to agree with Scull. During the 25 years I delivered and supported Mac systems I always reformatted and reinstalled the OS for the exact same reason as Scull stated. This same issue applies to all computer based devices. Recently a user purchased a brand new Canon wifi printer that Canon states that it supports AirPrint out of the box....Wrong you have to down load an update as even though this is a brand new printer the software supplied and installed is out of date.

With respect to the iPhone 4s yes by restoring the iPhone you may end up with a slightly different iOS from what was shipped. At the end of the day Apple will resolve the issue as majority believe that this issue is software related and not hardware. Just give them time

 

[iPhoneTibster]

It has been confirmed that iOS 5.0.1 is out for developers and this will fix various bugs that make the battery drain. Original iPad will also be getting background, even though I thought all the iPad's had back grounding. iOS 5.0.1 will be out for everyone else "in a few short weeks.".



 

[Col.bris]

This is a copy of the latest news.

Apple issued a statement about customer complaints of poor battery life with the new iPhone 4S and iOS 5:
A small number of customers have reported lower than expected battery life on iOS 5 devices. We have found a few bugs that are affecting battery life and we will release a software update to address those in a few weeks.”
There have been a litany of complaints about iPhone 4S and iOS 5 battery life ever since their release last month. A number of solutions have been proposed by the community for this problem, including turning off Time Zone detection, Bluetooth and others.

Apple has already seeded developers with a 5.0.1 beta that is said to address the issue.

To our brand new users whom may not understand what this means the following should help A updated version is now being tested by developers and once they verify that the issue is fixed an upgrade will be made available to all users "over the air " via wif.

 

[Skull One]

I concur wholeheartedly that Lithium-Ion batteries should be conditioned properly and that the general populous is unaware of that fact.

I have installed iOS 5.0.1 and have the phone now charging. I made sure to do a full backup/restore so that I could do a true 1 to 1 compare. I should hopefully have some idea if the fixes worked in roughly 20 hours.