iOS 6 GM Battery Life Tested !!!!

[cherryhesh]

I have a 4s... this is what my battery life is looking like. Seems better than before.

View attachment 8503

People need to report if they have PUSH on and Location services on when they show battery tests. That makes all the difference in the comparison between phones.

 

[jjhuddle]

People need to report if they have PUSH on and Location services on when they show battery tests. That makes all the difference in the comparison between phones.

Sorry. I do have Push on for 4 email accounts, and Location Services for 6 apps turned on (Camera, MLB At Bat, Maps, Siri, Weather, Urbanspoon). My screen Brightness in about 35%.

I am happy with this battery life!

 

[cherryhesh]

Sorry. I do have Push on for 4 email accounts, and Location Services for 6 apps turned on (Camera, MLB At Bat, Maps, Siri, Weather, Urbanspoon). My screen Brightness in about 35%.

I am happy with this battery life!

Wow! You can live with 35% brightness? I couldn't - but good to hear that with Push on and Notifications on you're getting those stats. If I use 60% brightness I should get better than the 4S battery life and I'll have my Push usable again.

Thanks for the clarification.

 

[JoeyD74]

I just looked at mine, 1st day with the IOS 6 49% battery 3hrs, 28 minutes usage. Standby 12hrs 33 minutes.
I use to keep my location services off but it's not where it use to be so it's on.

Today it's 5hrs 19 minutes, same usage but in a bad area so reception was in and out. 8% power

 

[kozal01]

This is pretty typical for my 4S. All notifications and location services on, auto brightness. I've always been happy with my phones battery life, no issues with iOS 6

Sent from my iPhone 4S using iPF.net

 

[cherryhesh]

This is pretty typical for my 4S. All notifications and location services on, auto brightness. I've always been happy with my phones battery life, no issues with iOS 6

Sent from my iPhone 4S using iPF.net

Pretty sure your PUSH for mail is off though. Right? Or most mail accounts set to Fetch or Manual. Right?

 

[Skull One]

Ok, I don't know why people think turning off Push mail saves battery life, but it doesn't. If you even have ONE application set for notification, you already have a hard link open 100% of the time to a server. At that point, having Push mail on doesn't change a thing.

So to review, Push mail is what you WANT on and auto fetch is what you want to avoid.

 

[kozal01]

Pretty sure your PUSH for mail is off though. Right? Or most mail accounts set to Fetch or Manual. Right?

Yes my push is on.

Sent from my iPhone 4S using iPF.net

 

[cherryhesh]

Ok, I don't know why people think turning off Push mail saves battery life, but it doesn't. If you even have ONE application set for notification, you already have a hard link open 100% of the time to a server. At that point, having Push mail on doesn't change a thing.

So to review, Push mail is what you WANT on and auto fetch is what you want to avoid.

Please elaborate. I have done many tests with the only variable change being PUSH on or off and the difference in battery life is measurable and provable. But I think you're saying it's how I have the Fetch settings within Push that's the problem? That's intriguing. Can you tell me how to properly set it up so that PUSH works as Apple designed it to but it doesn't drain my battery which I can tell you for sure it does now on iOS 5.1.1. :-(
Thanks in advance!

 

[Skull One]

Please elaborate. I have done many tests with the only variable change being PUSH on or off and the difference in battery life is measurable and provable. But I think you're saying it's how I have the Fetch settings within Push that's the problem? That's intriguing. Can you tell me how to properly set it up so that PUSH works as Apple designed it to but it doesn't drain my battery which I can tell you for sure it does now on iOS 5.1.1. :-(
Thanks in advance!

Lets start with difference between Push and Fetch and why each is available.

Push: Is a protocol where iOS leaves a single port open to a server. This open ports only job is to listen for a wake up packet saying "You have information that you need to retrieve". This is exactly how the Notification system currently works as well.

Fetch: Is a protocol where iOS is usually set on a timer to check for new information. This check is a full request that requires iOS to fully "wake up", connect to the server, get the data, parse it and then close the connection.

So if you have Fetch set for every 15 minutes, you are essentially waking up the phone 96 times a day to check for information that may or may not be there. Where as Push simply listens on a port until there is information that you actually need to get. Push also allows the phone to continue to sleep during its wait.

As you can see that is a huge difference in power requirements. So now to cover the why Fetch is sometimes needed.

Not all email servers have the newer Push protocol in place. Remember, Email has been around for well over 25 years, while smart phones are only about 5 years old. So for over 20 years, PCs were grabbing mail. Push wasn't needed. PCs had a fixed power draw and so they simply fetched every 1 minute if you wanted.

So with all of that in mind, you have to look at your email provider to see if they support Push versus Fetch. Hotmail and Gmail are the two big push providers. Gmail requires you to follow a really simple procedure to setup for Push and Hotmail is Push when you setup. If you have to use the POP server protocol to get your email, then you are stuck using Fetch at all times.

If you have a specific question about a particular email provider, ask away.

 

[cherryhesh]

Lets start with difference between Push and Fetch and why each is available.

Push: Is a protocol where iOS leaves a single port open to a server. This open ports only job is to listen for a wake up packet saying "You have information that you need to retrieve". This is exactly how the Notification system currently works as well.

Fetch: Is a protocol where iOS is usually set on a timer to check for new information. This check is a full request that requires iOS to fully "wake up", connect to the server, get the data, parse it and then close the connection.

So if you have Fetch set for every 15 minutes, you are essentially waking up the phone 96 times a day to check for information that may or may not be there. Where as Push simply listens on a port until there is information that you actually need to get. Push also allows the phone to continue to sleep during its wait.

As you can see that is a huge difference in power requirements. So now to cover the why Fetch is sometimes needed.

Not all email servers have the newer Push protocol in place. Remember, Email has been around for well over 25 years, while smart phones are only about 5 years old. So for over 20 years, PCs were grabbing mail. Push wasn't needed. PCs had a fixed power draw and so they simply fetched every 1 minute if you wanted.

So with all of that in mind, you have to look at your email provider to see if they support Push versus Fetch. Hotmail and Gmail are the two big push providers. Gmail requires you to follow a really simple procedure to setup for Push and Hotmail is Push when you setup. If you have to use the POP server protocol to get your email, then you are stuck using Fetch at all times.

If you have a specific question about a particular email provider, ask away.

Skull, this is the most informative post I've ever read on these fora. Thank you so much. I will ask you a few follow-ups.
1) Where in my GMail account do I go to get it turned on? I'm assuming from what you explained there that just being able to choose "Push" in the advanced TAB isn't enough correct?
2) I then have GoDaddy for another pop account. I'm stuck with Fetch there - right? And so I should set that to 30 minutes or more to not drain battery. Agreed?
3) iCloud also has a Push option. If I set that to PUSH in the advanced tab should it have no effect on my battery as you were saying? Does Apple employ "true Push" protocol?
4) Lastly I have an Office Exchange account. Will it auto push too or do I have to set it up with my admin at my office? Push, again, is an option in the Advanced tab for Exchange accounts - but I don't want it using Fetch protocol every 15 min if true Push (as you're teaching me) is available.
5) oo - I lied. LOL! one more thing.. when you set up a gmail acct in your phone there are two ways available.. as iMAP or Exchange - Google accts can be added both ways. Which is the way I should add it to take advantage of true push protocol.

Thanks so much, SkullOne! (answer me in PM if this is too off topic)

 

[zphone]

I have my settings set at push and everything else at manual. I have 4 email accounts, I only care about seeing emails from one up to the minute. When I open up email I get the manual fetch one so I don't miss any email.

The only time when I notice push uses a lot of battery is when I get over several hundred push emails a day spread out evenly over the day. If I notice that happening and I know I will not be able to charge i sometimes set everything to manual.

 

[cherryhesh]

I have my settings set at push and everything else at manual. I have 4 email accounts, I only care about seeing emails from one up to the minute. When I open up email I get the manual fetch one so I don't miss any email.

The only time when I notice push uses a lot of battery is when I get over several hundred push emails a day spread out evenly over the day. If I notice that happening and I know I will not be able to charge i sometimes set everything to manual.

Yeah. I was thinking also that that has to be a variable in this equation. My work mail, Exchange server, has a lot of mail per day. So maybe the drain I'm noticing is simply a function of "traffic" - where if I hard set it to Fetch 30 minutes it would still get all my mail but at a slower interval.

Skull - when the open port for Push sees mail at the server end is the process of it coming to our phones battery intensive too?

 

[Skull One]

Skull, this is the most informative post I've ever read on these fora. Thank you so much. I will ask you a few follow-ups.
1) Where in my GMail account do I go to get it turned on? I'm assuming from what you explained there that just being able to choose "Push" in the advanced TAB isn't enough correct?
2) I then have GoDaddy for another pop account. I'm stuck with Fetch there - right? And so I should set that to 30 minutes or more to not drain battery. Agreed?
3) iCloud also has a Push option. If I set that to PUSH in the advanced tab should it have no effect on my battery as you were saying? Does Apple employ "true Push" protocol?
4) Lastly I have an Office Exchange account. Will it auto push too or do I have to set it up with my admin at my office? Push, again, is an option in the Advanced tab for Exchange accounts - but I don't want it using Fetch protocol every 15 min if true Push (as you're teaching me) is available.
5) oo - I lied. LOL! one more thing.. when you set up a gmail acct in your phone there are two ways available.. as iMAP or Exchange - Google accts can be added both ways. Which is the way I should add it to take advantage of true push protocol.

Thanks so much, SkullOne! (answer me in PM if this is too off topic)

No problem. Lets see what we can do.

1) There are two ways to setup GMail using iOS' built in email client. To get GMail to do Push mail, you have to follow these instructions - Set up Google Sync with your iOS device - Google Mobile Help - I used that link back in April of 2011 and have yet to have an issue.

2) GoDaddy is pop only unfortunately, which is going to be fetch only. The frequency at which you check is based on how important you determine the email is. I personally only set fetch to manual or check every hour. Remember, every time you open the email app it automatically checks all accounts, including push mail accounts. So if you are already checking the mail app for other reasons, you might be able to survive on manual fetch only. I do that with my Verizon Fios email account.

3) iCloud is pure push at its finest. Apple took full advantage of it the day iCloud was introduced.

4) 99% of the time Office Exchange accounts can be setup for Push without an admins assistance. I would recommend configuring it that way and then send a test email to confirm there are no issues.

5) See answer #1

 

[Skull One]

Yeah. I was thinking also that that has to be a variable in this equation. My work mail, Exchange server, has a lot of mail per day. So maybe the drain I'm noticing is simply a function of "traffic" - where if I hard set it to Fetch 30 minutes it would still get all my mail but at a slower interval.

BINGO! That is exactly what is happening. The fewer times you fetch, the less time iOS has to be awake.

Skull - when the open port for Push sees mail at the server end is the process of it coming to our phones battery intensive too?

The open port in standby mode takes very little power to maintain. When the port gets the "Wake up! I got something for you", only then does iOS wake up and query the server for the information. So if you don't get a push email all day, iOS does nothing with the port and just sleeps until you wake it up to use the phone normally.