May Return my 4S Due to Battery Life

[spatriarco]

Thanks again..i wonder if I should reset my iPhone without restoring backup to see if I have same issues. When I first got my iPhone 4 I had similar issues until they gave me a new one for an unrelated issue. I feel like I am back at square 1. Will try to do a few more full cycle recharges to see if it gets better.

 

[EWyatt]

Skull.... so what's your take on the battery use issue w/ iOS 5? Still ongoing with your phone, or have you figured out whether iOS 5 is the root cause of decreased battery life? I was actually thinking about upgrading from my 4.1 iOS version, but if battery life suffers, who needs iOS 5!!

 

[kingnba6]

Skull.... so what's your take on the battery use issue w/ iOS 5? Still ongoing with your phone, or have you figured out whether iOS 5 is the root cause of decreased battery life? I was actually thinking about upgrading from my 4.1 iOS version, but if battery life suffers, who needs iOS 5!!

well for the people who i know that have an iphone 4 with ios5 all say that their battery life improved.

 

[Skull One]

I ran iOS 4 for 5 months and iOS 5 for 2 months. I saw no difference in battery life except in standby time. I averaged 10 hours of on screen time with 26 hours of standby in iOS 4 and 30 hours of standby in iOS 5 if I let the phone run without a recharge.

 

[Pseudo-Fed]

Another Update!: Charged my new 64gb black phone overnight to 100%. It is still stock--have not restored from my backup of my 32gb 4S. Pulled off charger at 4:30 this morning and as of 7:00 it is still showing 100%!. Have checked weather and sent 1 text. WIFI ON, Cellular data ON, bluetooth ON, location services ON (but no apps installed), vibrate off (except silent mode), brightness 50% with auto dim on. Now THIS is like the battery life I was getting on my 4, where it doesn't feel like simple standby is depleting the battery quickly. I'll probably run this battery down to 1-5% (may take a couple days!) before restoring. But I gotta say, now it doesn't feel like the phone/battery's fault. Perhaps a rogue app from my 4 was depleting my 4S or I had a bad battery. If I restore and it goes to $#!T I'll know. More later, but for now, bueno!!

 

[Skull One]

Excellent news. This is one of the FEW times I wish Apple wasn't such a tyrannical company and lets us see the inners of their software and data, unlike Android, so we can figure out what is causing this issue when restoring old data.

 

[spatriarco]

I tried the same thing last night again..full cycle charge...and my iPhone 4s only gets to 98% after 9 hours on the charger...any ideas? Is that normal?

 

[justinyadon]

there is a some problem in battery backup;... but i think iphone manufacture will be short our asap

 

[Skull One]

I tried the same thing last night again..full cycle charge...and my iPhone 4s only gets to 98% after 9 hours on the charger...any ideas? Is that normal?

No, it isn't even close to normal. My iPhone can do a full charge in under 2.5 hours. Basically it takes around 90 minutes to do the first 85% and then the last 15% can take up to an hour depending on certain conditions.

I can theorize two ways your condition can happen.

1) You have a bad Apple made charger or a 3rd party charger that doesn't meet Apples specifications.

2) You have an app that is depleting the battery at a rate faster than it can charge.

Lets see which it is. Tonight plug the phone in. Shut it down and then turn it right back on. Do not use it at all. If it charges 100% then you know it is a rogue app. WELL.... That may not be 100% correct. It is technically possible that a bad piece of data from iOS 4 is injected into your iOS 5 (unless this is your first iPhone then disregard) and causing the issue.

But it is a sound test to see what happens under a fresh reboot.

 

[spatriarco]

It's not my first iPhone..I had a 4 before. When I unplugged it and plugged it back in this morning after charging it all night it got to 100%. Weird. Never saw that before. I will attempt what you suggest tonight ( shutting it down and then back on before charging).

Interested in your comment on corrupt date coming over from IOS 4. Have you seen this before? Are there specific aps or things that I should look out for that I could have corrupt data in?
Thanks for all your help. Your advice is great.

 

[MaxximusPrime]

Hey guys,

New member here. Glad I saw this topic. I'm new to the iPhone world and just recently got my iPhone 4S on Sprint. I've noticed that I have terrible battery life on it. I've gone through all the steps to eliminate the obvious causes but for some reason with 40-60 minutes of usage and 2-3 hours of standby I'm at 85% or lower normally. I don't make it through a day of use with moderate usage.

The other issue I have is that when I charge my phone, it gets to 100% and then starts to lose charge while it is still plugged in. I have a feeling these two things are related. Does anyone have similar issues or ideas for a fix? I called my local Apple/Sprint store and they are out of stock of the 32GB black for the next 1-2 weeks, so exchanging them isn't even really an option for me. Should I try to restore as new despite getting the phone brand new out of the box?

Thanks,
-Max

 

[Skull One]

It's not my first iPhone..I had a 4 before. When I unplugged it and plugged it back in this morning after charging it all night it got to 100%. Weird. Never saw that before. I will attempt what you suggest tonight ( shutting it down and then back on before charging).

Interested in your comment on corrupt date coming over from IOS 4. Have you seen this before? Are there specific aps or things that I should look out for that I could have corrupt data in?
Thanks for all your help. Your advice is great.

Unplugging and plugging immediately back in is called "bump charging". A lot of Android users do it.

I have been tech supporting a few people on this forum and from what I can tell it is 100% possible. As soon as they do a factory reset and test the problem area without doing a full restore, they are reporting success. The biggest area I am seeing people complain about is email. Seems some of the settings aren't carrying over properly.

 

[spatriarco]

Ok..sorry to be thick...can you walk me through how to do the factory reset and how to test it again...thank you so much for the advice

 

[spatriarco]

I have to do a factory reset...I am down 20% and not really doing anything

 

[Skull One]

Lets make sure I cover all the bases. First this is a ONE WAY PROCESS if you don't have a proper backup. So lets make sure that happens first.

1) Launch iTunes.
2) Plug phone into PC.
3) Let it do the normal sync.
4) Right mouse click on the phone and a menu should pop up that has a item for backup
5) Select backup and let it run.
6) Eject phone.
7) On phone go to settings.
8) Go to general.
9) Scroll to bottom.
10) Select Reset.
11) Reset phone.

Once this is done you will be back at the first time activation screen.

12) Activate but do not allow any kind of restore.
13) Setup your device manually with enough information to get you thru the day.
14) Turn on battery percentage display.
15) Run the battery down to sub 10% or lower if you can.
16) Charge the phone.

I would check it after the first 90 minutes and note what percentage it is up to. Then check it every 30 minutes after that noting the percentage till it reaches full charge. You will know when it reaches full charge because the battery icon will change from a battery with a plug symbol to a battery with a lighting bolt symbol.

Once you have this test done, then you want to do a iTunes restore to get you back to your full data and then rerun the battery test to see if the situation returns. If it does return you know it is the data. If the failure happens with the limited setup, you know it is the phone.

Hopefully I haven't missed a step.