Poor Battery Life

[cuskit]

Just so you guys know, I am replacing the battery in my iPhone 4S exactly one year after purchase. Because in that year I easily did over 300 full cycle charges and the battery is only rated for 400. Which means mathematically my battery is now somewhere around 85% of its original storage capacity. And it was showing before I replaced it with the iPhone 5. When I got the iPhone 4S I was averaging 7.5 hours of use each day. When I retired it last weekend, I was only getting 6.25 hours. 6.25/7.5 = 83.3%.

It ain't easy being an iPhone around me

Skull - now this is something we have to pay Apple to do, correct? You would do this even if your battery has not reached "end of life"? Is it expensive to have Apple replace the battery? Or is that something covered by Applecare in the first two years of our coverage plan?

 

[ardchoille]

Just so you guys know, I am replacing the battery in my iPhone 4S exactly one year after purchase. Because in that year I easily did over 300 full cycle charges and the battery is only rated for 400. Which means mathematically my battery is now somewhere around 85% of its original storage capacity. And it was showing before I replaced it with the iPhone 5. When I got the iPhone 4S I was averaging 7.5 hours of use each day. When I retired it last weekend, I was only getting 6.25 hours. 6.25/7.5 = 83.3%.

It ain't easy being an iPhone around me

I've had my iPhone 4S for about 6 months now and I'm averaging 20 hours use, 3 days standby. But, I use the phone mostly on wifi and I don't have a voice plan (hearing impaired).

Skull - now this is something we have to pay Apple to do, correct? You would do this even if your battery has not reached "end of life"? Is it expensive to have Apple replace the battery? Or is that something covered by Applecare in the first two years of our coverage plan?

You can actually replace the battery yourself, but it takes getting your hands dirty. iFixit has supplies and tutorials.

 

[Skull One]

ardchoille is spot on. Replacing the battery is about a 20 minute job. Battery is around $14 to $20 and the tool kit to do it is about $6 on average. If memory serves it is just 4 screws and you are done.

 

[hookbill]

Same here, I was certain that the battery did not need to be calibrated, but teaching the OS at what point to expect a bottom out charge makes sense.

 

[cuskit]

Great! (on replacing the battery yourself). I thought I had heard you void your warranty doing this. I'm now cool with this as I consider myself very adept at mechanical abilities.

And I already have a tool kit: One 12 pound sledge hammer, one monkey claw, one large pair of vice grips, one #3 screwdriver (originally a phillips but now a slotted since two of the blades broke off..) and a roll of duct tape. Am I missing anything from the toolkit Skull One mentions?

Seriously - thanks immensely for the tip and direction to Ifixit.com! It's been a while since I visited that site and had forgotten about it..

 

[Skull One]

Great! (on replacing the battery yourself). I thought I had heard you void your warranty doing this. I'm now cool with this as I consider myself very adept at mechanical abilities.

And I already have a tool kit: One 12 pound sledge hammer, one monkey claw, one large pair of vice grips, one #3 screwdriver (originally a phillips but now a slotted since two of the blades broke off..) and a roll of duct tape. Am I missing anything from the toolkit Skull One mentions?

Seriously - thanks immensely for the tip and direction to Ifixit.com! It's been a while since I visited that site and had forgotten about it..

My iPhone 4S warranty ran out 5 days ago when I retired it. So there is no warranty to void thankfully. Will probably hand it down to my youngest daughter and then gift her iPhone 4 to her husband who is on a LG Droid.

And I have a very similar tool kit for electronic equipment that I want to fix "right".... Right into the trash

 

[Skull One]

Same here, I was certain that the battery did not need to be calibrated, but teaching the OS at what point to expect a bottom out charge makes sense.

You know, I feel kind of stupid.... I seriously just remembered I wrote this up in my Mythbusters thread....

"Do I have to condition my iPhone's battery?"

Sad that I didn't think to point this convesation to that post.

 

[dbplumb]

You reply so eloquently to so many threads I am amazed at how you keep it all together.
I was wondering why people were still asking the same things when you had explained it all so well in myth busters


Sent from my iPhone 4s using Tapatalk

 

[Skull One]

You reply so eloquently to so many threads I am amazed at how you keep it all together.
I was wondering why people were still asking the same things when you had explained it all so well in myth busters


Sent from my iPhone 4s using Tapatalk

OH trust me, there are days I don't keep it together. My last break from posting on any public forum was for three months. Funnily enough, it had something to do with Lithium-Ion batteries. Which now strikes me as rather ironic the more I think about it. LOL!

And heck, I didn't even remember that I wrote it up in Mythbusters, so I don't blame anyone else for not remembering or even reading it

 

[cuskit]

Well, even though I've been a member from almost day one - I have to apologize if I don't recall past threads because I've only really become active since purchasing my first iPhone four weeks ago. I will promise to try and research these forums before asking too many "beginner" questions...

But I agree - Skull One is such a fountain of information it's easier to just tap into his replies on any given thread and get the answer immmediately!

mike

 

[krissigalores]

Yes it has died on me every day, thus draining and then it's always followed by a full charge..
I don't use it a lot.. I work all day. I take it off charge at 10am, maybe up to half hour later. I don't make or receive calls.. All I do is iMessage, use the camera periodically, the odd check-in on Foursquare and the occasional tweet. Then by 7pm, it's red. Now on my 4, I could do this x10, with all services running, brightness all the way up and still have at least 40% battery life left..

 

[Skull One]

Ok with that info you have two choices.

1) Do a backup, reinstall iOS and then restore.

2) Visit an Apple store.

 

[itzmeigh]

So, my battery usage question...

I use my new iPhone 5 pretty dang heavy. I listen to Audible's App for 3-5 hour stretches at work (September shows I listened to 41.77 hours of Audio Books and 20.07 hours so far in October). I surf a few websites through out the day. I play games, text and talk on my phone all in a "normal" day. My poor iPhone doesn't even get to rest at night because I read on it in bed as well.

At work I have been keeping it plugged in all the time. But should I get up and leave my desk of course I take my phone which means I unplug it. But when I return to my desk I plug it back in. I'm even guilty of unplugging it, turning around to show someone something and then plugging it back in.

Should I not be plugging it in all the time? Should I be waiting until it discharges more before charging it? (my i5 is my first iPhone but I am a long time Touch user.)



I absolutely believe what you are saying about the whole OS memory thing. Antidote: I had been following my "constant" charging schedule and my iPhone hasn't really dropped below 50% since I got it (September 24th-ish). Then I started to notice that when not plugged in my battery seemed to last "mere seconds!" That is what brought me here and got me started reading battery threads (and others too) and then one day the worst thing EVER!!! happened and I left my charger cord at home.

My battery didn't even make it to the end of my work day! (8am-5pm) I even tried to lay off using it a bit knowing it was going to die. But my coworker who also has an iPhone 5 was doing OK on her battery. Odd I thought. Needless to say that day my battery discharged 100%! Dead.

Of course I charged it when I got home. Since then I have noticed a large increase in my battery life. The day of the discharge I could literally watch the battery percents dropping. Now I get at least a couple of more hours out of it. Today reading this thread makes what happened to me make perfect sense.

 

[krissigalores]

Will that wipe all my messages or will they come back when I restore it?

 

[zphone]

So, my battery usage question...

I use my new iPhone 5 pretty dang heavy. I listen to Audible's App for 3-5 hour stretches at work (September shows I listened to 41.77 hours of Audio Books and 20.07 hours so far in October). I surf a few websites through out the day. I play games, text and talk on my phone all in a "normal" day. My poor iPhone doesn't even get to rest at night because I read on it in bed as well.

At work I have been keeping it plugged in all the time. But should I get up and leave my desk of course I take my phone which means I unplug it. But when I return to my desk I plug it back in. I'm even guilty of unplugging it, turning around to show someone something and then plugging it back in.

Should I not be plugging it in all the time? Should I be waiting until it discharges more before charging it? (my i5 is my first iPhone but I am a long time Touch user.)

I absolutely believe what you are saying about the whole OS memory thing. Antidote: I had been following my "constant" charging schedule and my iPhone hasn't really dropped below 50% since I got it (September 24th-ish). Then I started to notice that when not plugged in my battery seemed to last "mere seconds!" That is what brought me here and got me started reading battery threads (and others too) and then one day the worst thing EVER!!! happened and I left my charger cord at home.

My battery didn't even make it to the end of my work day! (8am-5pm) I even tried to lay off using it a bit knowing it was going to die. But my coworker who also has an iPhone 5 was doing OK on her battery. Odd I thought. Needless to say that day my battery discharged 100%! Dead.

Of course I charged it when I got home. Since then I have noticed a large increase in my battery life. The day of the discharge I could literally watch the battery percents dropping. Now I get at least a couple of more hours out of it. Today reading this thread makes what happened to me make perfect sense.

You realize that is not a normal usage pattern so why not just use it as it's designed for?