Charging problem/weirdness with 3G connections

[jtown]

At least that's what the connection appears to be. I jailbroke my phone so I could tether it. Everything seemed to work fine but, a couple hours later, I got a low battery warning. It was surprising because the phone was plugged into the AC adapter. I figure maybe the adapter's defective (first time I'd used it) so I plugged it into a Mac. But the battery was still discharging.

Skipping over a lot of troubleshooting, I think I've narrowed it down to the fact that I'd left a telnet session open to a remote system. It seems that every time a 3G connection is active, charging stops. When the 3G connection closes, charging resumes. I can actually watch it happen (in slow motion). And, with the phone plugged into the AC adapter, I can feel the adapter cool off when connections are kept open and warm up when they're closed.

If my suspicion is correct, it would seem that Apple designed the phone to do this in order to keep a handle on the amount of data that a user can get through the phone. Can't change the battery + can't charge when online = 2-3 hours of steady 3G use per charge cycle.

BTW, if I turn off 3G, maintaining an active EDGE connection does not appear to interfere with charging.

 

[jtown]

After messing around with non-tethered 3G connections last night (I left Pandora running for quite a while), it was pretty clear that the iphone was charging fine with Pandora playing over a 3G connection. So now I guess I'm down to 3proxy causing the problem. Is anyone else experiencing this with 3proxy?

 

[jtown]

Wasn't 3proxy (in particular). I removed 3proxy and installed Socks Relay with the same results so I did some more testing. I fired up Pandora (on the iphone) and let it run over 3G for about an hour. The phone charged the whole time. I then started the Socks Relay daemon. The phone continued to charge. After 15 minutes or so, I opened a telnet session from my laptop to a remote server (going through socks/3G on the iphone). The charge level went up another pixel or two so I went to lunch. When I got back, the charge level was slightly lower than it had been when I left. Just a few pixels but undeniably lower. Also, the AC adapter was cool to the touch. I closed the telnet session. Within a few minutes, the charge level indicator was rising again and the AC adapter was warm to the touch.

So, as far as I can tell with my semi-scientific experimentation (picture the chimp touching the monolith), it appears that the iphone stops drawing external power when a connection to a remote system is open through a proxy server for an extended period. The proxy server can be open and the iphone applications can be pulling a ton of data but, once a connection is opened through the proxy, it cuts off power.

I suppose I could measure the current draw from the adapter to see exactly when it cuts off but does anyone really care? If this is a deliberate "bug", Apple's not going to remove it. And, even if it's a legitimate bug, they have little incentive to fix it since it doesn't appear to interfere with authorized applications and functions.

I am curious to know if anyone else is experiencing this same behavior, tho. Can anyone keep a telnet session open for, say, 2 hours from a tethered computer to a remote system through a SOCKS proxy without losing charge? (With the iphone plugged into a power source, of course.)

 

[jtown]

There seemed to be no interest and I got tired of messing with it so the iphone got returned. Now I'm slumming it on a Blackjack 2 which had its own BS issues that required minor hacking and unhiding of files to straighten out. Not to mention the extra cost of the service plan. Really miss the 480x320 screen. But at least now I have a "real" internet connection with no need for proxy junk or 3rd party software, it charges while tethered, and I can lock it in 3G mode (no thanks to AT&T).