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ayeying

macrumors 601
Dec 5, 2007
4,547
13
Yay Area, CA
Here's my battery. Full 100% charge starting. Only used 3G, no Wifi today. Brightness @ 50%, Wifi off, BT on, Siri On.
 

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daviddth

macrumors 6502a
Jun 29, 2009
787
104
Australia
Here's my battery. Full 100% charge starting. Only used 3G, no Wifi today. Brightness @ 50%, Wifi off, BT on, Siri On.

Looks like you have a reminder and the location service on. Do you have a location based reminder set? That literally kills batteries here - 10% an hr or more, instead of 1% an hr or less.

Otherwise what might be using your location at the time you took the pic?
 

ayeying

macrumors 601
Dec 5, 2007
4,547
13
Yay Area, CA
Looks like you have a reminder and the location service on. Do you have a location based reminder set? That literally kills batteries here - 10% an hr or more, instead of 1% an hr or less.

Otherwise what might be using your location at the time you took the pic?

That's location services and an alarm. I have GPS location enabled all the time, it doesn't seem to kill my battery any faster then not having it enabled.

My 3GS gets about 2 hours usage + 3 hours standby and it'll be 10% battery left.
 

daviddth

macrumors 6502a
Jun 29, 2009
787
104
Australia
That's location services and an alarm. I have GPS location enabled all the time, it doesn't seem to kill my battery any faster then not having it enabled.

My 3GS gets about 2 hours usage + 3 hours standby and it'll be 10% battery left.

I'm getting 48 hours standby and 5hrs use before the 4S goes flat, but turn on half the location services stuff, more specifically the system services there, and I get maybe 12 hours at most before the phone turns off with a flat battery.

I do believe it's more an iOS5 bug than a hardware fault so I am suprised Apple have yet to bring out a fix to stop all these people returning their new iPhones... Thats a huge cost to check, clean, repackage them for replacements for the next round of people swapping them.
 

MooneyFlyer

macrumors 65816
Nov 18, 2007
1,484
0
Boston
Well, I'd love to be able to explain this but I cannot.

Took the phone off the charger yesterday at ~8:30am. It's almost 24 hours later now:

Usage: 1:40 (very low)
Standby: 23:29 (wow!)
Batt: 62%

Obviously, this isn't a lot of usage but it is a reasonable place to be after a day. Was out hiking all day so most of the time the phone had no signal at all and was searching. Wifi was still on and obviously not connected.

Some config info:
- Restored as new
- Wifi on constantly
- BT off
- Push off
- Location services on (system services off)
- Notifications on
- Brightness ~50%, auto
- iCloud off
- wifi sync off
- No location-based reminders going..
- Reset AEBS wireless and AT&T Microcell

I've had pretty ****** battery life so I have no idea why things changed all of a sudden.
 
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NJFP

macrumors 6502
Feb 18, 2009
358
28
Took my phone off charge yesterday AM (10/23/11) at 100%. Used it all day at work, light phone usage, light to moderate texting. Emails, facebook and twitter usage light to moderate.

Left phone on all night, this morning, couple of phone calls and a couple of texts. Right now it's sitting at 48%.

Ever since I turned OFF auto brightness and set the screen level at a little above 1/3, little under 1/2, I've been getting iOS 4 battery life.

I upgraded, not setup as new when I went to iOS 5.

Reading all these battery threads, to me there doesn't seem to be just ONE or TWO things that hit the battery. This guy gets good life, this guy doesn't. Both phones setup the same way, yada yada yada.......

Lets see what iOS 5.1 brings. As for me, I'm content. For now. :rolleyes:
 

kas23

macrumors 603
Oct 28, 2007
5,629
288
Why do people think using Wi-Fi over 3G leads to faster battery consumption? It's a well-documented fact that using Wi-Fi uses less juice than 3G.
 

Young Spade

macrumors 68020
Mar 31, 2011
2,156
3
Tallahassee, Florida
Why do people think using Wi-Fi over 3G leads to faster battery consumption? It's a well-documented fact that using Wi-Fi uses less juice than 3G.

The same reason one if the guys on the Engadget podcast thinks you'll use your allotted data faster with LTE.

People are idiots. But I don't know about the wifi bit; from general observation I'm either on wifi or have a great signal, so life is generally the same for me.
 

MooneyFlyer

macrumors 65816
Nov 18, 2007
1,484
0
Boston
Took my phone off charge yesterday AM (10/23/11) at 100%. Used it all day at work, light phone usage, light to moderate texting. Emails, facebook and twitter usage light to moderate.

Left phone on all night, this morning, couple of phone calls and a couple of texts. Right now it's sitting at 48%.

Ever since I turned OFF auto brightness and set the screen level at a little above 1/3, little under 1/2, I've been getting iOS 4 battery life.

I upgraded, not setup as new when I went to iOS 5.

Reading all these battery threads, to me there doesn't seem to be just ONE or TWO things that hit the battery. This guy gets good life, this guy doesn't. Both phones setup the same way, yada yada yada.......

Lets see what iOS 5.1 brings. As for me, I'm content. For now. :rolleyes:

Two notes - I did flip the auto brightness off for a while but it was a PITA when I was outside so I turned it back on again. That was before my above post.

I've restored my 4S as new at least once.


EDIT - This is worth reposting. Discusses the possibility of a wireless network causing the issue. I did happen to reset both my AEBS and my AT&T Microcell before seeing the improved battery life.
 
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gloomcookie1

macrumors regular
Jun 17, 2009
216
2
Coral Springs, FL
I've read about a lot of problems with the battery on iOs 5 and it seems really strange or I'm just really lucky.

I have a 16GB iPhone 4 upgraded to iOs 5 with wifi sync on, icloud backup and photostream, travel with wifi on at home to connecting to the wifi at work. Location services is turned on for 81 apps (of course that's only when the apps are open and up front) and find my iPhone turned on. I iMessage my wife all day long - and have my work Exchange mail being pushed as well as Yahoo, Gmail and iCloud email. I got up at 6AM this morning and have been using the phone consistently while streaming podcasts through Stitcher and I'm at 57%. I'll be using it tonight with Grocery IQ while shopping and most likely won't have to plug it in until I get to bed.

So what are my caveats or other settings?

Only 2 I can think of is that my screen brightness is about 50% and I don't do a whole lot of talking which I know helps.
 

TheSuperSteve

macrumors 6502
Jul 4, 2011
404
0
Puerto Rico
PhotoOct2425600PM.png


This is an iPhone 4S on Sprint. I used this with screen brightness at 20%, 3G off (except when needed), Wifi off (Except when needed), muted.

In other words... my iPhone's battery is absolute crap.
 
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ladytonya

macrumors 6502a
Oct 14, 2008
924
198
I've always charged my iPhone 4 overnight so I start every morning with 100% battery power. On iOS4, I would usually plug in around 3 or 4 pm at 60% power to top it off so it would last until I went to bed that night. I've continued the same behavior with iOS5 and only noticed a difference in the very beginning. When I plugged in at 3 or 4 pm it was usually at 45-50% instead of 60%. Right now, after running all day and using it a fair amount including some light browsing, a few levels of Angry Birds, emails coming in on push, and Facebook, I am at 74% and it's 3:20 pm! Actually, that's better than I ever got on 4. I have bluetooth off because I do not use it, but everything else is on. Well, not reporting usage to Apple but everything else including Notifications and Location Services, and I have a Reminder set for tonight when I get home that's been set for two days. I have iCloud on, too, if that matters. Oh, and I've also used both SMS and iMessage with multiple recipients since upgrading.

Anyway, I'm fine with the battery life I'm getting. Even if it were less, it's not like it's just a phone, it's a computer that is constantly working for me. I have a charger at home, one at the office, and a car charger just in case but I honestly rarely use the car charger because between the house and work, my phone stays charged for as long as I need it to stay charged. To me, it's just never been as big of a deal as some people make it out to be!
 

TimCookIsOld

macrumors newbie
Nov 1, 2011
1
0
RE: maflynn

Has anyone noticed a decrease in battery life since going to iOS5?

I know there's a long thread in the iPhone forum regarding battery life for the 4s, but this is more of a general query related any iPhone that is running iOS5.

Last night, I went to bed with my iPhone set to wake me up at 4:00am. I woke up on my own, but I noticed my phone shut down because of the battery was fully drained. It was probably near 80% when I turned in. This never happened before but I had just upgraded to iOS5.

It's all the new GI and all the new features that kill the battery, bluetooth went from killing 2 hours of life to 3.5 hours of it and all of the new features use up the battery, but don't worry, apple replied 2 my email, and they said it will be fixed in the next iOS update (Back to 10 Hours :D)
 

Ruduffy

macrumors newbie
Nov 1, 2011
1
0
London
I feel lucky, my 3GS now has around 30-50% better standby time. Seems marginally better if I use it regularly as well - not bad for an 18 month old battery that has been regularly abused
 

technopimp

macrumors 6502a
Aug 12, 2009
645
219
I am suddenly having HORRIBLE battery life with iOS5 on my iPhone 4. When I upgraded I "set up as a new phone" so it was completely wiped and fresh. It was OK for about 2-3 days, but then I noticed the battery starting to get hit really hard. As of today, with no background apps running and after a restart (home + power buttons held until it reboots) I am losing ~15%/hour. Here is what is basically running:

WiFi: On
Bluetooth: On
Push: Disabled
Check Mail: Manual
Location Services: On (but nothing using location actively running)
Auto Brightness: On

Please note that it's losing 15% in STANDBY mode. If I am actually using it it's much, much worse. As of right now, it will not last overnight. I have "restored settings" which did not help at all.

One thing strange I have been noticing: Notification Center seems to be "freaking out" for lack of a better term. If I swipe down, the Calendar portion of the screen is flickering, and if there are 3-4 appointments upcoming the references for them keep "jumping" around within the Calendar area. I don't know how else to describe it. Also, the little X which would close that area keeps flickering so it appears and disappears. While this is going on, the stock ticker is extremely jerky in its scrolling, which makes me think something is running the CPU really high.

I don't know what else to do. I am going to re-reset it up as a new phone again today, but if I have to do that every 2-3 days that is not going to work. I have nothing running, and really only have a few apps on it and without touching the phone it won't last 8 hours.
 

kas23

macrumors 603
Oct 28, 2007
5,629
288
I don't know how any conclusions can be drawn from people posting or describing their usage screens. What we do not know is how the user was using their iPhone during that usage time period. In terms of the usage screen, the iPhone cannot differentiate between someone constantly playing a graphics-intensive game all day and someone who listens to their iPod all day.

Myself, I have all the "smart" features of my smartphone turned off, but find myself playing a lot of tower defense games all day. So, I really can't accurately compare my useage time to anyone elses without some more information.
 

Jonw123

macrumors newbie
Oct 30, 2011
11
0
iPhone 4 IOS 5 Battery Drains and FAST...

I'm having the same problem and it started after installing IOS 5. I've tried shutting off services, etc. with no change. I knew a full restore was a waste of time and it was. Decided to stop wasting my time and put in a ticket with Apple and I'm waiting for a fix. A surprising lack of quality coming from Apple.
 

MastahRiz

macrumors 6502
Aug 7, 2010
483
0
Last night I disabled Stocks, Weather, and exchange Calendar in the Notification center and today I'm getting about 4-5 more hours of battery life. Trouble is I don't want to disable all those things.
 

MastahRiz

macrumors 6502
Aug 7, 2010
483
0
Here's my battery. Full 100% charge starting. Only used 3G, no Wifi today. Brightness @ 50%, Wifi off, BT on, Siri On.

But this is a little inaccurate since it says you plugged in. Meaning you didn't fully charge but you were on a charger for at least some time during the day.
 

jasko

macrumors 6502
Dec 26, 2006
471
5
Went to bed around 1AM last night, woke up at 7:30. Phone was at 100% when going to bed, 81% when I woke up. lol wtf. I had Wifi on too. Hmm.
 

hfletcher

macrumors 6502
Oct 10, 2008
251
170
UK
The BBC are now reporting this as an issue: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15559721

Also, I wonder if this battery issue has anything to do with the large amounts of data that iOS 5 seems to be using? (see this thread: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1258341/ )

If it is using 3G a lot secretly in the background, that would explain a significant drop in battery.
Also, I think (not sure) that when your phone is asleep for a period it stops using Wi-Fi and goes back to 3G? Because if you look closely, on waking iPhone up, the Wi-Fi icon is missing but then quickly reappears again...
 

Don Kosak

macrumors 6502a
Mar 12, 2010
860
4
United States
Also, I think (not sure) that when your phone is asleep for a period it stops using Wi-Fi and goes back to 3G? Because if you look closely, on waking iPhone up, the Wi-Fi icon is missing but then quickly reappears again...

That's normal behavior in iOS. The WiFi radio will automatically shut down if no apps (internal or 3rd party) have requested it for some period of time. It's a power saving feature.

If an app makes a request, the radio will power up and handle it. Your iPhone should only fall back to 3G if it's unable to reconnect to WiFi for some reason.

I played around with this a lot while writing apps that polled servers on a schedule. I don't think it's responsible for the drain.

There has to be some tricky bug somewhere where some component of the phone is not getting powered down properly.

I have a new iPhone 4s, I charged to 100% yesterday morning and have been using it ever since.

I'm on Day 2 of that initial charge, with moderate usage (couple hours of video, music, lots of Siri, maps, iCloud, exchange, imap email, a few games and 1 hour 15 minutes of phone calls...) My battery is around 20%.

I haven't triggered the bug yet apparently.
 

jcanaan

macrumors newbie
Nov 2, 2011
1
0
iPad battery drains down with IOS5

I haven't noticed any comments about IOS5 and the iPad 2. But I've definitely noticed that my battery lasts about half as long since I installed IOS5. Before, I could use it for hours on a charge...now, after about 2 hours it is ready to plug in. And I have to plug it in at night if I want any power in the morning.
 

hfletcher

macrumors 6502
Oct 10, 2008
251
170
UK
I'm almost certain that there is some bug somewhere in iOS 5. The fact that a lot of people are experiencing issues means it probably isn't a particular app. I just hope they release 5.0.1 soon!
 
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