iPhone 4 and 4S

[soupladel]

I am still in the process of putting my music snd stuff back on, but hopefully I will know better by the morning as I will be taking it off charge, ensuring all settings are right and nothing is running in the background and will see what drains from the battery overnight.

[soupladel]

Update on my battery problem.

Did a complete restore from DFU mode, I didn't restore from back up. I manually installed and organised my apps. Also had to manually install my music again.

Checked that my settings were at optimum (no excessive notifications listed etc, push turned off for all but one email account) and there was nothing running in the background.

Phone came off charge at approx 1:30am and i had 98% charghe at 07:30am which I thought was pretty good, but by the time i got to work at 9:00am, this had dropped to 92% and I had done nothing more than check facebook on the bus to work. when i got to work i roeplied to 2 messages and it killed another 2% of my battery.

Currently at 86% - I think there is a big problem with the battery and the iphone 4s, although it may not effect all phones/models.

[soupladel]

I don't disagree with you mate, it is with the stance that Vodafone are likely to take that I think is going to be the issue.

[vinsup]

You wouldn't know till you talk to them, would you? There is no harm in talking.

The other option is to go to Apple Genius Bar. 

[c53204]

I get great battery life from my 4S (compared to my 3GS running iOS5). I'm would class myself as a heavy user - around 12 hrs per day and have 25% left by 9pm.

It's impossible for Vodafone or Apple to determine what every iPhone owners 'usage' is - far too many variables (including temperature).

If anyone thinks they have a faulty iPhone, I wouldn;t even bother with their network. If you have an Apple store locally (I know many of you won't). But you do have Apple manufacturers warranty and other onsumer rights (even after the standard 12 months). Apple will normally swap your phone straight away without any questions (if they have your model in stock). 

I can't understand why anyone would want to go through Vodafone atrocious customer service, when they can use Apple.

[Agent7]

Just read this from Apple forum:

Hi everyone, I had the exact same problem, and following the below steps has solved my problems. My 4S battery life is now amazing (i.e. in my case, the email account was the issues). Here is a quick list of things to try:

• Reset Network Settings:Tap on “Settings” > Reset > Reset Network Settings
• Disable Bluetooth:Settings > General > Bluetooth > “OFF”
• Disable unwated Notifications & apps:Settings > Notifications > Turn OFF for anything you don’t need
• Disable Location Service:Settings > Location Services > Disable selectively for services you don’t use
• Disable Timezone Adjustment:Tap on “Settings” > “Location Services” > ‘System Services’ > Setting Time Zone to OFF
• Disable Ping:Settings > General > Restrictions > Enable Restrictions > Ping > OFF
• Disable Diagnostic & Usage Reports:Tap on “Settings” > General > About > Diagnostic & Usage > Don’t Send
• Disable Email accounts by heading to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Account Name > Delete Account. Once done, reset network settings (the first tip up there) then reboot your device and re-add your accounts back from Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Add Account.

Not sure if ot works yet, but the guy seems to think its done wonders to his battery life.

[c53204]

---

gary_dexter wrote:
The bigger power drain is due to more RAM, faster dual processor etc - all power hungry features like would effect a laptop

---

The new dual core A5 CPU uses less power than the A4 one. Also iPhone 4S has low power Bluetooth 4.

[vinsup]

These settings are already off, apart from turning iCloud off.

[soupladel]

---

Agent7 wrote:

Just read this from Apple forum:

Hi everyone, I had the exact same problem, and following the below steps has solved my problems. My 4S battery life is now amazing (i.e. in my case, the email account was the issues). Here is a quick list of things to try:

• Reset Network Settings:Tap on “Settings” > Reset > Reset Network Settings
• Disable Bluetooth:Settings > General > Bluetooth > “OFF”
• Disable unwated Notifications & apps:Settings > Notifications > Turn OFF for anything you don’t need
• Disable Location Service:Settings > Location Services > Disable selectively for services you don’t use
• Disable Timezone Adjustment:Tap on “Settings” > “Location Services” > ‘System Services’ > Setting Time Zone to OFF
• Disable Ping:Settings > General > Restrictions > Enable Restrictions > Ping > OFF
• Disable Diagnostic & Usage Reports:Tap on “Settings” > General > About > Diagnostic & Usage > Don’t Send
• Disable Email accounts by heading to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Account Name > Delete Account. Once done, reset network settings (the first tip up there) then reboot your device and re-add your accounts back from Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Add Account.

Not sure if ot works yet, but the guy seems to think its done wonders to his battery life.

---

I have seen these settings and had largely set my 4s up accordingly, however I am still suffering from quite a rapid battery loss, albeit not quite as bad as before the restore and change of settings.  I would also say that the battery life, even though it has imporved slighlty, is still nowhere near as good as my 4.

Conditioning the battery can only account for so much and doesn't really expalin why two identical iphone 4s out of the box had rapidly different battery usage, with the only difference being network and with his phone being slightly poorer for reception.

I am coming to the concludion that either approaching Customer Services or going to an apple store (my nearest being glasgow and that is no easy trek without a car and a 4 month old daughter in tow) are probably amongst my best options currently, however the relity is that even if i made the journey, I am not going to eb able to do so within the 7 day period and how likely are, even an apple store, to actually have stock just now of the iPhone 4s?

[vinsup]

I agree with Soupladel in the fact that the recommended settings were used to set up the phone, but still the 4S delivers battery performance nowhere near the 4.

I would suggest you to call up Apple Care and talk to them. They would set up an appointment at a time suitable to you in a shop convenient to you and that too when there is replacement stock available. So go ahead pick up the phone - landline - and give them a call.

Cheers

[c53204]

The seven day period is only a 'cooling off' period. It has nothing to do with warranty. Vodafone or Apple have to change your phone IF it is faulty. Check out the Sale of Goods Act - used it before successfully.

[soupladel]

I have never had to make an appointment previously with Apple, I assume this can be done regardless of actually having apple care or not?

I have applecare but only only my iPad2 which I am rapidly starting to regret. Ona side note do you happen to know how long after the purchase of the phone I have to take out applecare?

[vinsup]

Yes, You can indeed visit Apple Store even if you don't have Apple Care. Apple Care takes care of your problems after one year is out and also gives you unlimited phone support after the first 3 months free support is over. Call your local apple store and then choose option 2 and get your appointment fixed. It's not too bad an experience. All the best.

[belalmiah]

I'm now on my second iPhone 4S 64GB white as my first one had a fault with the mute button. Also the battery was really poor over the weekend. I'm now using the new iPhone 4S and the battery is still very poor.

Even on Apple's forum people have having the same problems. Spoke to Apple on the phone, the guy told me to take it to an Apple store and have a genius look at it. Went there earlier on and they couldnt find any faults with it, but made a note on the system If go in again for the same problem they will replace it.

I was advised by the Apple genius that I should let the battery drain out then charge it fully. I will give it a go for the next few days and if there's no improvements then I'm sending it back and cancelling my upgrade.

[soupladel]

Update on my issue and thankfully it is a good one.

During yesterday after having taken my phone off charge the night before about 1:30am, I had dropped to just under 70% by 7pm but with minimal use.

I decided last night to drain the battery down to as low as possible then do a full charge, well despite having just about every app on my phone running at once and using it to watch video and use siri, it took until after midnight to get to 9%.

I left the phone on charge overnight on the power adaptor and took ti off charge again at 7:30 this morning and although i have not really done anything with the phone since that point, i am still at 100% charge.

Woo hoo.

So my iPhone 4s top tips are:

Restore your Phone from DFU Mode (switch phone off whilst connected to itunes, hold power and home for 10 seconds, release power and keep home held for a further 10 seconds)

Install any apps etc.. from new, do not use any previous back ups, especially not for a previous iphone model.

Check your settings are at optimal, turn off location services for apps you dont use, reset netwrok settings, disable most if not all of the service settings etc...

Do at least one, if not more full discharge (but not so much that the phoen swithces off) then full charge - and here is perhaps the crucial bit, do any charge conditioniing via the power adaptor rather than usb

I have done as above and my phone seems to be working really well now and I have not had to compromise on functionality.

[c53204]

I did my first full discharge/charge. After I passed the 10% warning, it took forever to discharge - especially the last 1%. With 1% showing, I played some YouTube videos for 20minutes continuous before the phone eventually powered itself off. 

The subsequent charge (wall powered) completed, but noticed the battery got warmish, but not too hot.

Overall compared to my 3GS running iOS5, I am impressed with my 4S battery. It can certainly last a full day of heavy use - something my 3GS couldn't. It's also much better than my neighbours Android Galaxy - he get 7-8hrs of heavy use.

[mhs81]

In that case maybe it's not so much the battery doesn't last as long, rather that the battery meter is different.  This might be similar to a lot of Nokias, whereby you'll get full battery bars until the battery is around 50 % depleted, then it'll fall drastically.  or the Omnia HD I used to have where the last battery bar would be like a warrior and power the phone for a further 5 hours!

[vinsup]

In my case the battery stays true to the meter and dies when the meter depletes completely. Max 4 hours.

[Agent7]

I have also read another 2 ways of helping save battery life that is :

1) Location Services:

As the settings in iOS 5 makes clear: “Location Services uses GPS along with crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower locations to determine your approximate location.” That’s a lot of radio activity, and that eats a battery faster than anything. You can turn locations services off on an app-by-app basis in the iPhone settings to make sure critical apps can use them but nothing else.

settings - location services

2) Notifications

The notifications in iOS 5 are easy to access in settings, and the user can turn them off for each app as desired. Some apps place this setting in the app itself, so if an app is sending unneeded notifications check around to find the setting to disable them.

settings - notifications

Combined with draining fully and re-charging this may help . 

[soupladel]

I also think there is an element of IOS5 that will be fixed in an update by where in certainly circumstances the CPU is operating at full power and doesn't switch down once an application is ended.

Bit like my PC with dual graphics cards, run two occurance of one game on each of my monitors in max settings and the cooling fans spin up to full speed and make a hellish noise and pump out some heat, very occasionally they stay that way until i reboot.