Since installing iOS 4.1 on my iPhone 4 I have witnessed a dramatic drain on battery life, to the point that I am reaching 40% by lunchtime. With no new apps installed and Game Center turned off it still happens.
Mike also posted the following on Twitter last night- “iPhone battery seems a little more stressed under iOS 4.1.”
Here are some other Twitter quotes I spotted-
“Is fast battery drain a ‘feature’ of iOS4.1? Off the dock for 80 minutes and locked for 75 of those min but down to 93% already?”
“Is it just me or does iOS4.1 suck battery like a mofo? Locked screed, 1 minute of music = 1% battery loss, superlame.”
“Anyone experienced poor battery life on iOS4.1 ? my battery is down to 48% from 7am today.. Usually about 86% this time of day.”
Then again, I also spotted the following-
“I think battery life has improved a bit with ios4.1.”
“iOS4.1 Works. I installed it and the phone is much faster. It’s even handling the battery better.”
“don’t think there is any battery difference on ios4.1 (on iPhone4 anyway). Think theres slight speed up on previous models.”
This Apple support thread also includes a lot of people complaining.
So, what is the reason some of us are having problems and others are not? Any ideas?
Not seen it that drastic. But before update my battery life was less. Turned off notifications and push.
No difference.
There is nothing wrong with 4.1. Mine is better on battery than before.
Let me translate that for you Jonny. “Mine is working OK. Not sure why others are having a problem?”
The battery on my 3gs is taking a hit….but it’s hard to tell if that’s 4.1 or extra gaming!
No difference on mine,
Big killers of iPhone battery life,
- GPS running in background
- Being in an area with marginal 3G reception. This will mean that rather consistently using the 2G radio or the 3G radio your phone will constantly being flip-floping between the two. This means that the radios are being power cycled constantly and this really kills battery life. In this case it is probably better to turn off 3G, battery life will improve remarkably.
Agreed, but it’s only happening since the 4.1 update. No change in my usage pattern.
Your iPhone must need repairing
Oh OK. I will tell Apple that 4.1 broke my phone.
If you don’t like the iPhone get a different phone. Stop moaning about Apple when there is no problem!
Relying would be pointless
I thought mine had dropped a bit after upgrade but wasn’t sure. Not as bad as yours but getting to 60 percent a day. 80 percent before.
Love the fanboy responses. A definate change post 4.1. Shame, was really good before that.
I only saw one fanboy response here, Mike.
@Jonnymac
Stop being a jackass.
@Shaun, suggested QOTD:
“How vigorously would you defend your choice of Smartphone and the company that made it. Are you prone to peer pressure or do you like to do your own thing?”
Today I am trying first proper battery test. Gave phone 3 HR charge from 50% at midnight to 3am. Took off charge.
Used a little at 3am. Checked Twitter, newsfeeds, app store and played one round of Flight Control. Checked Shaun hadn’t beaten my high score in game centre.
Back to bed. 6am repeated the above but spent more time on internet and played a few games.
Used stopwatch to time my poach eggs on toast for breakfast. More browsing and Twitter.
Now headphones in listening to music for last one hour. Battery at 86%. Checking odd emails too.
Forgot to mention wifi is permanently on. One thing I have noticed. Gmail is not got push enabled but fetch hourly, but mail arrives instantly.
lazyboy said:
Saw your post first thing, Gavin. Thought I’d do a similar test, though I can’t be bothered to keep a running tally all day.
iPhone fully charged 5.45am. Taken off charger. Wifi on, bluetooth on, screen at default brightness (50%), auto-brightness on, all push notifications and Game Center on. Push email via MobileMe on. Wifi sync with computer, email check, feeds check, brief browse, typed note, reviewed calendar and todos. Installed 3 app updates. Posted brief comment to PDA-247. Read a shortish chapter of an ebook. All told, as I’m posting this comment, 1 hour and 14 mins of constant use with a little bit of standby while I made coffee. Battery has just rolled over to 91%. I think that’s pretty good.
I can only assume that those having problems are running an app which isn’t behaving well after the update. This may not be related, but I saw a comment somewhere that resetting your Exchange account may help, if you are experiencing performance/battery issues.
Just played several games of Flight Control in a desperate attempt to beat Gavin and Shaun. Total usage now 1 hour and 38 minutes; battery at 86%.
After nearly 10 hrs battery at 80%. Still listening to music and checking that neither Lazyboy or Shaun has topped my high score
))
I have noticed with wifi on email comes as received. Wifi off appears to stick to the 1 HR fetch.
“I can only assume that those having problems are running an app which isn’t behaving well after the update. This may not be related, but I saw a comment somewhere that resetting your Exchange account may help, if you are experiencing performance/battery issues.”
Will take a look at this- this is why I put the article up, to get ideas of what is causing it for some people (not too bash Apple as one person may presume:))
Gavin, Mike, LazyBoy- any of you using MS Exchange email on your iPhone?
Yes. Google for contacts and calendar. And hotmail exchange. Email only.
Wonder if deleting and recreating might help.
85% after 3 hours use. Learnt to use your phone shaun and stop blaming apple.
There are some rules to posting on 247 Jonny-
Don’t be abusive to other people, do not swear at people and try to accept others views.
I have just added another one- don’t be a dick.
Because you have never added anything meaningful to any conversation on 247 I have banned your IP. Some may think that is strong, but I am reminded of what visitors wrote here (http://www.pda-247.com/wordpress/2010/09/qotd-247/#comments) and you don’t seem to fit in.
Gets my vote Shaun.
The only thing new on mine is Game Center, which I did leave running constantly. I wonder if it has a lot of background notification checks? It’s hard for me to do a proper battery test until I am back at work on monday, my usage pattern is very different at the weekends.
Re: Jonnymac. Good move, Shaun.
Don’t use Exchange, Shaun, so I can’t help there. Sorry.
Agreed too.
Out of interest i deleted both exchange accounts and all other email accounts. Re setup and a few advanced options were different.
Will now see what happens. After 12 hrs on 69%.
Not updating to 4.1 until this gets resolved, I’m mindful of my awful Pre experience after an update where my battery got chomped.
Don’t agree with banning jonnymac though…every forum needs a tit.
True, but you were here before him;) You gave me the line Murray!
It’s definitely something to do with mail. It’s pushing it even when push is off. Gmail is doing this. Battery at 42%. Being playing a lot of games since.
21 hrs later. 30%.
Fully charged this morning, push email and contacts for MobileMe, exchange sync for calendar and google mail. I’ve played some fieldrunners, and done some other odds and ends online (facebook, twitter, other mail accounts, surfing). I’m at 63%.
I and my colleagues have noticed that my 3GS is seeing greater battery drain since 4.1. However it seems that 4.1 as the culprit may be a red herring, in our case anyway. The more likely culprit would appear to be Skype. Since Skype has started to make use of multi-tasking, at last, we are seeing a distinct battery drain. Suffice to say that if I have Skype running in the background then my battery drains significantly more that without.
Of course it could be that 4.1 and certain apps together are causing this? Anyone else see the same link between Skype and 4.1?
Regards,
Chris
I can confirm it’s the update. Last night, fully charged and running 4.1 my iPhone 4 went from 100% to 76% in three hours while in my pocket. I downgraded to 4.0 and the battery is at 93% after seven hours of sitting on my bedside table and that’s not even a full charge. It was only plugged in for the duration of the downgrade.
4.1 is broken for a lot of us.
I have subsequently trawled various blogs and there are a large number of people complaining to Skype about the power drain and they represent a number of variations of iOS. So the likelihood seems to be that there are a number of factors which, combined with 4.1, results in increased power drain. One postulation is that applications which multi-task but do not do so along with push notifications are the root cause. Obviously this is speculation becuase it seems that neither Skype nor Apple have actually contributed to any of the discussions which are going on about this!
All I can say is that I have a Mophie so my iPhone actually still gives me a full day use before requiring a charge (it used to give me 2-3 days).
Regards,
Chris
Definitely not a problem here, though I accept others may have issues.
Took off charge at 7am this morning (always fully charge overnight). Have used fairly regularly through day for email, twitter, RSS feeds, a few games of flight control. Have been using almost constantly for last 3 hours keeping tabs on football via Football League & Sky Sports News apps and Twitter, plus more email and a few notes and I’m currently at 10:15pm sitting at 42%. I’d take that any day.
“Definitely not a problem here, though I accept others may have issues.”
Agreed. I’ve not seen any difference in battery life either. Still rock solid.
To be honest, there isn’t a huge amount of activity or commentary on the interwebs regarding this, no more than is usual after any software update. However, that’s not a lot of help for those that are having issues.
The only thing I can suggest is that there’s something weird going on with a third party app that isn’t behaving well with 4.1, or some glitch that was introduced during the install process. It clearly isn’t 4.1 in and of itself because the overwhelming majority of users are not having problems.
It’s incredibly unfortunate, but if these problems are persisting, then the only solution is a completely clean install of the OS and firmware.
As a follow up to my previous regarding Skype & 4.1. Today I took my phone off of charge at the same time as yesterday but made sure that Skype was not in the multi-tasking tray. The battery drain is half what it was at the same time yesterday. So there is no doubt in my mind that, in mine (and my colleagues) case it is Skype that is excessively draining my battery.
With others it may be some other combination of 4.1 and a background running application.
Chris
Running 4.1 on my ancient 2g iPod touch. Used to I could get about 5hrs game play and only use 60%. This morning on the bus, played angry birds for 30mins with game centre turned off and music on. It drain exactly 82% of my battery. not happy. However is it angry birds or iOS 4.1?
Wongy – could be battery old now and not as good. I have noticed lower usage on mine but it has been heavily used by me and my 4 kids.
There is enough discussion on this and other forums about battery drain since 4.1 to suggest very strongly that, in some circumstance, installing v4.1 is having an effect. Since my post I have stopped allowing Skype to sit in the background and regularly clear out the background tasks (why do we not get to choose which ones are in the background; some have no reason/need to be there). My battery use has improved; still not what it was before but much better now that I am actively managing it.
As for the argument that there is either a defect or old battery at fault. My iPhone 3GS is not even a year old and does not evidence any other symptoms of fault anywhere.
I am just waiting for someone to acknowledge that their is something going on and news that a new release will resolve it. Not going to upgrade my iPad when the iOS 4 update is released that is for sure.
Chris. A clean install and running no third party apps reveals decent battery life. Certain third party apps when in background do IMO effect the battery. Hence why I close down periodically if not near power source for over a day.
As for the iPad. I definitely will upgrade to 4.2. Can’t come soon enough.
I can see some logic in a clean install but no third party apps?! This is the iPhone we are talking about here. It is predicated on third party apps! With the advent of contenders to its space one of the main selling points is that it has such a huge number of apps available!
Lol I didn’t mean dont install any apps. But without it shows that some TP apps are not coded as well as others.
My iPhone and iPad have nearly 400 apps on them
OK, I work in software development (not for phones) and I understand what you say about some apps not being particularly well written. But my iPhone still consumes noticeably more power since 4.1 than it did before; even though I manage what apps are active in the background and they cannot be influencing batery consumption when closed (unless they all take a small amount of power to be kept in memory; in which case your 400 apps ought to mean that your iphone needs to be plugged in at all times!).
But let us say that managing apps that are consuming power just because they are in the multitasking tray (and therefore, presumably, more ‘alive’ than otherwise) is the best way to manage battery consumption. This means that asking that we, the users, control what we put into the multitasking/background running state ought to be responded to with some alacrity by Apple surely.
Chris
Agree Chris.
What I found that when I had 80 apps added with 4.1 my iPhone 4 seemed ok. But as soon as the number rocketed battery level dropped slightly. Turning spotlight search off improved matters btw.
However. Having used Android and Windows Mobile the Apple version seems to take a much lighter hit on battery. Unfortunately if we use multitasking there are consequences.
I do feel the iPhone and iPad battery life for the machines they are , are fantastic.
Ps Not tried having 400 apps running in the iPhone 4 tray but now curious
With 100 apps. 50 apps and 50 games battery down 3 percent in 10 minutes. Although never likely to have that many in tray.