iPhone 4S owners report dramatic battery drain

Computerworld ^ | October 31, 2011 | Gregg Keizer

[markomalley]

Apple's new iPhone 4S is running through its battery at a prodigious rate, according to reports on the company's own support forum.

A long thread dedicated to the problem now has more than 2,300 messages, runs 160 pages and has been accessed more than 160,000 times, all huge numbers for an Apple support discussion.

"I've had the 4S since the launch day, and I've been pretty pleased with battery life," said someone identified as "andyfromsomerville" on the thread early Monday. "Until this weekend. My phone just went from a full charge to empty within <14h standby time and about 95 minutes of light usage."

Others, however, said that the fast-battery-drain issue had been there from the start.

"Seems to lose 1% every 3-4 minutes, even when locked/asleep," noted John Goldman on Oct. 15, the day the thread debuted.

The iPhone 4S went on sale in the U.S., the U.K. and five other countries on Oct. 14. Three days later, Apple boasted that it had sold four million of the devices, more than double the number of iPhone 4 smartphones sold in the same span last year.

Although the bulk of the battery complaints pertain to the iPhone 4S, some users have also reported faster exhaustion for older devices -- including the iPhone 4 and iPad -- after updating to iOS 5, the operating system upgrade Apple issued Oct. 12.

[martin_fierro]

Ok, so I can't talk to my phone - big deael. Somehow so far I managed to struggle through life sans conversations with my phone.

SIRI is wittier than some people I know.

[Vicki]

Thanks, that makes sense. The location thing kind of bothers me anyways, kinda like having a tracking device monitoring everything you're doing.

You don't really need it on unless you're using maps, compass, etc.

[antiRepublicrat]

I didn’t have to go in and shut programs off in my iPhone 3G

Because prior to iOS 4 you couldn't even suspend a program -- it was just quit. The iOS 4/5 method of multitasking is a compromise, more functionality than previously, but better battery life than free-for-all multitasking like in Android. But for battery life problems on the 4S, check out the deal with the time zone setting, turns out that is sucking battery life. A software update fix is expected soon.