Apple Investigating iOS 5 Battery Life Issues

Short battery life may be affected by corrupted contact details or background services - but solutions vary widely, and Siri apparently not to blame.

The Guardian reports that Apple is reaching out to customers to pin down the source of iOS 5′s poor battery performance. Since upgrading, many users have been experiencing a significant decrease in battery life, but apparently the issue is even befuddling Apple engineers.

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Futsukayoi on October 30, 2011 at 11:05am

And now this interesting update: http://goo.gl/1ZV08

Permalink Reply by Buckethead on October 30, 2011 at 11:40am

Thanks for the link

I found this tip to be useful

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Permalink Reply by Ricardo Blanco on November 1, 2011 at 6:10am

My battery is not draining "before my eyes", however, it barely lasts throughout the day.

I spend about 2 hours audio, 30 minutes reading the news, 10 minutes gaming, and then various notifications for emails, reminders ect....but it was like 10% when I got home from work last night. I even used all the tips I could to extend the battery life, but it doesnt seem to be helping...

Permalink Reply by Danny on November 3, 2011 at 8:34am

Ya i am in the same boat. I had clean installed my iP4S for the third time. Nothing works turning off this and that. It still drain the battery rapidly.

Permalink Reply by Ricardo Blanco on November 3, 2011 at 11:09am

>>Kill power hungry apps. Double-click the Home Button to activate the multitasking dock, hold your finger on an app to enter “jiggly” mode, and kill any apps that might be running in the background,

I thought that only apps such as pandora or skype continue to run in the background, thus draining battery life. From what I read, it sounds like the other apps are kind of just frozen, thus they don't actively drain the battery.

Also, since skype was mentioned, I was wondering about Viber. Per their FAQ, they say that leaving viber running doesnt drain the battery...

Permalink Reply by Buckethead on November 3, 2011 at 3:05pm

SAN FRANCISCO —

Apple said it is working to squash software bugs that have evidently been eating away at battery life in the iPhone 4s and other gadgets powered by its latest mobile operating system.

“A small number of customers have reported lower than expected battery life on iOS 5 devices,” Apple said in a released statement.

“We have found a few bugs that are affecting battery life and we will release a software update to address those in a few weeks.”

apple-fixing-iphone-4s-battery-drain

Permalink Reply by Ricardo Blanco on November 5, 2011 at 9:13am

I hope this fixes it!

Permalink Reply by Danny on November 6, 2011 at 10:00am

I am currently on iOS 5.0.1 built 9A404 ( latest).It's a great improvement so far.Since it came out yesterday i can't tell my real time usage .Tomorrow is the test when i am off to work.

Built iOS5 built 9A402 does nothing though i still suffered battery life.

Permalink Reply by Ricardo Blanco on November 6, 2011 at 2:25pm

I just bought an elecom battery booster pack to carry around just in case the phone dies, hehe. also glad to hear that the update seems to help.

Permalink Reply by Buckethead on November 3, 2011 at 3:00pm

Turn off Siri’s Raise to Speak. Go to Settings, General, Siri.

Turn of Ping. Go to Settings, General, Restrictions, (Enable Restrictions).

Turn off Location Services. Go to Settings, Location Services, and turn off any app you really don’t need tracking or using your location. You can also turn off system settings, and location based time seems popular with our readers as a battery suck.

Turn off Push Notifications. Likewise, go to Settings, Notifications, and turn off any app you don’t care to be alerted about.

Turn of Notification Center widgets. Stocks, and particularly weather in Notification Center seem to be causing some battery grief. Since weather can be location-based now, the potential is there for more battery abuse.

Kill power hungry apps. Double-click the Home Button to activate the multitasking dock, hold your finger on an app to enter “jiggly” mode, and kill any apps that might be running in the background,

Permalink Reply by Bill on November 8, 2011 at 5:59pm

The problem is that turning off all of these features somewhat negates the purpose of having an iPhone. I rarely use the phone part of my iPhone, but I do use Siri, location services, push notifications and notification center widgets.That's why I got the iPhone.

I tried turning several of these off. I tried wiping all of my Exchange accounts and re-installing them from scratch. The battery life may have improved a little, but not appreciably. The new iOS update can't come soon enough for me!

Permalink Reply by Ricardo Blanco on November 13, 2011 at 5:51pm

After updating, to the new iOS 5.0.1, I can say that my battery life has gotten better. Its almost 2 times better than it was before the update. I suppose it hasn't worked out as well for everyone (there still seem to be some complaints), but I'm pleased with it!