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iPhone 4S battery life, video & mirroring over-heating

We have had our Apple iPhone 4S smartphone for 3 days now, and really impressed with the features, but then all the good goes straight out of the window when it comes to battery life, video & mirroring over-heating.

We will be reporting our own hands-on experience with the new smartphone for a few weeks, but today please let us explain the issues we have with the battery life, and over heating issues when watching videos and playing games using air mirroring.

The battery life on the iPhone 4S is worse than the iPhone 4, within 2 hours of full charge we are already at 50%. Now if you take into account that the iPhone 4S will give you around 10 hours battery life on an estimate, that should mean that the smartphone loses 20% every two hours, but we are losing in 2 hours 50%, which is not right is it?

You will probably comment saying that are we using apps in the background, or are we watching videos etc, is WiFi on constantly, well the answer to this is no. We are simply texting, calling, receiving calls and using Siri now and then. Is this the case that Mr. Siri in the UK is killing the battery because he talks too much?

We decided to give Real Racing 2 a go via the iPhone 4S using AirPlay Mirroring, we turned this on and then was playing this game via Apple TV using the iPhone 4S as the controller, got to admit this was a great game and very easy to control. Could play it for hours but here comes the problem, play for more than 30 minutes and your iPhone 4S becomes a hand warmer and a blooming hot one at that.

If we were cold we would turn on the central heating, but we believe that Mr. Siri our personal voice assistant thinks we are cold and turns the heater up on the iPhone 4S, ok that is a load of rubbish but strange how it heats up so fast, surely the double speed processors are working overtime.

Please do let us know if you are experiencing poor battery life or over heating problems, all the information you give us helps us understand you and your device a little more. You know where the commenting area is, head on down and have you’re saying right now. Thanks

Comments

186 thoughts on “iPhone 4S battery life, video & mirroring over-heating”

      1. Modded3 says:

        I’ve heard “ping” in “restrictions” can cause battery to go down quite fast try turning that off if not needed,I’m on iPhone 4 with ios5 and battery is pretty good,hope this helps people 🙂

        1. Spiderspants says:

          iOS 5 users with poor battery life try this, go into settings-location services-system services-setting time zone. if the arrow is lit purple it means that it is in use. so switch it off, to see if gps is being used in future turn on status bar icon.

          1. Garygbrittain says:

            I’ve had this 32gig 4S for a day now & have been accessing the Internet while on a train so via 3G, but the battery is down to 48% after 4hrs. My 20 month old 3GS would last far longer than this & still have around 70% left. I have every other battery using feature turned of although as many have already said turning these features off seems crazy considering the phone is valued at £500 because of all it’s features!
            Something is seriously wrong & Apple wont be able to deny it so I hope they get it fixed soon as there is no way I’ll. E keeping

            I have always thought it ridiculous that iPhone’s have to be all left on all night if you use the alarm feature!
            The cheapest of phones can ‘wake’ themselves!

  1. yes my 4s tends to heat up when I use the gps for about 15 min or more, and the battery life isnt anywhere close to what was advertised. I fully charged it last night before bed, when I got up this morning at 6:30, it was at 96% no big deal, its 7:30 (one hour later) and its at 83% and all i did was use siri a few times, and text a few times.

  2. battery is terrible for me too.   fully charged before i went to bed.  in stand by mode for the whole time with all app off not running in the background.  pure standby.  after seven and a half hours it was down to 74% not even being used.  the “genius” at apple must have forgotton to test it.  kinda like the antenna last year

  3. Howard Smolin says:

    Got the new iPhone 4s on Friday and charged it overnight. I agree with the previous comments that the battery drains very quickly. Had to turnoff wifi, email push and programs running in the background to get the battery to last through the day. That is with very minimal usage! Also found that the iPhone can become rather warm to the touch.

    I tried the motorola bionic for 10 days and returned it due to how quickly the battery drained. After the first few days I must say that the battery life of the iPhone 4s is not much better.

  4. Sds says:

    I concur.  The battery sucks on the new 4s.  I’ve done 3 full drain, and 3 full charge to condition the battery and it hasn’t made any difference.  Do anything with the phone and you can sit and watch the percentage drop in front of your eyes.

  5. Brentdavis@roadrunner.com says:

    I can’t get away from battery problems, Hero, to EVO, to the 4s now. Thought that getting an IPhone would remedy this problem. Frustrating!

  6. Lake says:

    I contacted a few friends from Apple, they said it “might” be software issues in most cases, they said to back up iphone, restore, set up as “new iphone”, and then sync your music, pics, etc. But if when you first purchased your iphone you set it up as new, you don’t have to do those steps. But at the end of the day I completely agree with all of what you guys are saying, battery is not the best, I’ve have every Iphone since they ever came out, (except the 4 but my GF has it)

  7. Guest says:

    Yes, Phone is over heated with max of 1 hour talk (no applications running in background) and battery life is very poor, I ended up getting 20% and 10 I battery life msg around 4 hours of talk over the phone. I would return this phone and test new Iphone, may be my device has a problem.
     

  8. Katie says:

    I have the same problem. Lost 40% of the battery while sleeping. I have an appt with apple today in hopes that they’ll give me some good news… can’t imagine using this phone for an entire year with it’s current battery life (or lack there of)

    1. Oliver says:

      Upgraded to iOS5 and completely charged my iPhone 4 before I left the office last night.  I did not make any phone calls, but did play an online game for about 30 minutes once I got home.  Before going to sleep, set my alarm clock on the phone like I normally do, woke up this morning and the phone was completely dead.

  9. Legodiff says:

    Charged my phone from 12am last night till 6am this morning. I used it for 2 phones calls for a total of 15minutes and a few texts. Also been using my ipod library for an hour. My battery has dropped 27% so far. This is ridiculous! I believe its the constant streaming of internet that occurs within the notifications drop down menu, because it is always updating the stock values.

  10. Craig says:

    Oh dear.  Battery-gate?

    Just found this page via Google when trying to find out if others we having poor battery life.  I also have the iPhone 4 running iOS5 and that seems fine so I don’t think iOS5 is the problem.

    I fully charged overnight and it’s now at 47% and that’s with only very light use.  This is much worse than the iPhone 4 for me.

    Craig

  11. Xfikaj says:

    i could not agree more. the iphone is a load of s…t. the battery life is way too short to call this a mobile phone, when in fact after five hours i cannot even make a bloody call. is there anyway i can get my money back and get my blackberry back?????
    Jay

  12. Scott_whitrow says:

    Yes the new battery life is very poor and I now consider how I use my iPhone. Previously I did not have to consider how I used my phone as the battery life seemed to last at least 24 hours. With the new iPhone I am Lucky if I don’t require at least 2 to 3 charges in the day

  13. JingoJones says:

    I have one iPhone 4 running iOS5 where the battery is on 100% even after 4 hours (Ok, I’m not using it), my iPhone 4s however over the same period, sitting doing nothing is on 73%. :(  I did not do a restore on any of them.  Both were set up as new phones.

  14. Craig says:

    You don’t think it’s the “raise to speak” functionality of SIRI do you? (constantly checking the sensors?).  It could explain why 4S suffers when 4 doesn’t appear to.

    I’ll try turning that function off …

  15. Ben says:

    I’ve had my iphone4s unplugged for an hour and a half. I listened to spotify on my 5 minute walk to work, left the phone in my pocket for an hour or so and I’m already down to 80% and it’s warm just sitting in my pocket. Wifi off. Location services on, and seems to be constantly running.

    1. Ben says:

      Update: noticed that my reminders app was constantly seeking my GPS location. Turned it off. Sucks because what good is that feature of the app now?!

  16. Inkagneato says:

    Battery life totally sucks…..barely used the phone after a full charge…texted a couple of times before and after a movie….after I get back home the battery is down to 72%???!!! Are you serious Apple?? I text a few times and took one brief phone call (less then 3 minutes) and 2.5 hours later I’ve lost 28% of my battery??? Epic FAIL!! May as well of gotten an Android with 4g speed if I’d known about the weak A$$ battery life…

  17. Rleto says:

    Unless you turn off almost every feature that sold me on the 4s, the battery drains very rapidly!
    Just terrible and unacceptable! A class action may be on the horizon if the wonderful and savvy techies at Appe don’t find a quick fix or this mst serious problem!!!

  18. Avery says:

    Wow. I haven’t experienced any of this! I charged my iPhone last night and did not take it off the charger until 8 am this morning. At 10 am, the battery was down to 92 % after using the internet. I then played games for a full hour and 20 minutes to which the battery dropped to 83%. From that point to now, 4 pm, all i have done is constantly used Safari and the battery is still at 71%.

  19. Joedelve says:

    Same here. Battery life is horrible. I’m coming from a iPhone 3G and it lasted at least a full 24 hours with WiFi and Bluetooth on and Location Services off. With that same configuration my 4S lasts 12 hours with a few phone calls and a modest amount of texting.

  20. Newspin says:

    I have been having the same problems.  It has been losing 30% of its charge while I was sleeping, and losing 25-30% ON JUST 30 mins of phone time.    I went to the Apple Store yesterday and they said it might be a corrupt file I migrated over frommy iPhone 3s, so they had me go home and restore the phone, and set it up as a new phone.  I did that, and it it did not improve the battery life at all.  I went back to the Apple Store this morning, and they gave me a new iPhone 4S.   I am setting it up now.  Will let you know how it works out.

  21. Julian Schickel says:

    Totally with you. Turned everything off (push, apps runnig in the background etc.), battery barely lasts 5 hours. This is ridiculous and needs to be fixed asap. In fact, it’s difficult to understand, how this cod ever be released. The iPhone 4 was bad enough and seemed to be getting worse in terms of battery life with every software update.

  22. Jan_uk_2000 says:

    With you too. I have been using it to answer emails without wifi or bluetooth on. With Siri turn off as well as otherwise it activates every time you life the phone. I’m now having to take my charger with me everywhere. I’m really not at all happy with this new phone. I’m tempted to go back to the shop and get my old 3GS reactivated.

  23. Toddy says:

    I was planning to buy a 4S today and found this page while researching issues. I have a 3GS and updated my OS yesterday. My phone has similar problems of battery life and heating too. I believe that the problem is with the new OS. I have just turned off the location services for iAds. I hope this solves the issue of battery life. Will post an update based on what I experience with the phone.

  24. Teen-chris says:

    im glad i aint the only one, guys i got 4 and 4s both on ios5, both took exactly the same time to charge from 0 – 100 %, roughly a day later, iphone 4 has 84%, 4s has 16%, both been sitting only on standy. rang apple and they said i am the first to complain the battery :/ i got a huge feeling its either a siri related problem as it is beta version, perhaps a massive dodgy batch of phones with direct problems with the battery itself or update issues with ios5 as i have heard people have experienced problems updating. An apple senior requested straight away that my phone is to be repaired and replaced, which is interesting as he nor the assistant said anything about a restore. Some one is poisoning the food! blackberries and apples are tasting bad 🙁

  25. Da5785 says:

    yea i used it today for 2 hours and 7 minutes and it was at 43% granted i had location service ON, but when i went in it said no apps were actually using them and i didn’t use GPS or video watching, I browsed to one website, checked my email and twitter and played a game for 5 minutes. ridiculous,

  26. Newspin says:

    Well, here in my update with the replacement phone (second iPhone 4S): the battery still sucks.

    I did everything. Replaced the first iPhone with a new one. Fully charged it. Restored it as anew phone. Reset the network settings. Disabled Siri. Turned off almost all notifications and location services. The result? After one six minute phone call, checking email twice, and checking one web page, I am down 10%. This is horrible.

  27. Pholtcvfd says:

    I am on my second iPhone 4s, battery is down to 80% after 1.5 hrs. Apple store replaced the first one without much fanfare. The phone also heats up. Even when I turned everything off it still rand the battery down in Standby. This is worse than the antenna issue. Wonder how they test these things and don’t have these problems. At this rate I’ll be back to my iPhone 4 by Thursday. It’s a year and z half old and holds a charge better. Siri only works with batteries so that won’t be very often if they don’t fix this.

  28. Josh says:

    Mine dies very fast as well… Also I randomly checked my lifetime call log… It says my phone has 30 days and 15 hours of talk time on it already.. I couldn’t believe my eyes.. I took a screen shot and will be visiting my local Apple store tomorrow… Any reason for this? Used parts?

      1. Chobertt says:

        Did you restore from a previous backup? That is your answer. For some stupid reason, when you restore from a backup, the call time gets ‘restored’ as well, giving you the same usage time as you had qhen you made that backup.
         
        o_O

    1. Chobertt says:

      Did you restore from a previous backup? That is your answer. For some stupid reason, when you restore from a backup, the call time gets ‘restored’ as well, giving you the same usage time as you had qhen you made that backup.

      o_O

  29. Rjt157 says:

    Same issue with Mine. I exchanged it at the apple store but am now realizing it wasn’t the phone. All the phones are having this issue. also my mophile charger is not working with it. 

  30. Strange here.  Mine sucks, my wife’s is great.  We first in line Friday morning, we both got new 16GB iPhone 4s (she got the white one).  Her battery has been great.  14 hours since a full charge, she has 60% left, with 3 hours of usage (she says it’s almost exclusively games, too).  

    Meanwhile, mine went from 100% to 90% in the 15 minute drive from home to the office.  It was down to 70% 90 minutes later.  I did a full drain (just recorded video until it died), the restored to 100%.

    It’s performing much better, but still pathetic compared to hers.  In 6 hours I’ve had 90 minutes usage, and I’m at 69%.  I’ve almost outpaced her charge from this morning in the time since I got home!

    Any suggestions?

    I bought mine at the Sprint store… if I take mine to the Apple store can I get their support (and possibly an exchange), or do I have to go to Sprint?

  31. Aliveli says:

    I’m having the same problem I charged it last night and didn’t use it and checked this morning the battery had dropped to 69% without me even using and I also turned off ask the applications even from the multiple function and while I’m writing this iPhone 4s is burning my hand what can I do?

  32. Teen-chris says:

    its weird, my friend turned off siri, and says he has noticed a much better battery life, other people are saying the same turning off icloud, but… if users are using ios5 on other devices other than the 4s and experience problems then… you would think icloud is to blame?. Altho my iphone 4 wit icloud is still surviving nearly 2 days longer than my 4s. i dont quite get it :/ gonna try turning icloud and siri off when not in use, and see if ther is any difference. Im sure apple are working to solve this.

    1. Anonymous says:

      Seriously, it should not have to be this way. We bought these phones to be able use Siri and iCloud, right? I have an iPad 2 and updated it to iOS 5, but didn’t see any drop in battery life. Still fantastic. The iPhone 4S, on the other hand… Just sucks the juice right out, before I leave the house in the morning I’m already down almost 10%..and I tried resetting from a clean slate, turning off whatever location services I don’t need, etc. something must be up either with the batteries or the iPhone-specific software. Since the iPad A5 chip seems to work fine. The iPad DOES have a bigger battery, but it’s also clocked faster and has a bigger screen.

  33. A M Johnson says:

    Hi,
    I’ve had the 4S since friday and battery life seems pretty good, at least as good as my last 3GS.  The heat problem though is beginning to bother me as it is happening all the time! but mainly when playing Real Racing 2.  Its getting so hot i’m thinking of taking it back to the apple store soon as knowing my luck i’ll get round to taking it on on day 91.

    1. Anonymous says:

      In response, the battery life on the 3GS is nothing to brag about. The iPhone 4 had much better battery life. If the iPhone 4S is the same as the 3GS, that’s actually a step backward. The iPhone 4 can go a couple days without recharging. The iPhone 4S can’t even make it through a day without at at least one charge.

  34. Anonymous says:

    I have exactly the same problem with the battery life, and there is an escalating amount of articles, posts, and complaints all over the web about this. Apple better come out with a fix. The battery life doesn’t even come close to their announced figures.

  35. Neilkumar says:

    Battery life V poor, just with talking and texting too. Disabled most of new features and still struggles… Hard to take out and use as dont know when it will just drop off!

  36. Anonymous says:

    Same battery and over heating issues here. It’s worse than my 3GS that I was using before and that is saying something as it was those reasons I was desperate to get the 4S!

  37. Jen says:

    I noticed the battery problem with mine after using ICloud. The first 2 days it was glorious, then ICloud came along and I’m down to 80% within one hour of taking it off the charger and minimally checking email. It also no longer gives me the push notifications for email, and facebook. My husband and kids have the Iphone 4 and their battery lasts all day with lots of usage. I’m also noticing the overheating, especially on the right hand side when facing me. I moved from a droid to this and I’m not happy!

    1. I thought I was crazy — I had the same experience.  The battery seemed fine, and I was getting push notifications from facebook like a madman!  Then I synced with my Macbook (still running Snow Leopard), and the push notifications for FB stopped (email still working), and the battery life took a dive.

      (Following on my post from earlier).   My wife unplugged her 4S more than 24 hours ago and logged around 4 hours’ usage, mostly playing games.  Her phone is at 49%.

      My phone, on the other hand, was at a full charge 15 hours ago, has 2 hours’ usage (mostly just texting and the occasional check of facebook), and I’m at 40%.  I’ve seriously managed to outpace her usage in half the time!

      This phone is worthless to me if I’m afraid to use it all day for fear of running out juice before the day’s over.  I’m going in to the Apple store today.  Does anyone know if i’ll have problems since I bought it at the Sprint store?

  38. Shails says:

    battery life very poor and heating continues. poste don apple support and no response.
    not happy at all.  ALos it has crashed a few times. or rather resterted on its won. Just goes off as if shutting down and comes backup again..
    not cool and not like apple as i know it.

  39. i have the same problem i use it for 10 min and its down 80% really annoyed. also i dont know if people been having the same problem i plug my iphone in for the night and i wake up to it over heating like crazy and it didnt even charge all the way it was at 87%. going back to my 4 and getting my money back. i hope it was an OS problem and they can fix it.

  40. I got to using my apps and was on the internet and such and after about 10 to 15 minutes (if that) it was saying that the iphone was overheating…and I could feel how hot it was obviously.  Still, it sucks when you have to turn the phone off or stop using it when you really want to use it because you just got the iPhone 4s…wtf!!!

  41. Jonathan-fessey says:

    i got my iphone 4s on friday morning, put it on charge for hours to “build up” the battery, played on it friday for about 1n hour and was down from 100% to a nice 65%, i put it on charge friday over night, saturday it was 100% and by 2:pm, it was on 45%. because of the poor battery i left it on charge for the whole of sunday and on monday by 12:pm it was on 50% with only 4 hours use. Before you ask if i had any background apps running, i turned them off after use and i also turned location services off and i also turned siri off, if i realised i had to turn most of the features off i would have got an iphone 4. not impressed!

  42. Alex says:

    I’m not sure why eveyones got problems. My 4s arrived today and i charged it to 100%. I unplugged it around 12pm. Since then ive been using it for a couple of hours and its now 8.30pm and i still have 72% left. All features are on including icloud, siri and location services.

      1. Alex says:

        Its a black 64gb from O2 in the uk. Just played about 15 minutes of asphalt 6, a 3d racing game, and i lost around 10%, which id expect. The back got a little warm too but nothing to bad..

      2. Julian Schickel says:

        …mine is a white 32gb and I’m having massive battery issues… Have pretty much switched everything off, restored etc.. No improvement.

  43. Anonymous says:

    iphone 4s consumes more electricity because of processor dual processor, get faster and also more features like siri… any processor when it tries to get faster that is what problem occurred.

  44. Aimee says:

    My battery goes down to 80% after just a short time of use. Then it just continues to depleat…all with only texting! I only got this phone, and blew my 2 year upgrade with Sprint on it, because the battery life was supposed to be so much better than the android. Well, my android with the extended battery attached was a lot better than this…and I’m begining to consider sending it back. Wondering how many days I have?

    1. curious, did you set up iCloud?  mine was great the first day, and then it all went to hell when I set up iCloud.

      I just went to the apple store, they gave me a new phone, and it’s even worse than the last one.  I made the mistake doing a “restore from iCloud,” rather than setting up as a new phone.  

      I’m going to do a full erase/restore as new phone and see if that helps.

  45. Lewis says:

    I’m typing this on my 4S, which I’ve been using quite a bit today, surfing 3G, WiFi, couple of games, GPS, 3 MMS messages, 5 phone calls and around 50 texts. Battery is currently reading 21% as I type and play music through my Bluetooth headphones.

    Battery life seems pretty good, although its quite a hit from my old Samsung that would last a week on a charge.

    BTW mine is a 4S 64GB black – one of the first from Fridays release.

  46. Nocream_interiordesign says:

    I have switched off everything and just sending a short email/text cost me 2% of the battery! It is abrilliant phone but it eats energy like rats in a bicuit factory! Icloud is so convenient, if we can’t use it what is the point? So annoyed!

  47. dub says:

    I too am experiencing very bad battery life. I think this is worse than my very old 3g (downgraded from 4) that I was temporarily using before I got the 4S. I do think that something got worse when I upgraded to iCloud, but that could be coincidental timing. Today seemed to be really bad since I had to charge at mid day. I hope to see a software update tomorrow.

  48. Ethanj93 says:

    whats the point of all these new features if they drain your battery so fast that you can barley use them…i didn’t buy a 4s so i could just use the bare minimum features. Should have just bought an iphone 4 and saved 100$.

  49. Reply says:

    Soooo disappointed with my new 4s white 32g!!! The reviews on here are right on when it Comes to battery life. I have all setting configured to save battery life and still experience a battery drain that’s greater than my old beat up 2nd gen iPod that has been charged and discharged over 1000+ times. They should have said at the press release if you are disappointed with the lack of new features like no 4g or LTE capabilities wait till you see how bad the battery sucks. Maybe the s in 4s stands for sucks instead of for Steve? Apple if you are reading any of the terriable reviews your battery life is getting stop laughing all the way to the bank and please fix the problem. I have to go before my battery dies.

    P.S. don’t waste your time going to the apple store and asking if there’s something wrong with your battery as they will just give you a cookie cutter corporate answer and then say thanks for coming in we’re here for you.

    1. Oshelps4u says:

      Well If you go to mr.unlockedtech on youtube. you can find how to upgrade to iOS 5.0.1 to fix battery life. i have the same model and it increases the battery life a ton!

  50. kim112 says:

    I upgraded to a 4S from a 3GS and the battery life isn’t quite as good.  What caused me to do a search was that I picked up my phone from the coffee table after 2 hours of not using it and it felt warm – enough to notice it through my case although not super warm.

  51. Jjfox76 says:

    Wow something must be up with the phone that you guys have because I’ve been using this phone every day all day Internet YouTube talking texting pictures and video I even used golf logic and played entire round which would usually drain about 30% of my phone I’m still using the phone researching stuff on the Internet and it’s 10 o’clock at night I’m just now getting down to 25% oh and I have the brightness turned up all the way. This is a huge difference from my 3GS and I mean huge..

    1. everyone in here hates you right now 🙂

      Can you answer a quesiton?  Have you set up Exchange email accounts or iCloud?  It was around the time I did those things that I noticed a huge plummet.

      ..just did a full reset/erase of the phone, AND  full drain / recharge of the battery.  Turned off all the big culprits (GPS, bluetooth, etc) and didn’t download a single app.   Waiting to see how bad the battery goes…

      Earlier today I lost 40% battery in the two hours after leaving the Apple store with my REPLACEMENT 4S!

      1. Jjfox76 says:

        Location services on I have 3 email accounts with the push notifications on
        Siri is on maps on wifi on and the brightness set at 90%
        I have been talking on the phone for 57 min and on the Internet
        for the same amount of time. Now I’m down to 93%
        I bet it’s iCloud and does anyone know if it has a fan my phone starts to warm up and then seems to start to cool off after little bit

        1. Wow.. . my performance is much better today — but nothing like that.  It’s dropped 15% in the past 5 1/2 hours with some light use (2 minute call, checked a voice mail, 10 txtx, and one web search).  

          Compared to yesterday I’m thrilled — but I want to see a boost like what you have.  I’ve turned EVERYTHING off, plus no Apps, and no Email accounts. I’m going to start adding one feature per day until I see a big drain start again.  Tomorrow I’m going to add the Facebook App, then Exchange accounts, then location services.  We’ll see what happens.

          Thanks for replying [nobody else has :P]

    2. Spank says:

      I am the same way. I am an admin with 14 phones, I set them all up identically. Battery is about 3-4 times better than 3GS. I don’t use my phone often, just occasional facebook, SMS and email, and my battery after 2 days is at 82%.
      That said – I do have 1 phone with the described issue above – battery dies inside of 6 hours of no usage. I’m currently in the process of doing a full restore from iTunes, will report on success.

  52. Teen-chris says:

    i fixed the battery problem 🙂 … i figured it must be an ios5 issue, so i knew my iphne 4 was fine with ios5, so i plugged the 4s into my mac, did a restore, and then ON THE PHONE, i started the phone as new, and the options at the beginning… i enabled siri etc, but icloud i clicked OFF, and the sending info to apple to help improve products i turned off, i then unpluggd from my mac at 11pm with 100% battery. its now 9am in the morning, and it has 96%. much better than what it was like before the restore!

  53. GTheBarber says:

    The more features you have,the more the battery drains.Just look at Android phones,more powerful but the price is battery life but to combat that you could install bigger batteries in most top end Android phones.
    Apple may have to redesign a new iPhone for power users and another for basic users.

  54. KB says:

    I have the same problem. Getting up at 6:35 and unplugging my fully charged iphone 4S and starting my morning commute at 7 with my iphone plugged in for music by 7:10 my phone was at 93% battery. At 10 o’clock the same morning after surfing the web about battery problems and sending a single text my battery was at 76%. So after 3 and a half hours of almost no use My battery dropped 24%. I have done all of the tips for longer lasting battery and it is now better, but my next step is going to be to calibrate the battery and restore the phone.

    1. Teen-chris says:

      hey, try doing what i did (posted below), i experienced the same problems, and after a restore, i set the phone up as new, enable siri etc but turned off icloud and send info to apple for improvments… and all seems fine!. Hopefully apple will soon solve the issue, seems to be an ios5 linked with icloud issue.

  55. 54j says:

    Had my iPhone 4S for 2 days now. 100% charge around 9am today.. played 2/3 youtube videos, some music for 2 hours and regular email/text and still have 71% battery at 21:32. That’s 12 hours and just over a quarter battery gone.. then again I have icloud only backing up contacts and calendar so that’s probably a contributing factor.

  56. Superrocking says:

    iPhone 4s !!!!!!
    Fone fully charged at 12pm ish last night,  closed all open apps,  locked fone,  unpluged charger and went 2 sleep !!!!    Woke at 7.15 ish this morning and batt was at 82% !!!

  57. Dizzyd47 says:

    Could iCloud be the problem? I was having the same issues (battery – not overheating but havent played any games). I just upgraded from the iPhone 4 to the 4S… I switched from Verizon back to Sprint… it seems Sprint service is not keeping up and is failing me as a loyal/devoted customer…but I digress. The battery seems to drain much too quickly and I’m doing nothing. I turned off everything in the background! I’m thinking the only difference between this phone and the iPhone 4 that I previously owned (both 32GB) is the iCloud syncing. Per someone else’s comment below, I’ve just changed to the settings so it will only sync my contacts. I even turned off my calendar syncing because realy isn’t that what I have gmail for? I’m really hoping this helps! I’ve been bragging on Sprint and iPhone and don’t want to have to eat my words!

  58. JenG says:

    I’m having issues with overheating and battery life.  I had the iPhone 4 and it’s battery life was amazing!  The 4S seems to be running down in, LITERALLY, double the time!  What is up with this?!  I’m going to try what one of the other lovely commenters below said and do a restore.  I hope it works!

    1. Teen-chris says:

      restore and turning icloud off will solve the issue, if u need icloud then unfortunately ul have to wait for an update, but for now that seems to be the medicine on the market 🙂

  59. Mentor34 says:

    I went to apple store today after conditioning my battery for a few days. Convinced my battery was crap, got a replacement 4s. Guess what? No difference. Same drain.

    This is not good. My trusty old 4 after 3 days of no use is on 65%.

    My 4s with 45 mins of use (overall) from full charge today. 50%

    🙁

  60. E-slice says:

    Same problem. My wife has a 16 gb 4s and I have a 32. Her seems to be fine, and I can watch the power go down minute to minute on mine. My 3GS (jail broken) had a much longer batt life. Her Siri also was able to connect to the network and never had issues while mine (sitting next to her) had connections issues for the first 2 days. I thought I had a lemon until I read these posts and realized it wasn’t just me.

    1. Teen-chris says:

      restore the phone on itunes 🙂 it seems half the phones apple have sold have not installed ios5 with complete functioning, by this i mean the phone seems to be searching icloud and wi-fi connection constantly without any stable connections being made causing the battery to just sink. A restore helps refresh the phone, and if u dont really need icloud, turn it off after the restore when setting the phone up as new. That has helped me and many others, hope it helps you!

  61. A M Johnson says:

    After a bit of playi g around with different settings I’ve turned location services off for reminders and have noticed much better battery performance. It looses the quite cool remind me when get home etc feature but at least it still has power when I get home now.

  62. DRB says:

    Let the battery die or nearly die (as <10% then give it a full charge). Also, push notifications, Siri, the cloud, wireless syncing, bluetooth, location settings, its a lot thats always working. If you aren't using it, turn it off. I use most of the features but letting it hit 1% seems to have done the trick for me. Also, I'm reading restoring helps.

    1. Teen-chris says:

      if you go onto settings and usage, the data usage is exactly the same as the last full charge. Therefore implying that the phone has been constantly used since the charge (when it hasnt), so the iphone is basically searching icloud and using internet all the time. So restoring, and refreshing, turning icloud off, does the trick. Siri has nothing to do with it, obviously using siri will deplete the battery a little quicker, but in terms of standby, its all about the antenas constantly trying to connect. 🙂

      1. Teen-chris says:

        btww turning icloud off… when the iphone it set up from new after a restore, NOT after the phone has been set up. location settinggs etc only take effect when using the app, they are automatically disabled when on standby and not running in multi task 🙂 * Sorry for esssay.

  63. Rgorgo3 says:

    Yeahhh!!! I have a big problem with the battery I hate htc’s because the battery but the 4s have the same problem I have to charge and charge again hate that!!!! 100% to 50% in only 2 h that’s really bad.

  64. Beth Neal says:

    I got my iPhone on Friday (upgraded from 3GS) and was just commenting yesterday how happy I was with the much improved battery life.  However, this morning while driving to work, I had my phone plugged into my car system and was listening to music from my phone when all of a sudden the music stopped, I got an error on my car system that no files could be found.  When I looked at my phone all I see in the very center is a dim circle of dashes.  I unplugged it and when I checked it again about 30 minutes later it’s blazing hot.  Can’t really tell if it’s on or off.  The on/off button does nothing and the circle of dashes (when I can see them) is very dim now.  Any ideas?  Have not synced since the day I set it up last Friday and have been using with 0 problems for the last 6 days.

  65. Sharon says:

    My iPhone4S’ battery goes down really fast too. I turned off a lot of my location services..push..notifications….brightness down to like 25%. I don’t even use it much during the day..just some txting and checking instagram once in a while……but by 4pm, it would be down to 30% (start using iphone around 9am..very light use).

    I love my iPhone and all the features..but the battery life is a big disappointment. I really hope it’s a software problem (maybe ios5?) and that Apple can do something about it ASAP.

  66. Dizzyd47 says:

    Well I turned off iCloud and it seems to be helping a little bit. I’m all about getting the new phone when it comes out but I’m already missing my iPhone 4 :(  I got the HTC Evo the day it came out because it was all the hype – but the battery sucked so bad, I returned it in less than a week! It was awful! I don’t want the same problem with an iPhone – really what is the point of having an amazing phone with a ton of functionality if you can not use it for fear of the battery dying?! I refuse to turn my phone off during the day – the point of having a mobile phone is for people to be able to reach you – via text, calls, email or whatever. IT’s an iPhone! I still feel the Palm Pre was the best phone ever! It was perfect and I miss it 🙁

  67. Dizzyd47 says:

    OH – speaking of the Palm Pre…. I was able to be on the phone and search the internet or mapquest or whatever simultaneously (while on the call). I thought this was a Sprint feature. I tried doing that with my iPhone and could not “establish a data connection” – what’s the deal with that?!

  68. Yowser says:

    My battery on the 4s sucks too.  While plugged in and charged at 100%, the battery will still drop.  On the iphone 4 that I had, if left plugged in, the battery STAYED at 100%!

  69. ruylopez says:

    I just let mine run down to 0% for the first time.  It took 2 and a half days.  This was on the entire time, made a couple calls, did some odd web surfing and news reading, etc.  Totally normal usage, for me.  Wifi was on, location services have been on the whole time, and it backed up overnight both nights unplugged to iCloud.  I haven’t been using location based reminders, and I have turned off bluetooth, but the battery life has been very impressive in my experience.

  70. nick66 says:

    There are simply no setting(s) tweaks on my iPhone 4S that fix the issue of battery drain, I’ve tried them all. Re-installing the entire phone from scratch is not an option, as it takes a very long time and I’m not confident it’ll go smoothly and restore me to a better state. There’s a real issue in this somewhere that Apple needs to address – question is, will it take an AntennaGate like force to get it done quickly? 

  71. Mikeah007 says:

    Hi I am having significant iPhone 4s heating and battry problems. I reset my iPhone with the hope that this may solve my problem. Today my phone was at 40% by noon with very little use. Need a software fix. 

  72. 1234yes says:

    yes i have the exact same problem,, it may be just the phone it self becuz my girlfriend iPhone doesn’t heat up like mine.. i took it to apple and they said it was the multitasking that made it heat,,,

  73. Jamessilk says:

    After reading posts re this i have altered the location and notification settings and it has made a huge difference! It no longer drains when in my pocket!!

  74. Mikki says:

    Phoned AppleCare and told them about the poor battery life and they told me to do a Restore and it’s worked perfectly. Started using my 4s at 7am and have been reading the internet and texting heavily, briefly playing Real Racing 2 and synced a gigabyte of apps over wi-fi and the battery is at 74% almost seven hours later. iCloud, Location Services and wi-fi are switched on, Bluetooth is off and Lift Phone to Siri is off.

  75. Ratisj says:

    Battery is not as advertised thats for sure, what baffles me, is I charge it during the evenings and both times it has 90% when I unplug it! How is this possible? The phone is supposed to charge and then only use power from the plug not the battery!! Something is definately not right..

  76. Marks says:

    TOTALLY!… I removed some app’s the other night & was working great!… Then the following day went back to heating up & going from 100% – 28% in 4 to 5 hours … and I wasn’t using it!! Sucks!! ~ 

  77. Alasdair Mackay says:

    I’m totally blown away with how my new iPhone 4s will run out of batterie just on stand by! Iv turn everything off that might use batterie power, yet when it’s just in my pocket it’s so hot it makes me think it’s going to burn out. Can any one advise me with any new ideas to stop my phone over heating. Apple please sort this out! I’m running out of batterie just typing this message.

  78. Anandvps says:

    Yes, I’m on Vodafone AU. And iPhone 4S is heating while it’s in my pocket. I hope Apple brings some OS update soon as in the past to fix this issue.

  79. Ahmad Jamal says:

    I am having similar problems. Within first few days of purchase, my iPhone 4s has stopped charging to full 100% and today it completely froze down meaning I could not do anything. I wonder if others are experiencing similar problems 

  80. Edfernandez says:

    I am having the same problem with the phone. It heats up and I had all the apps off, Wifi, pshing was manual and thbe phone was locked. I use the phone for my alarm in the morning and it was on a full chrge the night before. I woke up with a dead phone, I want my old iphone 4 back….

  81. Fahim00 says:

    THE WORST BATTERY LIFE EVER.

    WITHOUT USING THE PHONE AT ALL. IT’S DOWN TO 30% of battery life by 1 o clock in the afternoon.

    THIS AFTER A WHOLE NIGHT LONG CHARGE.

    AGAINST THIS MY BLACK BERRY 9900 just doesn’t GIVE UP EVER. LAST ME FOR A DAY AND HALF WITH THE HEAVY USE.

  82. Racinjason6899 says:

    My 2 year old BB 9700 lasted longer…  Sad I had high hopes for this phone, barely make a work day and that is if I dont check on the net for stuff. Not very impressed, had to turn most of the stuff off for notifications, smart phone? Not so much if it is all turned off.

  83. Vsm330 says:

    I agree with everything you said. My phone dies very quickly and heats up terribe, that obviously can’t be good. Come on Apple you had a long time to perfect this!

  84. TN says:

    My battery life is awesome, I play infinity blade and other processor intense games on mine on occasion with other more trivial games in between (and with plenty of texting) and the battery almost lasts 2 days. I even have it playing music most of the time on my motorcycle.

    However, it does get fairly warm way too quickly. And I’ve noticed it heats up the same if not faster on some of the (seemingly) less processor-intensive games. Hmm?

    Overall though, I love the phone. Mine is the 64GB white, just for reference.

    I don’t use many push notifications, though, that could be why my battery lasts. Just emails (3-6 /day), facebook, and chase push notifications.

  85. Crapediem says:

    Yeah, I took out the battery from the charger @ 9:30. Used for normal regular puposes, and no games at all. right now, it is getting close to 4, and I got 35% battery life left.

  86. Syrett441 says:

    ive had my iphone 4s for 2 weeks now and have noticed terrible battery life. just today after 2 hours and 33 minutes my phone had 66% battery left. do apple know this and are they sorting it out??????
    any feedback would be great

  87. @marky_rob says:

    Tips…. Let the battery run all the way down to nothing, then charge the phone 100% while the phone is still off.. when fully charged, do a phone reset/restore, turn syncing off apps that update all the time.. ie. twitter/facebook… turn phone brightest down to mid way.. turn bluetooth off and GPS if not in use, if your using wifi, don’t constantly turn it off and on, if your at home, leave it on, if your out, leave it off.. Each time you connect to wifi, it searches for the wifi signal and this searching can drain battery so its better to just leave it on if at home rather than keep turning it off and on each time you want to use it… i would say take battery out for a min leave it then put it back in aswell, but iphone does not allow that.. : (.. hope this helps guys and girls….

  88. Rowec2k says:

    I have the iPhone 4S and it overheats when using the bluetooth, It cuts off my call and goes to a black screen with a triangle warning sign saying the phone has overheated and needs to cool down. And yes battery life is the worst of all my iPhones since the original.

  89. Chris Ng says:

    yes it’s heating really easily … without playing heavy duty games/web surfing.  I was just taking calls and messaging (not for a long period of time).  I have also updated to iOS 5.0.1 which supposedly fixes the battery draining problem… but not helping all that much still.

    1. Roddumas says:

      my Iphone is burning my hand. it is not my imagination. The clear plastic protective case i also discololoring. It is gradually turning brown. I recently actually read the Apple user contract which states halfway through the 64 pages and it states that if you feel a tingling in your hand you should see a doctor immediately. That’s what I intend to do. Anyone else experiencing this?

  90. Wullieauld says:

    Overheating when charging the phone only. Had battery draining issues, updated to 5.0.1 drained the battery right down then fully charged, battery issues have now gone 🙂 But still overheating issue 🙁

  91. Major piss off. says:

    Battery charge it for more than 8 hours and it will die in a little over 5. 
    The heating burns the inside of my pockets. Yes, its that bad. 

  92. Diburm says:

    no apps running in background, battery life fine, but I was taking a picture the other day and my phone froze for hours, so I tried turning the phone off and nothing happened, it was getting burning hot too….I left it alone for a couple of hours and went back to it and I thought the phone was going to explode it was so hot. I ran to the at & t store where I purchased it and the person there told me to send it back to apple (within a year of purchase they will give you a brand new one)…..I went home and looked at my phone, tried turning it off again- this time it allowed me to and the temperature of the phone subsided…very ODD.

  93. Andrew_g_best says:

    Guys if you have any problems with ur iPhone 4s or if it heats up bad take it to an apple store they will fix it and if it’s under two weeks then they will replace it straight away

  94. Alexi says:

    I have the 4s 16gb. It’s barely 2 months old and it overheats while charging and my battery life is horrid. I’ll charge it completely, use it to text and Facebook for maybe 2 hours a day as I work, and web I get home from work at 8pm its completely dead. It doesn’t overheat to the point where I can’t pick it up, but it does get pretty warm. I plan on taking it to the regional Apple store as soon as I can.

  95. Dollabill says:

    My Iphone 4S heats up within minutes, this while im on basic functions like texting, tweeting and making calls. Was thinking of taking it in for repairs, it is an Iphone 4S thing or just mine?

  96. Breckstone says:

    Apple makes great profit from selling the iPhone, their actual profit margin is higher than any other cell phone manufacturer.  Apple uses mid-range parts and high class shell to attract suckers like you all, including myself.  Just remember: All cell phones suck, iPhone sucks a tiny bit less.

  97. Y in OK says:

    I have had my IPhone 4s for about 6 weeks.  Yesterday I was charging it and also playing Iheart radio while puttering around the house cleaning.  When I went to turn off the radio I noticed my phone was extremely hot, then it turned itself off.  I could not turn the phone back on.  I took it in to the store where I purchased it just a few hours after the event and they had me call an Apple store near where I live to set up appointment to have it checked.  I set the appointment for the day after, but by that night I tried it again and the phone came back on.  Needless to say I am still taking it in to have it looked at.

  98. Sent four text messages, received 2 calls, made 1 call, battery life 47%  shocking.. gonna trade it in for a Blackberry I think, I can’t run a business with a phone like this!  Send a text and it depleats 1% of battery life, if you go online, forget it 1% per minute..  I would say the talk time on these is like 2-hours..  really disappointed. 

  99. Contessa says:

    Help !!! SOS….My iphone 4s of 1 month ( bought it in January and started using it a month later Feb.) Today, (March 20) it just went dead, black screen and it would not turn on or even charge….What should I do. Last time I look was when I got a text message and the battery was 65 % or so and after a few minutes I was going to look at the time….the phone was dead..and wont turn on. I live in China ( iphone 4s was bought in Chicago USA in January 2012) and in the city I live there is no apple service center….WHAT SHOULD I DO…help….

  100. Leolzn says:

    my iphone 4s doesn’t even want to charge anymore since i got that av adapter it stopped charging it only goes all the way to 3% of battery.

  101. Thenamudhu Ramaswamy says:

    My iphone 4s white colour which recently bought ,mean 1 week back i got,with in 2 days got black screen and it would not turn on or even charge….What should I do. Last time I look was when I got a call and the battery was full charged and after a few minutes I was going to look at the time….the phone was dead..and wont turn on.what is the reason?any solution how to use iphone 4s?

  102. Yasin says:

    i have a i phone 4s about a months and i experienced battery problem
    the battery its not taking charger i plugged in the charger and its never 
    go high the 10% and at the same time the battery dies while its still
    in the charger.     

  103. Theo says:

    Hi i’m from Romania and I bought a new iPhone 4s. I was amazed by the battery in a bad way. Today i was playing games and sending texts with wi-fi on. Now my battery percentage is 66 with 2 hours and 41 minutes of usage and 8 hours of standby… Is this a bad battery?
    And another thing … Yesterday I want to decharge my iPhone to 0% and then let it charge over night … I left that LED torch on for about 30 min and when i grab it was extremely hot. This could affect the phone?

  104. Kameha says:

    Had my 4S for 5 months now and worked perfectly until last Saturday. Suddenly the battery discharged from a 100% within 3-4 hours. Called my Telco provider today and they were aware of this problem when using Microsoft Exchange Server in Push Mode. Apparently somehow the protocoll gets mixed up and the iPhone is shipping data constantly between the server back and forth. Turned the Push Mode off and the phone is working perfectly again.
    According to my Telco provider, this is a problem only occuring with Microsoft Exchange Server, not with iCloud and so on.

  105. AV says:

    i had my iphone 4s for about a few weeks now and the battery seems to be doing great. i sleep with 100% and wake up sometimes still at 100% and other times at 99%. i have a factory unlocked 16gb iphone 4s. 

    i turned off cellular data so im limited to wifi hotspots. i dont use the internet capabilities provided by different service providers since i find it more convenient for me to simply turn on wifi when i use my iphone for internet-related activities like as games, social networking, siri, surfing the web, etc.i thought it may help to some extent to turn off cellular data. i dont know about this but speaking of hardware, isnt it that the wifi and the cellular data are 2 completely different microchips? if your cellular data microchip runs at the high speed that service providers market, doesnt that mean that your battery would drain at high speed too? and having cellular data on is like having your internet on 24/7 right? i have wifi in my home and other places too have wifi so i dont need the internet on 24/7.

    forgive me for not knowing much about phones or batteries. i just thought this may help others and if it did or didnt i would like to get some feedback as to how it turned out.

  106. Stanleychivasa says:

    Yes, I got mine yesterday on contract for two years, and it turns out I have bought a heater instead of a phone. The battery life is crap and Im regretting my purchase. I will be advising everyone I know to but the HTC instead as I should have.

  107. Batsey says:

    I’ve had this phone for months and I dnt understand all these people moaning about its battery life mine gets me through the day then I charge it over night 50% in 2 hours is highly over exaggerated I’d lose about 20% in 2 hours which might not be amazing but the 4s and it’s so worth it

  108. Elenacawdell says:

    recently my phone 4s has been over heating and losing its battery very quickly even though i turn the apps off . i hardly ever use siri .it never used to do this. Maybe its my imagination but it seems to have started doing this since the hot weather began.

  109. Thailand says:

    I also have bad experience on over-heating during charging. The clear color cover became dark brown. The company gave me a new one but now I have got an iPhone that overheats during talking for 5 min, searching net and charging instead. I will be back to claim this problem again. I should have bought iPhone 4 without an “s”.

  110. Barry says:

    I have just put a new battery in my iphone4s after charging all night within five hours of not using the phone it gone down by 50 percent this can,t be right does anyone have any ideas what wrong with it

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