Macworld Forums: Apple promises software fix for iOS 5 battery woes - Macworld Forums

Post your comments for Apple promises software fix for iOS 5 battery woes here

I can't really gauge since the 4S is my first iPhone and I've only had it a week, but I'm getting only 2 days of juice with minimal use. I did notice one time (while my battery was going down fast) that the Location service for the compass was stuck on, so I had to turn it off. I'm sure there are little battery-sucking services that are supposed to be turning off automatically when not in use, but aren't.

I was spoiled with my last phone that I only had to charge every 4-5 days.

This post has been edited by kinless: 02 November 2011 - 02:27 PM

kinless, on 02 November 2011 - 02:25 PM, said:

And what was your last phone?

This post has been edited by dominiquejames: 02 November 2011 - 02:39 PM

but when are they going to fix the busted ios5 music player?

The experience kinless supports is pretty typical for smartphones; both my iPhone 4S and 3GS as well as Android phones that my relatives have. Smartphones generally have to be recharged every night or so, compared to regular cell phones which have standby times of nearly a week when you're not making very many calls.

dominiquejames, on 02 November 2011 - 02:38 PM, said:

Palm 755p for Sprint that I held onto for 4 years... a quasi-smartphone if you will.

It didn't have any background services running to be sure, but I eked out a reasonable amount of calls, texting, and casual games between recharges.

Just seeing the percentage go down 2-3% every hour on the 4S is a little unsettling to me I suppose. Probably have to get used to it, unless 5.0.1 helps that along.

It's a little odd such a widespread problem would occur, but a couple weeks isn't so bad I guess. I wonder if all those with reported good battery life already will have stellar battery life? If only battery innovation was as great as everything else, it seems newer and newer devices have worse and worse life.

I haven't had problems but I don't have an iPhone. I have noticed that my iPod Touch has been a bit glitchy. But I haven't noticed battery issues with my iPod or iPad.

In the interest of data sharing, I downloaded iOS 5 to my Verizon iPhone 4, iPad 1, and 3rd gen iPod Touch. No change in battery life for iPhone or iPad and I'm taking the iPod on a trip next week and will no about its battery life then.

One really odd thing about downloading iOS 5, it wouldn't accept my current iTunes Apple ID/password telling me it was already taken. I tried it x3 w/o success. In the name of expediency I used my alternate email address and password and proceeded smoothly. *But here's the catch-* now I can't download my Season Pass shows (5 in total) because they were started on my original iTunes Apple ID/password which I can no longer use and when I try the new ID/password I get the No Downloads available message despite the email notice of new shows available.

Anyone else with the same problem or who may have a solution. My "local" Apple Store (300 miles away) recommended I bring my computers in to the store. I'd like to avoid that as much as possible...

Apple 'spokes folk' always caveat, 'a small number of users...blah blah'

Nah, it's all of us. One guy figured out a quick fix. On your iPhone just open SETTINGS. then open LOCATON SERVICES. and scroll to bottom of screen and open SYSTEM SERVICES and turn off SETTING TIME ZONE.

Too much battery power was being wasted with constant 'time zone' checks to ensure the phone gets a time update if you make a rare change of time zones. Save power, turn this off. Hey, give it a try.

Kzin, on 02 November 2011 - 05:18 PM, said:

This fix is not an end-all solution. My iPhone 4's iOS 5 battery woes are not remedied by this. Clearly, there are multiple issues surrounding it, and the time zone polling is merely one of them.

have 4 and had to turn of the services as I thought battery depleted quicker than before ios5, thought I was imagining things but...

I have had terrible battery life on my iPod touch since iOS 5. So it's not just iPhones.

chris_st, on 02 November 2011 - 03:34 PM, said:

It could be that those who reported good battery life don't use those features that cause the battery drain to occur. If this is a software fixable item, then it could be in certain apps or certain services as opposed to just the generic phone portion of the software.