Apple is aware of battery life problem on 4s and iphone 4

[p3unit32]

You are able to get 9 hours of mixed usage and 24 hours of standby time on a single charge?

I don't think I will get those number, but I believe I can get close to 7, 7-1/2 hrs usage. I can be content with that.

 

[Skull One]

I don't think I will get those number, but I believe I can get close to 7, 7-1/2 hrs usage. I can be content with that.

That is exactly where I am idling right now based on my last 4 days of usage on the official 5.0.1 release. And I still believe that is below the capability of the phone once properly patched.

 

[gixxersixxer]

Not much difference in how ive used the phone, since the first time after the reset. Only difference is I used waze for about 20 min this morning. Everything else is mild usage. I have 32% left with 4 hrs 1 min usage and 21 hrs stand by. This is with everything turned on except push for apps, since i dont havent readded all my apps yet.

How does my usage look? Am i getting what I am suppose to at this point? Thanks

 

[hgratt]

My posts are to correct ignorance 99% of the time. And I do that because I firmly believe everyone should be empowered with knowledge. I never even bother to respond to someone that has gone beyond ignorance and crossed the line of stupidity. So if I answer something or someone it is because I believe, 100%, that the person is not stupid. Which is the exact opposite of what you think of me based on this post.

I waited for quite a few post for someone to chime in and state what I finally had to post. I don't want to answer everything here. It defeats the very reason for the community to exist. I want people to be able to answer things for themselves, and others as well, and to be able to defend it properly. In this case it simply didn't happen. So to get this thread back on topic, I decided I would truly end that part of the narrative so we can go back to original topic. Which is, what bugs in iOS are causing the battery to drain to quickly on the iPhone 4S.

BTW, if you knew the correct answer and the full reason for that answer, I am curious why you didn't post it.

1. Please keep this discussion public, not private - it is an interesting and very misunderstood topic.

2. The following references are but 2 of many on the subject:

http://www.intersil.com/data/an/an167.pdf
http://www.analogzone.com/pwrt0207.pdf

3. I am not an expert on this subject (by far), but a cursory examination of the above 2 references appear to imply that the cell-leveling requirement is built into the electronic controller for the battery and thus transparent to the user when it is performed (all the time?). This in turn MAY imply that "user deep conditioning" is primarily for battery meter calibration.

I would appreciate any feedback anyone can provide.

Thanks,
Harvey

 

[Yptcn]

That is a loaded question. The correct answer, in my opinion, is that you can do everything within reason during your daily activities without having to stop and recharge.

For me, I believe that I should be able to go 8 to 9 hours of on screen usage with a minimum of 16 hours of standby time. That mixed usage would consist of being able to have 4 push mail accounts with 20 emails, 20 texts, 1 hour of phone calls, 1.5 hours of gaming, 4 hours of web browsing on WiFi and the ability to take at least 10 pictures.

Thank you ! I guess I don't have a problem then ...My phone has been on for 26 hours , 2hours of use (30mn phone call + web browsing and messages )and my battery still has 72% .

 

[Skull One]

Not much difference in how ive used the phone, since the first time after the reset. Only difference is I used waze for about 20 min this morning. Everything else is mild usage. I have 32% left with 4 hrs 1 min usage and 21 hrs stand by. This is with everything turned on except push for apps, since i dont havent readded all my apps yet.

How does my usage look? Am i getting what I am suppose to at this point? Thanks

The current reality is, you probably are. But in my opinion, no. Remember that an opinion is not based in fact.

Using my "experimental math", you are about 14% below what I would consider optimal.

Now if we use a modified version of my "experimental math", then you are within 3%. Which means you are well within what people are currently reporting for iOS 5.0.1 as being "expected/acceptable" behavior.



*NOTES on the "experimental math".
What I consider optimal: Take usage and convert to minutes. Then divide by 7.25 and then add the number of hours of standby.

What people are reporting: Take usage and convert to minutes. Then divide by 5.5 and then add the number of hours of standby.

 

[gixxersixxer]

This is such crap! Got rid of my iphone 4 which had good battery life, to upgrade to this and now i have to watch how i use the phone and change settings just so i can squeeze what i can out of my latest and greatest phone! Good job apple!

 

[p3unit32]

This is such crap! Got rid of my iphone 4 which had good battery life, to upgrade to this and now i have to watch how i use the phone and change settings just so i can squeeze what i can out of my latest and greatest phone! Good job apple!

Be patient friend, it'll work out. Have you tried taking it back, or better yet restoring the phone as a new phone? If you do this you have to manually download everything, and not use those old backups which contains the bugs. Good luck!

 

[Skull One]

1. Please keep this discussion public, not private - it is an interesting and very misunderstood topic.

2. The following references are but 2 of many on the subject:

http://www.intersil.com/data/an/an167.pdf
http://www.analogzone.com/pwrt0207.pdf

3. I am not an expert on this subject (by far), but a cursory examination of the above 2 references appear to imply that the cell-leveling requirement is built into the electronic controller for the battery and thus transparent to the user when it is performed (all the time?). This in turn MAY imply that "user deep conditioning" is primarily for battery meter calibration.

I would appreciate any feedback anyone can provide.

Thanks,
Harvey

You just made me smile, thank you.

Your 3rd point is VERY valid and something that Wikipedia and several other public blogs don't begin to address which is why there is soooo much confusion on the subject.

The first PDF beautifully states something I wasn't willing to debate because I couldn't factually back it up off the top of my head, which is why I smiled. Battery makers, in the larger voltage ranges, always match cells based on factory certification testing. Mainly because they are using self contained cells (IE double A batteries sized cells or larger) in a parallel, serial or mixed configuration for the device. Which means the the weakest link rule gets magnified greatly. On cell phone batteries, this doesn't happen however, because they tend to make much smaller cells in series due to only needing 4.2 volts max.

Your second PDF almost covers the rest of the narrative. It is really a shame though that it doesn't cover Stage 1, Stage 2 and Stage 3 charging cycles as part of its discussion on Lithium-Ion batteries. So in a sense that PDF is an "incomplete but close enough" for the topic at hand. Yes, typically the battery charging circuit carries the load balancing feature but unfortunately that isn't always the case. Sometimes the charger has the 3 stage circuit built in. And if the charger skips stage 2, then load balancing can suffer greatly.

If memory serves, cell phone charges up until 2007/8 usually carried the circuitry. 2008 saw the switch over and probably since 2010 I have seen a rapid drop off of chargers carrying the circuitry in regard to cell phones. Now non-cell phone devices is a whole different subject matter. A lot of them still carry the circuitry based on my observations.

Oh and the reason that there was a switch over where the circuitry was carried is because of USB port charging

 

[Skull One]

This is such crap! Got rid of my iphone 4 which had good battery life, to upgrade to this and now i have to watch how i use the phone and change settings just so i can squeeze what i can out of my latest and greatest phone! Good job apple!

Please don't even remotely sweat it. Seriously. This issue is NOTHING compared to what Android users have to deal with daily and with every new phone released. Even the 4S with this issue will never come close to what happened with the Thunderbolt. The T-Bolt battery could drain in less than 4 hours and the only thing the user had to do was turn the phone on and then never touch it. The issue? The bloatware that was loaded on to the phone was running in the background once the phone was turned on. And the user COULD NOT turn the app off from launching.

So count your blessing that Apple only has a "slight" issue with this battery situation. It can and will be fixed soon. The T-Bolt took over 2 months before the first patch was even considered. It took less than 3 weeks for Apple to respond.

I still have faith.

 

[gixxersixxer]

Be patient friend, it'll work out. Have you tried taking it back, or better yet restoring the phone as a new phone? If you do this you have to manually download everything, and not use those old backups which contains the bugs. Good luck!

Im trying to be patient, considering how much these phones go for... Its very dissapointing. Ive been to apple twice to complain about battery life. Both times I left with a big dissapointment after being told my battery life is as expected. They hook it up to their magic laptops to only say everything is fine and the phone will not have that good life due to all its features and send me packin out of the store. Called the store the other day and was told to see the genius bar once again and that they cant guarantee a replacement... They say they dont want me to go through phones to have the same outcome. Sounds like an excuse to me and that they dont want to replace my phone. What did you do to get your phone exchanged? Did you have to make a big deal in order to so?

 

[Rocko]

So I read up a bit on Li-Ion and I understand how many people can be confused. This write up helped a bit and thing raised another question. Do we know for sure the iPhones battery does not have a balancing circuit?

http://www.analogzone.com/pwrt0207.pdf

 

[hgratt]

You just made me smile, thank you.

Your 3rd point is VERY valid and something that Wikipedia and several other public blogs don't begin to address which is why there is soooo much confusion on the subject.

The first PDF beautifully states something I wasn't willing to debate because I couldn't factually back it up off the top of my head, which is why I smiled. Battery makers, in the larger voltage ranges, always match cells based on factory certification testing. Mainly because they are using self contained cells (IE double A batteries sized cells or larger) in a parallel, serial or mixed configuration for the device. Which means the the weakest link rule gets magnified greatly. On cell phone batteries, this doesn't happen however, because they tend to make much smaller cells in series due to only needing 4.2 volts max.

Your second PDF almost covers the rest of the narrative. It is really a shame though that it doesn't cover Stage 1, Stage 2 and Stage 3 charging cycles as part of its discussion on Lithium-Ion batteries. So in a sense that PDF is an "incomplete but close enough" for the topic at hand. Yes, typically the battery charging circuit carries the load balancing feature but unfortunately that isn't always the case. Sometimes the charger has the 3 stage circuit built in. And if the charger skips stage 2, then load balancing can suffer greatly.

If memory serves, cell phone charges up until 2007/8 usually carried the circuitry. 2008 saw the switch over and probably since 2010 I have seen a rapid drop off of chargers carrying the circuitry in regard to cell phones. Now non-cell phone devices is a whole different subject matter. A lot of them still carry the circuitry based on my observations.

Oh and the reason that there was a switch over where the circuitry was carried is because of USB port charging

So I guess the pertinent question is, specifically for the Apple iPhone series, is the cell-balancing circuitry built into the battery pack or possibly the included charger? Is there a way to determine this from Apple supplied tech literature?

Harvey

 

[Rocko]

Please don't even remotely sweat it. Seriously. This issue is NOTHING compared to what Android users have to deal with daily and with every new phone released. Even the 4S with this issue will never come close to what happened with the Thunderbolt. The T-Bolt battery could drain in less than 4 hours and the only thing the user had to do was turn the phone on and then never touch it. The issue? The bloatware that was loaded on to the phone was running in the background once the phone was turned on. And the user COULD NOT turn the app off from launching.

So count your blessing that Apple only has a "slight" issue with this battery situation. It can and will be fixed soon. The T-Bolt took over 2 months before the first patch was even considered. It took less than 3 weeks for Apple to respond.

I still have faith.

I agree. The 4G phones are having major problems. The Razr that looked so promising from Motorola is having issues like dismal battery life, screen imperfections, heating up and the worst, random but frequent 4G/3G data drops where the data just stops. Reboots, etc don't help. The R and D on the android phones is horrific. I think the 4G technology is just not there to provide consistent efficient use and that's why Apple has not adopted it yet, IMO.

 

[Skull One]

So I guess the pertinent question is, specifically for the Apple iPhone series, is the cell-balancing circuitry built into the battery pack or possibly the included charger? Is there a way to determine this from Apple supplied tech literature?

Harvey

I have never even bothered to look. Mainly because I have always followed the so called "best practice" method of deep cycle charging once every 60 to 100 normal charges to make sure all the cells can start going "back into balance" during the next few normal charges. Plus it refreshes the stats need by the phone to predict proper battery remaining.

My guess, it is built into the phone. Mainly because it can be charged thru a USB 3 port which has the ability to provide more than .5 amps (the default for USB 2) and the cable doesn't have any circuitry in it.

Now the iPad is a WHOLE different monster. It has circuitry in the charger due to the larger amperage draw. Which is why you can't charge an iPad off a USB 2 port.