We have a significant update to this post here.
Forgive me for being excited but if there is one major gripe I’ve had with the iPhone it’s battery life. I’ve bought battery case after battery case and external battery after external battery but have never been satisfied.
I even tweeted just a few days back that for its next release, Apple should focus on improving nothing but the iPhone’s battery life – call it the “iPhone Charged” or something.
With the release of this new iPhone however there seems to be some very surprising news. Three credible sources are reporting that their iPhone life has surpassed anything they have experienced with the iPhone before.
Engadget reports that – on heavy use – the battery lasted 38 hours. Mossberg claims that his battery didn’t even reach the red zone in his single day of tests (which means he must have been using it a fair amount.) Finally, Xeni Jardin at BoingBoing reports that with “3G data and WiFi turned on the whole time, she got a full 4 days of battery life!??
This is huge.
Now their exact quotes because I know I’d want them if I were you:
The battery life on the iPhone 4 has been outstanding thus far, exceeding our expectations for longevity during testing. We’ve only had a short time to use the phone, but in the week or so we’ve been carrying the device as our main phone, we’ve had pretty amazing results under normal to heavy use. In fact, we managed to squeeze more than 38 hours — yes, 38 hours — of life out of a single charge using the phone as we normally would. We’re talking calls, some gaming, lots of push email and calendar invites, playing music over Bluetooth in the car, and just general testing (like downloading new apps, rearranging icons, tweaking settings). We went from 10:30AM on a Saturday morning till 1:00AM on Monday without needing to charge the phone. Of course, it switched itself off just after the clock struck 1, but it was thrilling — like that episode of Seinfeld where Kramer and the car salesman see how far they can get in a car with the tank on E. Sitcom references aside, the battery life seems markedly improved in the iPhone 4, and why not? It’s got a much larger battery coupled with that iPad-powering A4, which has already shown that it can sip rather than gulp power.
Apple claims longer battery life for most functions—seven hours of talk time, for instance, versus five hours on the earlier model. I didn’t perform a precise battery test, but, even in heavy use, the iPhone 4′s battery never reached the red zone on a single day of my tests.
With light use, but with 3G data and WiFi turned on the whole time, I got a full 4 days of battery life. With very heavy video recording and playback, instant messaging, email and data tethering over 3G, I got a full day of battery life. I didn’t have enough time before this review to do careful benchmark testing against Apple’s claims, so I can’t provide specific percentages, but it felt like the battery life was a good 20-25% meatier.
Apple promises up to 7 hours of talk time on 3G and 14 hours of talk time on 2G, Standby time of up to 300 hours, up to 10 hours of solid use on Wi-Fi, up to 10 hours of video playback, and 40 hours of audio playback.
Compare that with the stats promised for Apple’s iPhone 3GS: up to 5 hours talk time on 3G, up to 12 on 2G. Up to 5 hours of internet use on 3G, up to 9 hours on Wi-Fi. Up to 10 hours of video playback, and 30 hours of audio playback.
If my iPad did not have such epic battery life, I would not believe it.
I agree, iPad has the bigger screen and still gets 10 SOLID hours, so this is certainly believable.
holy crap.
Impressive! If any company had to solve the battery life issue that plagues most phones today it was gonna be Apple.
nonsense. nobody can believe it cos it just aint true- all new batteries last longer than well used ones. you’re powering a big bright screen with expanding amounts of apps and connectivity running and last time I checked, apple has not yet created a pocket sized nuclear reactor to slot in there. Get real!
They solved it by designing a new chip that handles tasks differently than other chips. That means that if you watch a video you are only using a small part of the chip while the other parts “sleep”. That breakthrough here isn’t in the battery itself but in how the battery is used.
Mohammed didn’t come to the mountain, apple brought the mountain to Mohammed, in little pieces.
lol, i can’t believe you just said “Mohammed didn’t come to the mountain, apple brought the mountain to Mohammed, in little pieces.”
“Mohammed didn’t come to the mountain, apple brought the mountain to Mohammed, in little pieces.”
You and your big Mac daddy talk. We really need to invest and come up with a newer battery technology for all to benefit for these smart devices. Having a phone that can handle 1 or 2 days of use isn’t something to be astonished by.
A lot of companies are investing heavily. And there are improvements. Just not as impressive as you would wish.
The chances of some company coming up with a battery that suddenly lasts a week are pretty slim. Better chip design and low power screens are easier fixes.
Apple actually designs products to be used – that’s why it’s a world class hardware, software and UI sync … meanwhile, other followers just slap in features – that new Android phone – 1 HOUR of use as a wifi hotspot … nice as a femcell, NOT as a phone.
I’m not sure this is true, or I’m doing something REALLY wrong. I got my iPhone 4 today, and the battery went down 30% in about 2 hours with NO use (3G and wifi on). I’m hoping it gets better.
I really hope you’re doing something wrong! :( I can’t see how these three respected journo’s would be lying…
We have 3 iphon 4′ all battery runs to 29percent after less than 3 hrs usage. My kid even set the phone on airplane mode to save the battery, but what is the point to have the phonier?
Like all new Li-Ion battery, you should condition them once a month and when you first get them. Run the battery down to empty, plug in the phone and let it charge ALL they way to 100% and then let it sit a little longer (still on charger) Once the little icon in the battery changes from a bolt into a plug I usually let it sit another 45 min to an hour. Then I use it normally but don’t plug it in again until it dies. Repeat this at least twice (Some say 4-5) and then use the phone normally from then on. Remember to do a full discharge/full recharge at least once every month to 6 weeks.. It will help your battery in the long run.
I didn’t mean anyone was lying. I’m just wondering why there’s such a big discrepancy between what others are reporting and what I seem to be getting so far. It’s very early yet…I’ll have to wait and see what happens.
Apple designs products that can be used for a year, adding the bare minimum of features but making their products slick and shiny enough to be snapped up by the same hapless fans, time after time. This really is just a ‘gadget’, not a thing of purpose.
Wow, that’s super great! It’s a good thing i never upgraded my iphone to 3G or 3GS. I still have my 2G and will definitely get this upgrade. Loving the features of the iPhone 4.
Jamie-I am having the same results as you. I received my IPhone 4 yesterday, fully charged it overnight, and it went down 30% within 4 hours. Now understand, I am not using it heavily, minimal web-surfing, answered and loaded a few emails, a littel texting and about 10 minutes talking to ATT to set up a “voice mail” password-something I NEVER had to do before. Currently I am seven hours into my day an it is at 55%. I am NOT impressed in the least.
I have the same issue as Julie and Jamie. The battery life has not impressed me one bit….
I concur, I just got my iphone4 today and with moderate data usage to the battery, its down to 50% in 5-6 hours.
WHY??!
Me too – So far it seems like my battery life on my new iPhone is the same (or maybe worse) than my 3Gs ??
About 5 hours of very moderate use and down to 30%
Count me among those with a very poor battery, or whatever the issue. Way worse than my 3GS. I got mine a day early and charged it overnight. After half a day at work, hardly using it, I was down in the 50% range.
Tomorrow, I am going to try closing apps instead of letting them sit there and run in the background or whatever they do. That takes an extra step to accomplish. I am not sure I don’t wish for a switch to disable the multitasking and go back to the old way. Not impressed with that aspect of an otherwise great phone.
As a side note, multitasking my 3GS (jalibroken) did not have significant battery issues. Still I hope this is my problem. If it continues like this, I’ll be taking it back in hopes of getting a replacement unit.
I have an appointment to go to Apple to see the geek squad, or whatever they call them at Apple (sorry! I’m fairly new to Apple products and can’t remember what they call themselves). My phone has all three of the issues I’ve seen discussed-yellow spot on the screen, poor battery life, and the reception problems when the phone is held. It must be a defective unit if reviews show it getting 38 hours with heavy use! I doubt I’d get 38 minutes with heavy use! (slight exaggeration, but maybe not far off!)
I’m the same. My 16Gb iPhone is as bad as my old iPhone 3G.
I really don’t get it – as it’s nowhere near the figures quoted by apple or these journos.
I think everyone will probably start seeing longer battery life with a little time. I remember my 3G not having the best battery life right out of the box but after charging up and discharging for a couple weeks the battery life got a lot longer. I’m currently getting the shorter than expected battery life on my iPhone 4 but I will wait a couple weeks and I’m sure it’s going to improve a lot.
Had my phone for 3 days and I am losing about 20% battery every 2-3 hours with moderate use. I have turned off bluetooth, and lowered the brightness on the screen as well. Which puts the battery life to be around 10-14 hours on a 100 % charge. Which is horrible. In addition, I have noticed, that while in the doc even though it blips and charging icon is on, I can take it out of the doc and batter has not charged…. Dissapointed so far.
Count me as yet another NOT IMPRESSED with battery life. Going down fast throughout the day. What gives?
I just got back from the Apple store and was told the battery issue relates to restoring from backup instead of setting it up as a new phone. I don’t know if that’s a real solution, but I’ll try it and see. I also got a new phone due to the yellow spots. Their response to the reception problems is that it’s a software issue, which I doubt.
Ok everyone. I did a standard “restore” to default then manually synched over apps and changed settings. First full day of moderate to heavy use only drained half the battery. Things are looking much better. Looks like restoring from my 3GS backup was the issue.
OK. I may have figured it out. Didn’t really understand multitasking and was just “closing” out of apps like i normally do by hitting the home button. Evidently it just put it in the background. When I double click the home button I see the lists of apps at the bottom which I can scroll to the right through (there were a lot of them, everyone I had opened up). I figured out how to “close” them, just hold your finger on the app like you are deleting it or moving in like you would on the home screen, a “minus” sign appear and you can just start closing. While my battery only last 1 day today with moderate use, I evidently was also running over a dozen apps in the background all day.
Brian,
Thanks for your note below. This made all the difference. The battery life is now excellent as advertised.
Kevin
OK. I may have figured it out. Didn’t really understand multitasking and was just “closing” out of apps like i normally do by hitting the home button. Evidently it just put it in the background. When I double click the home button I see the lists of apps at the bottom which I can scroll to the right through (there were a lot of them, everyone I had opened up). I figured out how to “close” them, just hold your finger on the app like you are deleting it or moving in like you would on the home screen, a “minus” sign appear and you can just start closing. While my battery only last 1 day today with moderate use, I evidently was also running over a dozen apps in the background all day.
I had 12 apps running myself. Thanks for the tip. Definitely going to see if this improves the life.
30 hours standby? I wish. I charged my iPhone to 100%, powered off(yes, I have had an iPhone before it was off). Went to sleep. 8 hours later, I wake up and power it on-56%. What’s up with that. Genius Bar here I come!
I am having the same exact problem.. I took my phone off the charger at 100% at 11am. It is now 219pm and my phone is at 23% WTF. This is just from talking on the phone and using my Bluetooth. That’s it. No games no Internet. And my wifi is on. Am I doing something wrong seriously? Bc im about to bring my phone back to apple. How can people be getting 4 days of talk time? I’ve had my phone 2 days now and vie had to charge It up 2 times in a day. If I was on a trip or out for the day I don’t think my phone would even last.. This is really bad please what am I doing wrong?
Moderate use…lasts just about 1 day. Anyone any success with clean install rather than recovery from 3G/3GS?
Twice today I have done a wipe and clean install. After checking the phone was operable and like new, I then restored from my backup. Obviously just the fact that I tried it twice means it was not effective.
Presently, I am burning about 10% per hour with the phone sitting on the table next to me. I have made three or four short calls and one 5 minute FaceTime call. Currently, 4 hours since coming off charge at 100%, I am at 63%. My experience says that the Apple solution is crap….so is my battery.
I did the set up as new instead of restore and the battery life seems to be a bit better so far…but not significantly. I’ll wait and see if it gets better after recalibrating it. One thing that is worse with this phone (the replacement one) is the reception issue. Apple says it’s a software issue, but I don’t see how it can be. I’ve done speed tests when it shows up as no bars, and sometimes the test won’t even start because the signal is so bad.
Same exact problem here…went to the genius bar today at Apple, guy ran a diagnostics test on it, battery came up normal with no errors. He told me to do the same thing u guys have done…go home, backup ur phone, and restore. Did it 3 times, still the battery is complete crap. If it doesnt fix itself in a week, im gettin a new battery! This is bull!!!
I have a question for the guys with bad batteries, and maybe the fortunate among you as well.
How much battery did you have when it arrived? Mine was DOA. I took delivery on 3 more for guys in my office at the same time and all of them had some power in the battery. I had to charge mine for 20 minutes just to get the computer to recognize a phone was hooked up. The other 3 have not exhibited this problem and one guy went 2 days on the initial charge with battery to spare.
So, I was just thinking about this and wondering if that wasn’t a signal of a bad battery right at the start. Anybody notice similar correlation or even the opposite?
When I got my phone the battery was actually at 100% and I used it to drain the Battery down before charging it again. I don’t remember what it was before I put it on the charger, I’d say it was about at 40% and I’m thinking that maybe I should have drained it down to red before I charged it for the 1st time. But even then I noticed the battery was draining way to quickly to even get to 40% because I came home from picking up the phone by 8pm and by11 the phone was at 40%. I’m sorry but that’s just not normal. I even tried restoring the phone then setting it up as a new phone but it didnt make any difference for me .
* as an update I called apple and the lady who I spoke to confirmed that it sounded like there is clearly an issue with my battery because it shouldent be draining as much as it is in the amount of time it’s doing it. And made me an appointment at the store this morning So hopefully I can get this battery fixed. I will update you guys further when I get back.
Well i just got back from apple. They did a diagnotic and found nothing but they replaced my phone for me with out hesitation and told me to set it up as a new phone again. They told me to let the battery run down to at least 20% before I charge it for the 1st time which I am gonna do. They also said only to charge the battery when it’s almost dead but I heard that you don’t necessarily need to do that but for the next few days that’s what I am going to do and hopefully the battery issue is no more and I 2 can say that I’m getting 38 hours with heavy use like the original post :) I will keep everyone posted.
Day 1 after full charge: close to dead at 13 hrs. Moderate usage. This is not going to fly.
Is this article some kind of joke? My iPhone 4 battery lasts less than my 1G iPhone battery did after three years of use. I can’t get anywhere near 12 hours of heavy use let alone 38 hours. This article will only serve to confuse and frustrate iPhone 4 owners. Or my iPhone 4 is broken…which I doubt.
What a difference shutting off the apps running on multitask Thanks for the tip as I had the same battery issues as everyone else Now that I have shut off the 22 apps ( especially the GPS apps) my phone is sipping juice. Still at 82% at 2:30 pm today. Great much better than our 2 other 3GS units
RE: shutting off the apps (multitasking)-I’m hearing and reading different things from different people. I’ve read that they’re not really running when in the multitasking tray, but simply paused and so should not use up more battery life. I don’t see how this is possible, because in order to be able to pick up where you left off, it would have to be doing something to keep the app going, which would take up battery, right? I’m trying to remember to shut mine down just in case, until we hear something more official.
My new phone (second new one) seems to be better with battery life, though if I got anywhere near 38 hours, I’d be shocked (and, of course, thrilled). Last night, to try and drain the battery, I did everything you’re not supposed to do, and it seemed to hang on quite a while. I’ll know more today. The Apple Genius I talked to said you should NOT have your mail set to be checked at an interval (I had mine set at 30 minutes) because he said if it’s unable to check it, it will just keep trying, which will drain the battery. He did NOT say I should disable push, which I’ve heard on a lot of different sites. I asked him about calibrating the battery and he said you should not have to do that with a new device. I did it just to be on the safe side.
I was having to charge my phone every morning. I would go to bed with it at 100% and powered off. The phone would loose half of its charge while it was turned off(not standby)! Apple replaced the phone today as they agreed there was something wrong with the battery. So much for keeping the phone I bought on Launch Day!
BTW my original iPhone 4 had 10% battery life when it was turned on at Launch. The new iPhone was at 100% when first turned on. People have suggested that if you have a dead battery at the start, it will give you problems right away.
Well, I believe the articles, because the battery life on both my and my wife’s phones has been outstanding. My battery is currently at 13% after 42 (yes, 42) hours. Now, that was 42 hours of fairly light use, but wifi/Bluetooth was on the entire time, as well as push mail for a MobileMe and an Exchange account. My 3GS would have been doing very well to have lasted even half that time under identical conditions. Very, VERY pleased with battery life so far. Also note that I plugged the phone in to set it up as soon as I got it – no special conditioning discharge/recharge cycles here.
Re: multitasking, you’re not really doing anything by “closing” them from the “task manager” bar. Only apps that have been recompiled for iOS4 (relatively few at this point) are suspended instead of terminated when you exit them. Most of those icons you see in your taskbar are simply recently-used apps, not apps that are suspended in the background. You’re just removing the icon from the list when you close them – not freeing up any resources that would lead to better battery life.
Same here my battery Is very bad I barely use the phone and the percentage goes down and down!!! Will go to apple today and see if I get a new iPhone 4 can’t believe such an expensive phone would have this issue.
Battery on mine looses about 3% per hour on standby, over a nights sleep it drops from 100% to 74% battery, i have restored my phone, no email, no push, no fetch, no apps, no bluetooth. Its just in standby with 3g and wifi enabled. It still looses 3% per hour. Ive started a case with apple, im giving it one more day of testing then its going back, i cant have a phone that wont even last a weekend on standby!
As an update my new phone seems to be a little better battery wise but still no where near what some people are claming how long their batteries last. I’ve noticed that when I’m on a call the battery drains about 3% very 10 mins. And was able to get exactly 5 hours of talk time before the battery went dead. This was just strait talking on the phone with no web serfing or another apps running. I had my wifi on and 3G and was using a Bluetooth that’s all. This phone claims to have 8 hours of talk time and I got 5, I know that using Bluetooth eats the battery up but 2 hours worth? I’m still feeling like this battery issue is not resolved and my phone was already replaced what next should I do? This is really bad I got better battery life with my 3G 1st generation and my blackberry bold.
I’m having the same issues with my battery – I’m at 86% and dropping after a 100% charge 4 hours ago. I’ve sent maybe 5 emails (text only), had a 5 min phone call, and visited 5-7 websites (nothing intensive, text only pretty much). I have wifi off, push off, location services off, I dimmed the screen, no apps running, haven’t used the ipod, etc. I’m being REALLY careful and it’s still dropping by a percent every 10 mins or so I have it lit up. It’s nuts.
I called Apple and was told that the problem is that I’m charging the phone overnight and that’s why it’s like this. Excuse me? I had the original iPhone since 2007, launch day. I charged that phone overnight about a bajillion times, rarely at full discharge, and never had even remote battery issues like this.
Tonight I’m going to try the wipe, set up as new phone, and sync everything to see if that works. I’m also, for the sake of experimentation, going to do a full discharge (won’t be hard!) and full charge.
When told I shouldn’t be plugging it in all night, I asked if I was supposed to be setting an alarm for 4am to check to see if it’s at 100% so I could unplug the phone. I didn’t get a reply to that one.
Just an update.
Last night I ran it down to nothing, I was talking and the phone turned off on me.. so I was sure it was dead dead.
Plugged it in overnight (oh noes!) and left this morning with it at 100%. I’ve done some web stuff (similar to yesterday), read emails, and had about 7 phone calls (shortish – less than 5 mins each), and still have location, wifi, push, etc. all turned off.
Today feels like more “use” to me (1 hr 17 mins, 9+ hours standby) and I’m currently at 87% 6.5 hours later… so definitely an improvement over yesterday. When I left work I was down to 76% and all I did was listen to the ipod, so lost 24% in a day doing almost nothing at all.
Going to do a full discharge/recharge cycle again (not going to deliberately run it down today, just going to see how long I get) and see if a few of these continue to help it along. If not, it’s going in – because some of you are clearly still getting much, much better life than I’m getting near.
Alright, no charge in 32 hours, on 3 hours and 5 mins of usage since last charge and I’m at 56%. Not bad! Hoping to run it all the way down again today to do another full cycle charge. But it really seems that made a HUGE difference.
I’ve got push on, but still no wifi or location services, etc. Haven’t been using ipod or anything else either. However, I think if I’m getting this far along this way, then I should at least be good to always get a consistent full day of pretty heavy use without issue – fingers crossed.
No Apple appt for now, going to keep up with the experiment.
OK first of all the don’t charge your battery all night line from Apple ‘Support’ is BS. I had the charging issue-100% down to 50% when powered off! The Apple Store replaced my iPhone. It was charged to 100% last night. I then powered it off at 10PM. I turned it on at 5AM and it was still at 100%. I used the heck out of it today (phone calls, email (15minute interval), and EDGE network areas). It is now 7:30PM, 14.5 hours later-69%! So if you’re not getting that, your battery IS bad. I tried all the software tricks everyone mentioned on the first one and it did nothing. It is NOT a multitasking issue. It is not a brightness issue. I spent most of the day driving through EDGE with WiFi AND Bluetooth ON and still got 14.5 hours. Fight for a good iPhone, its SOOO worth it!
I agree with John B. You may have to fight for a good one! It shouldn’t be that way, but I’m guessing with the rush to get phones out to people, some stuff got overlooked and some units are defective. I’m feeling confident enough with iPhone4 number 3 that I just put an invisishield on the screen.
I have been getting consistent 20hrs standby plus 7 hours usage with a little gaming, many texts, 4+hrs calls included, and about 6-7 emails sent and 20-3- read. I have also been fully conditioning the battery by letting it run down completely each time before I recharge. Battery life seems to improve doing this… Just my 2 cents.
I am having a similar issue with my battery. I have done lots of testing with a video loop set at 50% brightness, 50% volume with wifi turned off and nothing on the multi tasking tray and I was getting 7.5 hours. Right after a reboot I was getting 10 hours. Os4 seems to have a bug that is not displaying or releasing resources. Also I have noticed fully draining your battery before a charge to condition it will improve battery life as well on the IPhone 4. I hope this helps and that apple will release a software fix soon.
Brought my iPhone to the store yesterday. All the test they said the battery is working great and there are no problems. Another thing, the charger I use and the cord could have a problem and it’s only getting a trickle charge. Well, it’s still draining and I am NOT using the freaking phone.
4 days, 38 hrs. They must have the screen on the dimmest setting and using notepad. I have to charge it daily. Lasts on average 6 hrs of use.
After reading the comments I did a full recycle and charged it full and got 29 hours battery life. That’s with 2hrs and 9 min, Internet usage. Live streaming of some of the holland game yesterday 4 hours iPod usage and major texting. Was so pleased it lasted so long. When I first got the fone it last 9-10 hours until I tried the full battery drainage and full recharge. Thanks all for your suggestions. My iPhone is now fulfilling it’s promises.
Right now, after almost 5 hours usage, and almost 13 hours standby, I’m at 28%. Not the best, but better than my other two iphone 4s and, I think, better than my 3GS. Honestly, if I can get it through an entire day without worrying it’s going to shut off, I’ll be satisfied. I think this phone will get there. Being able to not charge it for a couple of days would definitely be nice, but I’ll be happy with consistently getting a full day.
I restored my iPhone 4 because my battery was draining so fast and there has been a big improvement. I currently have a battery life percentage of 58% with 17hours of standby and almost 3 hours of use.
As I have posted above, if you are not seeing GREAT battery life, there is probably an issue with the phone. I went from 5AM to 10:30PM and by charge level was still 66%. Two hours talk time and most of that was on the EDGE network!
My wife and I both got our phones on launch day. Her phone is seeing great battery life and mine is not. I’ve done two full battery cycles and most recently I only got 4 hours 18 minutes of usage and 20 hours 38 minutes of standby with light usage. Last night her phone went down around 5% overnight and mine went down around 20%. I’m doing a full restore, but made a preemptive Genius Bar appointment for tomorrow. Very disappointing…
Update:
I swapped out my phone and am now experiencing GREAT battery life. After a full charge, I’m currently at 45 hours of standby with 7 hours 18 minutes of usage and have 12% battery remaining.
The “genius” I dealt with at the Genius Bar told me that it helps if you document your standby/usage time and show it to them when you take your phone in for a swap-out. When they ran diagnostics on my first phone, the battery came back as normal. It certainly wasn’t.
It has little to do with how many apps you have open. And more with the brains that are running it.
I had terrible battery life on my iPhone 4, worse than my 3gs now it’s more than double of the battery performance i got with any iPhone.
Simple steps to resolve crappy battery issues.
1. Restore iPhone firmware and setup as a new iPhone
2. Condition battery for a few days, i.e. Let it drain ALL the way down before you charge it back up.
3. Turn it on and off once every few weeks.
I haven’t met anyone with an iPhone 4 battery issues that weren’t resolved by using these steps
This is true my iPhone 4 battery lasts long im amazed by it
I restored my iPhone after not having a good battery life and Iam now at 25% battery life after 7 hours of use and 28 hours on standby so far. Much improvement after the restore so if any one is having battery issues simply connect your iPhone to iTunes and restore your phone.
I was hoping for a much better battery life and it definitely seems the iPhone 4 has this! I’m hoping to get my new iPhone 4 by September, just looking around for cases now.
Iam currently at 11% battery percentage after 34 hours of standby and 8 hours of use the battery is truly getting better After the restore and a full battery drainage.
I got the iphone 4 2days ago and the first night i charged it before i went to bed…so it had a full charge! That day at work i used the phone just for slacker raido,emails,apps just the same stuff i would do on my iphone 3g. By 430pm the battery was at 20per…. this is shit so much for the bigger battery?
My iphone 4′s battery life is pathetic. I’d say it lasts 2 hours tops
Hi, I got my iPhone 4 on launch day and the battery for me has been superb lasting sometimes between 2 to 3 days. I will play videos, game, browse the web on 3g and etc… I don’t have wifi on though since I have no wifi in my house (bummer). I think what might be killing your battery could be multitasking. If you have so many apps in that bar it could lower the battery though apple made sure that wouldn’t happen. The only other thing would be wifi and push. If you have all your apps, mail and calendars pushing information so many times an hour it will affect battery. Are you a heavy mail/cal/app user? I’m a heavy app user without problems. If none proves true then your battery is faulty probably and you should have it replaced (warranty). Good thing about Apple is excellent customer support so they should be able to fix your problem.
Do you work for att or apple
This is ridiculous 38hours is not great for overall battery life not even close to Samsung Galaxy with Super AMOLED screen that does not require a backlight by producing it’s own light naturally. What throws this off is you will most likely charge your battery every 24hrs with this scenario and if you charge it every 38hrs you are on an irregular schedule unfit for humans to endure.
Samsung Galaxy S lasts days longer with the same battery but smarter system that even puts the radios to sleep when your using it as an MP3 player. It also has a much more Powerful GPU in the SGX540 at 90million Triangles/Per/Sec. 3times the iP4′s SGX535 and it can via WiFi Direct DLNA stream 720p video straight to your HDTV or PC (via router or dongle even) for over 7hours w/o being plugged in! :D ….amazing what a company that makes 50% of the parts for CrApple’s iPwn’d and iFad can do with making their own parts!!!
Everyone has different experiences. I got a Samsung Captivate (for a short time) and the battery life was AWFUL. I had to charge it at around 3pm every day, and this was after turning down brightness, turning off 3g and wifi, and all the other things that are supposed to save battery life.
What on earth are you doing for two hours? Sat with your tongue on the battery connections?
Sounds like someone’s using his phone as a vibrator. Get troll doll instead loverboy.
Are you by chance using Exchange? I had the exact same problem. Turns out that the evil culprit was Microsoft’s Exchange. My battery life was awesome when I first received my iPhone. Even with Exchange working and pushing emails. Then I received an Exchange meeting request. I accepted the request but it didn’t go into my calendar. Then BAM, battery drain insanity. My battery would drain in hours. I went into my Exchange account on my virtual PC and accepted the invitation and then deleted it. Then I did a soft reset of the iPhone. It cleared up the problem immediately. All the tips for battery life are helpful, but if you have one process that will not stop you’re going to drain the battery quickly. I hope this helps. Good luck!
OK well my Iphone4 is on lock 90% of the time with no display on. It will not last 8 hours. I talk perhaps 1 hour at most. Not sure what the problem is but it sucks! I have to charge it twice/day…
My iPhone 4 only lasts about 4 hours with very light use.I’m going to go to the apple store and see if they will give me another phone because I have the AppleCare plan.
Me too dies with in 7 hrs reg use i hate it have to walk around with charger
The battery life on the 1phone 4 sucks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I want my 3gs back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
After thinking the restore fixed the battery issue it is back to completely draining the battery in no time I even conditioned the battery for 3 days. I now have an appointment at the apple store gotta wait now till Thursday!
I’ve had my iphone 4 since the launch day. For the first few days, the batter life seemed to be inline with the claims for long battery life. Once I started installing apps I notice battery life just completely failed me, it only lasts for about 3-4 hours irregardless of usage.. thats on 3G. I had purchased a new one because my old 3g phone had the same battery problem all of a sudden. Now that my old phone isn’t on the network and works only via wifi, the battery life appears to have been restored to its original performance levels which is completely shocking to me!!! I just restored my Iphone4 and I want to see what happens. Wondering whats causing the battery life to drain, its got to be a combination of apps and network, possibly the push and updates…not sure yet, will install one app at a time WHICH SUCKS to try to troubleshoot the issue and report back.
I have had the iPhone 4 for 2 days and I must say the battery life is pathetic I today had to charge my phone mid day bearing in mind it had a full charge during the night. Just by instant messaging for twenty minutes my battery life went down by 20% and just know whilst typing this comment it gone down from 98% to 96% come on apple fix up!!!!!
i have the same problems please tell me if you get that fixed and how
I too am experiencing poor battery life. Very disappointing. I have maybe 6-10 apps pushing updates, i sync with 3 email accounts, and I have relatively low talk time… I charged fully before bed time, and when I woke up, my battery is at maybe 25%. Bummer.
Me too. Standby lasts 6 hours max after full charge. Normal bluetooth and wifi on, but even my old replaced 3G lasted easily twice as long with same software / settings. Must be hardware failure. Will visit store to request exchange… but am guessing still no stock available.
Update: continuing with full drain and recharge cycles, I’m currently at 7% after 3 days 20 hours of standby with 5 hours and 35 mins of use. I consider that a success in retraining, so give it a shot people.
I do live the phone though, it’s so great. Just happy this approach has retrained the battery.
Went to bed with a fully charged iphone 4. Had the alarm clock on and the bluetooth enabled. In the morning the battery was almost fully drained! What’s up with that?
Lol I want a blackberry now!!
I too had poor battery life at first. I was at 7% or so with only 5.5 hrs of use and some 24 hrs of standby. I found another website where one guy suggested deleting your email accounts off the phone, restarting the phone and adding the email accounts back. Not sure if that did the trick, or if removing email from multitasking as suggested here: http://blog.michaelroebuck.com/2010/07/iphone-4-email-push-fix.html that did it. Either way, yesterday, I was at 30% battery life yesterday with 8.5 hrs of use and over 2 days (it might have been 3, I can’t remember) of standby. I also turn on Location Services unless I really need it and I turn off Wifi when I’m not at home or at a place where I can use Wifi. Also, with my battery life, that was with listening to 2 hr podcasts, web surfing on wifi, using my phone to do 3 P90X workouts (usually over an hour of video each time) and listening to music while running. Now I’d say battery life is better than my 3G, but maybe still not up to Apple’s claims…
I am currently on 1day 13 hours standby and 5 hours 8 mins usage with 40% left. I leave my 3g, wifi and mob data off until i need them. At 1st my battery was terrible but being an iphone virgin I didnt know the open apps on the ip4 stayed open – duh!! So i had a fair few to close down and its been great since.
I agree with the rest of the posters. my iphone 4 battery life is terrible. I have to recharge twice a day even when I don’t even use the phone
I have been having the same problem with my new phone, but I believe it is software related. I updated my daughters ipod touch to the 4.0 updated and the battery started to drain after that point. I found a site that had a recommendation, I tried it and it worked. I did the same fix for my iphone and it seems to be working.
1. Back up your phone.
2. Do a restore
3. Before you sync the phone, and after it has rebooted, disconnect the phone.
4. Do a hard reset, hold down the power button and the home button until the phone shuts down. Do not hold the button until you see the slider, hold it until the slider disappears and the phone shuts down.
5. Power up the phone, when the phone is powered up then plug it back in to your computer.
6. Restore your phone to your backup.
7. Charge your phone to 100% and see if this worked.
My phone has been charged at 100% for an hour now and I had a 5 minute conversation, still at 100, normally it would have dropped at least 10% by now.
I hope this helps,
Robert
Does not work me :(
Okay I got my iphone 4 on Aug. 5th, so today is the 21st. Nearly 3 weeks of using the phone. The first few days the battery life were actually great. but after that sometimes it would not last a day.
Long story short, I had used the battery doctor app open when charging the phone to keep record of the data. However, the processers/rams gets really hot while charging. So I found out it was that app that caused to heat up my phone whilst charging. But after I deleted the app the iphone did not overheat and stayed cold to the touch.
Now I have drained the battery after that to ensure that all the electrons are moving inside without using the battery doctor pro.
I do not recommend using this app at all, it’s no help at all, all it does is it records your battery, when you plugged in. Sure, it does give tips, but you can always find that online instead.
So after a few days without the battery doctor pro, it seems like it’s the same. so I am going to use Robert’s fix and see if it really fixes the issue.
In light usage, I can get my phone down to 65-70% by the end of the day. where as my 3GS would get down to 2-% around 3 pm. As for my iphone 4, as long as it lasts the entire day it is fine with me, as I charge mine before i got to sleep so that when I wake up i have it 100% fully charge and be ready for the day.
I will however drain the battery to 0% again after this fix to see if it works afterward.
but if this fix doesn’t help then I’ll just have to deal with it and maybe go see the genius bar.
Okay well I’m now on my second Iphone 4, first one was purchased on the release day, very below par battery life. Just picked up my new one several days ago, there is no way that anyone is getting 38 hours with heavy use, impossible, I’m getting a little over 7 hours talk time and averaging about 28 hours stand by time and that is on light to maybe medium use with back light turned down and bluetooth only on when I’m in my vehicle. The only way that anyone is going to get 38 hours of stand by is by setting your phone down and not using it. There is no way having just picked up my second Iphone that it is a defective one…..
Okay everyone, I followed Roberts instructions above, works like a charm!
I got 22 minutes of usage and 1 hour and 22 mins of standby and then the battery meter dropped to 99%
38 hours? hahahaha.
Maybe because the antena didn’t work hahahaha.
Comedy.
I finding the battery performance poor. Sent a few texts, checked email a few times an hour, placed 2 calls, listened to the music for the rest. It didn’t survive the beach for 6 hours before hitting red ….
So much the outlandish claims of much improved performance
I’m reporting back after following Roberts instructions above, didnt do anything in regards to overall battery life, got 7 hours of usage and 24 hours of standby……Apple bs’ed us again…….
I have got nowhere NEAR that kind of battery life on the i4 shipped to me 7/6. Best I got the first week was 7 1/2 hours down to the 20% mark using it mostly for surfing and non-game apps and almost no calls
i have an iphone 3g already, the battery sucks, i was thinking of getting the iphone 4, but after this review, it seems iphone 4 also has the battery issues…..maybe i will get the blackberry
For me, if I can get the battery to last an entire day, I’m satisfied. I charge it every night anyway. The first iphone4 I got did not get a full day, and neither did the second one. Finally, with the third one, I did. I don’t know what the difference is, but my experience (and others’ too) seems to suggest that there are good and bad batteries. I’d suggest returning it until you get a good one. After ditching my iPhone and getting an Android phone (for about a day!), I can say it’s worth it.
Charged fully before bed. Woke up to 98% at 10:00 which was fine. Now its 2:35pm and im on 14%. Played a game or two and that was about it. Blah!!
OMG these phoney headline catching stories aren’t going to help boost the sales back up. Mom and pop joe average buyer is going to go out and buy one and not be happy with their real results. The company reported testing is usually a little low on average, but this is just ridiculous.
Sales are reportedly falling flat on their ass now. The worst is here in America. Which is odd, because Apple’s strongest support is here. Surf the web or play any games and you are using the screen backlight, which devastates battery life no doubt. So these people are doing nothing but leaving it on standby and making and receiving a few calls no doubt!
….Or being paid to dummy up asinine data reports that’ll have horrendous results over the long term. Regardless…. over zealous fanboys are going to ruin the reputation of the phone with this crap. Hopefully Apple isn’t behind this or we could be looking at the next AntennaGate story!
Kron, I don’t know if you read the posts ( there are a lot), but many have confirmed (myself included) that different batteries have different results-dramatically different in some cases. I’m not saying there are some who do get 38 hours, but some get way more than others with similar patterns of use. I went through two exchanges before I got a good one (around 8 hours of usage).
I also do feel that conditioning the battery helps a decent amount, even though the Apple genius said it makes no difference.
For those who are having problems, I know it sucks. Take it back for an exchange, or choose a different phone. If you decide to go Android (I did-for about a day), the Samsung Captivate is a worthy rival IMHO.
As of today, how’s the battery life of the iphone4 and what about the network signal strength? I think for battery life sony ericsson is pretty good.
As I said above, I”m now getting around 8 hours of usage per day, which is pretty good. The signal strength is okay. Using a case helps a lot but doesn’t truly fix it, in my experience. Downloads are usually over 1mbps (sometimes closer to 2) though uploads are atrocious, supposedly due to AT&T problems.
Ok everyone, I’m on my 3rd phone and finally getting the battery life that Apple hyped up….Currently from a 100% charge I’m at 6hrs 18min of Usage and 1day 12hrs of standby and I’m at 29% of battery life left with medium to full usage…I will take a screen shot of my Usage when I get to 5% of battery life left and post it for everyone to view….
Is 5 hrs 26 mins usage and 20 hours 32 minutes standby normal or below average? I would say my usage is between light and moderate. Slight gaming, surfing, opening apps here and there, messaging..
I’d say a bit below normal, though I suspect Apple would say that’s average since it’s advertised at 6 hours usage (if I’m not mistaken).
@ Tribb,
yes it should be normal if under those circumstances.
sorry, 5 hrs 26 mins usage and 20 hours 32 minutes with 20% left
my battery was draining even when i was not even using the phone and it was locked but i turned off my wifi and also deleted almost every app from multi tasking and i believe it has worked better since i did that (about an hour ago)
Yes i honestly think its better too.. turning off all the apps in the background when not in use and turning off Wi-fi have definitely helped. I still on 3G though as i have a couple of apps that requires internet connection and only when i think i will be doing some heavy internet usage will i turn on wi-fi.
Lets just hope the longevity isn’t compromised in order to get 38 hours before needing a charge. I could see the iphone 4 needing to be serviced / replaced every year as a result.
38 hours is damn awesome. Pardon the tenor of my last comment.
I am having the same problem..Two days old and battery was charged to full last night and woke up to 85% and that is not touching it from charge… What a croc saying 38 hours… maybe in a freezer…. 7-8 hours tops
I m using the 3G and last cell battery that Apple hyped up …. Currently, approximately 100% surcharge is to use 6 hours 18min and 1 day 12 hours standby, and I am 29% battery life left in the medium and full use of … I take a screenshot I use when I get 5% of remaining battery and send everyone to see.
Don’t know what to say.. I go 3-4 days without charging.. brightness turned down, bluetooth off, wifi when available, put it on the charger when im tethering, lots of video/pictures/flash, rarely on vibrate..
If your battery life isn’t good then exchange it, return it, or stop doing whatever you’re doing wrong.
Also, running push caldav/carddav, moderate amount of texting, not a lot of phone calls.
pay attention to your multitasking apps.. clear them out if you don’t need them running in the background.
if you’ve left your phone in your car or somewhere that it exceeds the operating temp it could have damaged the battery.. right?
It is 3:15pm and I am charging my iPhone 4 for the 3rd time today. I took if off the charger at 8am this morning and it was at 30% by 11am so I charged it and now it is down to 25% again already. I only had 3 phone calls, and search the web / checked emails / facebook for about 30 minutes max. Most the time it just sits on my desk or in my pocket. This is very very bad.
My iphone4 battery life is quite pathetic too… I had it fully charged overnight and was completely flat by 4pm the same day..I’d say my usage is moderate…my old little Ericsson had better battery life than this! It’s quite frustrating!!the battery % is constantly reducing regardless of usage.. I think it might be faulty.. :(
I’ve sent my phone back to Apple for repairing. For those who have the same problem, send it back!
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Everyone should get together and file a class action suit against Apple for these claims when the reality is a far cry from the claims!!!
The only problem with that idea is that Apple didn’t make those claims. Journalists were reporting on their individual experiences. I believe Apple said we should expect around 6 hours usage on 3G and 8 hours on wifi.
Hi everyone battery life on iphone 4 last long for 38 hours on very heavy use. Bravo to apple, again improve it they work!……………….just a little joke. It is same shit here battery issue. I fill like shit paying so much money for phone like this. My next mobile will be NOT APPLE FOR SURE.
Hi, I made some changes to the push notification settings and I could not believe the difference it makes. I turned off email and Facebook push notifications and now my battery lasts two days with out charging. After 12 hours it still had 90% battery life left compared to 30% left after 3 hours the other day. I am now very happy with the phone, no problems any more. Jeff
38 Hours, what a joke!!! I get 4 1/2 hours TOPS out of my iPhone 4 using mobile Facebook and eBuddy Mesenger steady, from full charge to nothing!!! 38 hours my A$$!!!!
My battery life is horrible, on my new iPhone 4! I could get a full days worth, if I only use it for calls. Yet, the iPhone is not only made for calling, and running a few games, drains the battery within 3-4 hours tops!
I just stumbled apron this, seeing if there were any tweaks, that increase the battery life of the phone.
Engadget, and the others, are simply advertisers! They are paid to lie, Period!
Hmm, I used my HTC Hero much, but it lasts up to 7 days without problems. :)
I have gotten to past 38 hours once on a single charge. That was when I was calibrating the battery (the percentage). Total I got from it was 1 Day 18 hours. Yep that’s 42 hours of usage. I was surprised to see how well the iphone 4 battery lasted.
And I have the Best Battery for the iphone in the world.
I’ve been getting 3 days out of my iPhone 4- I’d say that’s pretty damn good when compared to my 3G!
this is just apple fanboy crap. the iphone sucks.
In order for you to maximize the use of your battery, once you get it from the store, drain your battery to the fullest then charge it to the fullest. Full discharge then full charge, do this cycle five times and your battery will give you more. Just remember when charging, turn off your phone.
@ Hippy Hop,
what you say is correct, but if you get it from the store, charge it to full first and then drain it.
Okay to what Engadget says,
is it 38 hours of standby time or just pure usage? Because if it’s standby time then it’s understandable, but 38 hours of just pure usage is just pure Bullsh!t. No iphone 4 can last that long on usage with bluetooth on, gaming, texting, push, etc.
Engadget = lie, fail
Omg! Right full charge before bed! Woke up and phone battery is dead!!! WTF and this has happened 3 days in a row unless some ghost has been using my phone whilst I been asleep!! Someone please help ! I am fed up of the iPhone 4 batteryyyyy
They come, 100% charged, right out of the box! My recommendation is to hook up the phone. Activate it, then let the battery drain to 5-10%. Or, just down enough, were it will just lock you out until it’s ready to use…
Now, everyday you should let the battery down fully, and charge.
In all honesty though… In my opinion, I don’t let this bother me, and just plug it in at bedtime, even with 20% or more.
Tips:
1) Put the brightness to 50-60%.
2) Turn Off Bluetooth, till you need it!
3) Turn your Vibrate off, and just answer by sound
4) Also, Notification sounds as well.
5) Turn your speaker down to a level that is not so loud, but at comfortable level.
6) If you never use WiFi, while your out, then turn off WiFi.
7) If you want to keep your WiFi, so that you can start receiving from home or work… But, never connect to others networks, then turn (OFF – Ask to Join Networks). So, the phone is not actively searching, and asking, if you would like to join 1,2,3+ 20 networks!
8) Keep the Gaming low / Less Graphically battery draining games. Play solitary….
9) Stay up to date, with all new Apple Updates, that improve some aspects of the phone, that will give you a bit more juice. Hopefully!
I hoped this helped guys!
All I can think of, at the moment.
Take Care!
-BeersYourFriend
So I’m on my 2nd iPhone 4 – sent the 1st one back coz I thought there must me something wrong with the battery…. but the new one is no better. I use all the features of the device – so I think it’s pointless and time consuming turning them on and off again. If Apple provides a phone with these features – then the unit should be able to support them without relentless batt saving work arounds. I do keep bluetooth turned off on the whole though…. anyway… I want an iPhone that is 50% fatter and 50% better at staying on. I would happy to sacrifice the size of the unit for the practicality of the battery life. It really isn’t good – I am charging mine 2 times a day on average. I regularly obey the lifecycle thing of the battery and I live in a high 3G strength area etc. I bought a Mophie Juicepak case that charges the phone whilst you are out and about…. good investment! I also have a Power Monkey…. end up using this a lot on the train / plane etc. I love iPhone – it’s just really rubbish battery – IMO worse than the 3Gs. With a life of a 1980s phone, I really would mind if it were a larger device… can’t see Apple ever doing this of course. Summary – the iPhone 4 (almost secretly – with what appears to be the media in cohorts) has not solved the 3Gs’ legacy biggest failing.
An update on my previous post. Like I say, I do resent turning off features that I use just to help the phone last longer. However, I did go on a crusade trying to locate the main culprit. A few red herrings along the way: firstly I can’t see how turning off wifi helps since the phone will work hard to get its data down the 3G pipe instead. Perhaps there is a small power difference between technologies. Wifi is faster than 3G normally so I would stick with that. The other misnomer is that multi-tasking apps runs the battery down. Not sure there is much truth in this since Apple have spent a lot of time with designing their “faux multitask” system of pausing apps rather than background running.
The best workaround for me is turning off push mail. I have three mail accounts (one of them is an exchange) and my phone is always pinging with new mails all day long. I only read these when I have a spare min or two during the day. When I’m out and about this would be more often than when I’m not. What I’m saying is it really is less of a sacrifice to turn off push mail than I thought. Give it a try first before you bother with the other workarounds. My findings are that it was a real drainer compared to the other ideas people have suggested. I now get a longer lasting phone on one charge and I still read my emails whenever I want as every time I access the email app it updates my inbox. Makes sense? Well it does for me. All the best!
I have to agree with you. I use most of the features and have a corporate account so need them all, and the battery life is not good! These are workarounds Apple should have thought of. Basically they are saying, ‘Hey, we have great battery life, just don’t use the phone’…..hmmmm…. so reminiscient of a previous problem with the phone, rememebr………when Steve said, ‘Well, just don’t hold it like that’! Come on Apple!!
38 hrs my ass,Im in a 3G area and Im lucky if it last 8 hrs,whomever posted this is a idiot
My iPhone 4 battery life is awful. I’m a techie, so I know to shut down background apps, the battery just runs down really quick. I could possibly have a faulty phone.
Absolute Bull! My iPhone4 battery doesn’t last more than 18 hours. Use it for accessing the internet through Wifi or GPRS and tell me if it lasts for 38 hours!
I have to recharge my phone twice daily
The article cannot be true. I just got my iphone 4 few days ago and the battery life is poor. without extensive usage, my battery is drained by afternoon. I charge it fully overnight when i got the phone.
read a lot of posts and this helped considerably for me:
- bought BatteryDoctor to (trickle) charge battery cycles
- bought system activity memory, which frees memory (!)
- switch off most settings, especially 3G and WIFI
- close all running applications at night
I just got my iphone 4 on Monday(Sept 30) but the battery does last that long as people are talking here. It only last for 12 hours with a little use ( 2~3 calls and little bit browsing). Is that normal? Please comment. Thanks.
How is it possible that you get your iphone 4 on Monday sept. 30th? When the 30th is on Thursday?
My battery life is shit and not great-going to have the battery checked
My iPhone 4′s battery life was good for about a month. I would say it lasted a few days on a full charge. I used to charge it whenever the battery was low. However, after one month or so – I accidentally left my charger at work over a weekend and the cell battery drained completely. After that, the battery will only stay charged for a few hours and I have to charge it every night to keep it alive even after turning off wi-fi and using the other power-saving techniques I found online.
I phone is two weeks old but battery seems very bad. Without any use it drains to half battery in about 12 hrs. Is that normal? I was warned to stay away from this phone the apps don’t seem worth it. Now I have to live with it for a three year contract :-(
My iPhone 4 battery sucks… Battery life is poor and the battery is drained after relatively light use, what can I do? :(
My iPhone 4 battery sucks… Battery life is poor and the battery is drained after relatively light use, what can I do? :(
After being a blackberry user for almost 10 years, I begrudgingly went to the iphone. I gotta tell you i’m very impressed, but not with the battery life.
It sucks, i don’t know where they got the 38 hours shtick, but they still need to get this corrected. my bold lasted a long time, even with both my bluetooth and Wifi turned on, and I never used sound on the phone, so that’s bogus……but, all bitching aside, the Iphone is still an ultra cool device for sure.
iPhone 4 battery life 10 hours max!!!!!!
my battery for my iphone 4 is great. Here are my settings:
Wifi is only on when I’m at college, during class I put my phone on airplane mode as there is no need to receive calls,text during class.
Push is off
Notification is off,
Bluetooth is off (I never use bluetooth, as it’s not healthy for you when you use the bluetooth headset),
Fetch manually
brightness 20%-30% yes I can still see
With the vibrate switch turned off (no orange mark), I have the vibrate turned off so only the ringer (definitely saves battery life, you don’t want your phone to ring and vibrate at the same time).
With this setting, my phone can go 2 days on standby, with 6 hours of usage. Which is pretty good.
Here are some advice:
If you have battery drain problems, then try this:
Delete your mail account on your iphone, as it has been reported that deleting your mail account and re-adding your e-mail account resolves the battery drainage.
If that did not help try this,
connect to itunes, back up your iphone, also if you have that diagnostic pop up where if you went to send your diagnostic to apple, click on disagree as this can be part and by clicking diagree, the info will not be sent and saves battery life. (If you don’t get the message pop up, right click on your iphone logo on your left, then reset warning).
Then Restore your iphone to it’s factory settings with the lastest firmware, then restore from back up, see if this help. After that disconnect your iphone, and do a hard reset (hold your home button and the sleep/wake button until the apple logo appears (ignore the red slider)).
If that does not help,
Do a restore, but this time set it as “New”
From here you will have to manually put everything on again.
If this does not help then your last resort is to put your phone in DFU mode, (if you don’t know what that is google that up as it’s fairly simple to put it in dfu mode, and it explains you how to put it in dfu mode). Once you put it into dfu mode, click on Restore and your iphone will be installing a fresh clean install of the lastest firmware. once that’s done, then restore from back up and see if that helps. Sometimes putting in dfu mode and restoring from there helps. As this helps for me.
My iphone 4 has turned off yesterday and i tried to call and its ringing. Phone was charged since last night until this morning but still I cannot turned on. What is the problem? All notifications are on and always wifi on. Please advise, im worried with my iphone.
Hmm..some interesting and handy tips for saving the battery life…BUT
1. Turn Off WIFI….hmm…what the use of WIFI if you kep it off…
2. Turn Push Email OFF….. it kills the whole purpose of having push email services….from Mobile ME.
3. GPRS OFF. we dont get wifi 24 hours when we are on the move…so all the time we are looking at WIFI SPOTs and turning on GPRS…not recommended…keep both on.
I keep all the things on and am getting good life out of it. Just make sure you put the mobile on charge at night before sleeping and you have no worries all day for recharging.
well to be honest i had an i phone 3gs 16gb white and now have an i phone 4 16gb black and the battery life is exceptional compared to the 3gs on my 3gs i used to fully charge every night and with medium usage it was dead by 5-6pm and my iphone 4 i chage fully on a night and by 10pm its still 45% and with heavy usage still about 20% so all in all im not complaining lol
and my setup is manual email etc location on wi fi on 3g on and screen brightness of about 60% and my software is ios4.1
oh and apparently ive just found out through research online and if you charge through the usb cble which i do plugged into the laptop or pc it charges slower i.e trickle charge the battery should last longer. also if you charge with the phone turned off apparently it charges even slower giving even more battery life. but if you want to charge fast plug it into the mains
Battery life is ok 2days……….
I perfectly love my iPhone4 too, but im also having problem with the battery life… At first i really thought i got a deffective unit until i read all your comments. It doesn’t matter, or does it?
Please advise my iphone 4 is still switched off though i charged the whole night until today morning. Its ringing although it s off. Whats the problem? all emails, chat notifications are on. I need to be enlightened because i am worried.thanks
I just registered to add my humble input: My battery life wasnt good either… I would have to charge it twice a day. I noticed that if you leave the applications running on the background, they do consume a lot of battery power. Since then… my batt has improved quite something. But not as good as the thing here claims it lasts. I will buy moophie and all that crap to keep it running. Right now, a daily charge is doing its job. But to charge the phone twice a day is, frankly, a very poor desing.
It is one of the best phone brand in the world of the mobile handsets and iphone is just different than all. I really favour in the iphone and hence I heard of the battery life I really surprised to know that and looking to owe it.
Debts
Janice answer to Ur question is I had the same problem it went off the screen was black but the phone was ringing and all I went to a shop to fix this he just plug my phone to iTunes and pressed the power on button and it was on I asked the problem he said the iPhone sometime goes to automatic standby or restore mode so if u got iTunes on desktop plugit and press the power button hope that solves Ur prob
Peace
my first day with iPhone 4..fully charged battery..activated in the morning about 10AM..had to use it heavily to set it up to my comfort level.guess what..Battery didn’t even last for 12 hours!! again have put it in charging..who says 38 hours???!!!
I phone is like a notebook. Please do not expect so much from just a pda phone. Notebook battery life only lastl maximum 2 hours so do I phone? I phone 4 now can last more than 2 hours it is a pretty good news to everyone learn to be grateful :)
I’ve had the iPhone 4 for just over a week now. I rarely use the phone from 7:30am to 6:30pm while I’m at work. In that time my batt % drops to about 50-60%. I wasn’t sure if this was normal but reading everyones comments on here I guess I’m SOL! Other than the battery issue I can’t complain, it’s a great phone!
yea um I’m really getting tired and irritated with the iPhone now! My battery use to tell me when it needed to be charged (red zone) and now it doesn’t even go down that far. IT JUST SHUTS RIGHT OFF WHEN IT STILL SAYS HALF A BATTERY LEFT!!! Then I plug it in and it hits the red zone!! and sometimes when I plug it in to charge it, it says full battery again?????? MY PHONE DOESN’T EVEN ALERT ME ANYMORE WHEN IT NEEDS TO BE CHARGED. THE BATTERY IS NOT WORKING THE WAY IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE. It use to hit the red zone but now it doesn’t even do that. So now I have no idea when my phone needs to be charged because I don’t EVER know when my battery is low. IT JUST SHUTS OFF!! THE CREATERS OF THE IPHONE NEED TO FIX THE ISSUE BECAUSE I’M REALLY GETTING TO THE POINT WHERE I DONT WANT AN IPHONE ANYMORE. IT’S GETTING RIDICULOUS
I have yet to have a problem with my iPhone although I do see a bit of difference with and without Bluetooth. Most functions of as to having push notifications off. Brightness at 100 ringer with vibrate. Wifi on and on 3G all the time. I would get 17 hours with Bluetooth with light use. I would get 1 day and 32 minutes with Bluetooth off at %23 percent to go. I charged it at that cuz my iPhone is mu alarm clock. So it’s possible to get a decent life out of the iPhone 4 with iOS 4.2 here.
I can only agree, battery life has turned-out to be very poor – even with negligible use!
If there really IS such a thing as Global Warming, then certainly we iPhone 4 users’ must be contributing hugely… en masse?
Aided and abetted by Apple’s suspect claims, methinks..?
On this subject – I wonder if anyone has worked-out how many mobile phones the ‘average’ wind turbine is able to charge over an average day…
My first iPhone 4 battery was poo but I returned it and my new one gets me 10 hours usage and about a day and a half standby… I have wifi and 3G on and notifications on for whatsapp also my brightness is 40% I love my phone :-)
My iPhone lasted 4 days with heavy usage ! I used 3G and wifi these 4 days I also played my favourite game football manager throughout the day
I am currently at 17% on the battery meter. I have had 27hrs of standby and 6 1/2 hrs usage since last charge. I find if I run my battery down below 20% my battery life just gets better and better. This is with 15 programs running in background and 20 running for last 5hrs.
I just got my iPhone 4 yesterday. I charged it fully last night and began this morning at 6AM and by 1030AM (only 4.5 hours) I got a warning that my phone only had 10% battery life left! I’m really disapointed. As I did not bring my charger with me because I never ran out of battery life w/ my Blackberry (I could go days w/out charging). I dont think that doing anything differently in such a sort ammount of time would conserve my battery… Ill be going to Verizon when I get off and demanding a new phone :(
I pre-ordered My IPhone on Feburary 3rd. I received it on Feburary 10th. My phone company is Verizon. Since I’ve had this phone I can honestly say I will never change it. I went on the web & researched ways to conserve battery power. I never use Bluetooth, I turned off vibrate, I chose manual push notifications, I set the brightness to 30% at best, wifi is always set to off & I use my phone on an average 6 hrs + daily. With these settings & 12+ standby time I have to charge once a day. I haven’t one complaint. My Droid didn’t last a half hour with a full charge.
I dont know about 38 hours. Never had it because I’m a heavy user and I do a lot of travelling. Sometimes I cannot get enough charge and no place is available to charge my Iphone. Thinking about buying an extended battery for it. http://www.mugen-power-batteries.com/apple/iphone-4.html
These dudes have 1500mAh and 3000mAh for iPhone4. Probably won’t have any energy issues. Any one tried it?
I am a real estate agent and depend on my phone for work. I am having to charge my battery 3 times a day. Impossible sometimes when I am at inspections etc. I have just turned off alerts on the advice from above, so I will see how it goes now. It is very frustrating, to say the least!!!
I have had my iphone4 for one month. Greatest electronic device I have ever touched!
I charge it every third night!
Don’t talk that much, only a few calls a day, but spend hours on the net, mostly WIFI.
I had a blackberry 8830. Charged every night and often was in trouble by 9:00 PM the next day. I do significantly more on the web with the iPhone. Seldom did mail on the blackberry, it was slow and awkward. The iPhone 4 is a breeze – I am way more productive, in the mail box hourly!
Unless there is some wide variety in battery life, my iPhone in medium use, always goes at least 38 hours on a charge, and usually 72 hours with music from pandora, and watching TV news channels during the day.
So if your iPhone is not making it through the day, I would exchange it.
Just switched from a DroidPro to the Verizon iPhone 4. Not seeing any difficulties with battery life. I was charging 2-3 times a DAY, with heavy use. Im now charging every night and lasting into the next day, sometimes well into afternoon. Its a phone, youre using it, the battery will not last forever. Be happy with the incredible (by comparison) battery life the iPhone comes with! Would you rather be attached to the wall all day with a Droid?
I’m not sure where anyone gets even 38hours from, but my iPhone 4 after having it for no more than 4 months has very fast started loosing power, even while it’s been in my pocket with all the power draining accessories off and yes the wifi too… Not cool!!
The day i put it on test,my battery was gone in 3hrs 39mins.the battery dont last that long.
I got my iPhone 4 about 5 days ago. This is coming from an iPhone 3G….the 3G was a few years old so the battery was more the likely worn…I had to charge it at LEAST twice a day, i didn’t play many games on it, but I did game some, used alot of FaceBook and apps that acquired GPS signal. Surfed the web on it a good bit and listened to music often 2-3 hours at a time. Often using the Line2 app (VOIP calling) would take the battery down to 30-36% from a full charge in just 45-60 minutes! But the iPhone 4 on the other hand has been MUCH better, I use it just as much (actually a little more since I am playing with the apps that take advantage of Augmented Reality) and hour long phone calls on Line2 app barely show any use! i’ve had this phone running for 22 hours now and still showing 55% battery! using that measurement I should get close to 50 hours! I have Wifi & 3G on, 5 email accounts and Location services on. Just no bluetooth, brightness is about 60% or so. I do not make that many phone calls (like 5 a week or something is all, but I use Yahoo messenger and text a good bit)
since November when I got my phone the battery life has been a disappointment. I turn my brightness down low, take off all unused apps,turn wifi off, all the stuff they tell me and the battery just drains really bad. If I don’t use it after 2 min it locks up to conserve my battery. I just came back from the Apple store and the man there told me that the 8 hrs or so I get of battery power is good. My jaw dropped!!!! I told him I should not have to charge it before I leave work to be able to use it the rest of the day. I carry around a wall charger and a battery pack (iwalk) just in case. He said if it continues to just bring it back this is after he factory restored it yet this is my 2nd time back there since I got it
OK ok! I have my new iPhone4 for 4 days now, the excisiting turns to worrying. I need to charge it about every 12 hours if I use the iPhone’features’. I care about the good looking, I care about the smart and powerful features, I care about the brand quality, and I also care about the battery life! Let’s be honest, without battery, all the good points above are pointless. You cant to anything with no battery. You can’t go Wi-fi, internet; you can’t take photos; you can’t Face-talk; you Can’t play games! Face it, Apple, and solve it before all your competitors catch up!
Charged mine to 100% before I went to bed last night. Woke up and its dead. Sure does sound like I got a defective unit.