Of course, every device will have some battery issues, this is not a new subject, after all we have been dealing with this same situation with laptops for years now. However battery life, or the lack off has really touched a nerve with iPhone and iPhone 3G owners recently.
Personally my battery life is not what I had hoped for, but I seem to not be following any of the battery saving tricks that Apple has given out. As a whole this does strike me as a little funny though, Apple has stated that;
“Depending on how they are configured, a few features may decrease your iPhone battery life.”
Well of course, that makes sense, its simple the more you use something the more you will drain the battery, however their suggestions seem to say that in order to get the maximum battery life from your iPhone, then you should turn off all services and just use it as an iPod.
Here is a nice list of twelve battery saving ideas, courtesy of Apple:
- Turn off 3G
- Minimize use of location services
- Fetch new data less frequently
- Turn off push mail
- Auto-check fewer email accounts
- Minimize use of third-party applications
- Turn off Wi-Fi
- Turn off Bluetooth
- Use Airplane Mode in low- or no-coverage areas
- Adjust brightness
- Turn off EQ
- Lock Your iPhone
To offer a little more serious look at this though, some of these really do make sense, after all as we have found lots of us who own an iPhone 3G do not live in a 3G coverage area, that makes perfect sense to turn off.
The same goes for Bluetooth, as nice as I think it is, and as much as more people should use it, especially when driving, its something that goes unused quite a bit.
The item that I have issue with is turning off the location services, because after all that is one of the main features, but I suppose its not hard to switch that back on in the settings when I need to, because after all I am not using Google Maps on a regular basis.
Some additional advice, this time to preserve the overall battery life is to make “sure to go through at least one charge cycle per month,” which judging how quickly and easily it is to drain the battery should not be hard.
So how does everyone feel about their 3G enabled and GPS equipped iPhone now that you have to constantly turn these features on and off just to be able to make it through a day of use?
[Apple]
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July 24th, 2008 at 11:51 am
the problem with turning off location services is that when you use it on google maps or your camera (for geo-tagging your photos) it stays on. It should have a temporarily on option.
July 24th, 2008 at 11:52 am
You can turn off location based services under settings. Then before any app needs to use it will ask if you want to use your location. If you say OK it will automatically turn on location based services. You will need to turn it off after as it leaves it on. As for maps you can simply push the find me button lower left corner of the map and it will turn on GPS.
The location based services makes a big difference for me on battery life.
July 24th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
This is unfortunate, but wouldn’t be such a pain if there were an app button that took one to a single screen that had controls to toggle *all* these power-draining options (location services, Bluetooth, WiFi, etc.) — or if there were toggle buttons for these features. And as jaydubya wrote, there should be an option for location services to return to “off” when one closes a location-aware application.
July 24th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Why don’t they (Apple) just suggest turning it off?!?
July 25th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
I would really like shortcuts from the home screen directly to wifi and bluetooth on/off settings. Or even cooler, single button activated profile settings (office, car, etc.) that manage those options.
August 12th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
I would LOVE to see a new battery that can be installed out in the field. I believe they gave us a crappy battery so they could upgrade it!
August 12th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
this battery issue makes this phone not count-ok-able! what if your at an airport and no charging stations are available?????
August 14th, 2008 at 4:11 am
why dont they develop an app that let you choose different profiles? you could have a battery saving profile an office one with no ringtone and so on…anyone up to the challenge?
September 15th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
As far as I’ve read and researched in regards to the power profiles, Apple won’t allow an application to adjust any existing settings. Therefore, no go on the profiles; bummer.
October 21st, 2008 at 6:46 pm
This is my third iPhone within 1 year. My first one the battery life was 2 and a half hours. Second one I had no sound unless I used the headset. And now my third one my battery again, now it’s lasting 3 and a half hours. I love my phone but getting frustrated with all the problems.
November 24th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
I’ve had my original (non-3G) iPhone for 16 months and never had a battery problem until recently. The recent change was an “upgrade” of the op-system to 2.1. I’ll be “upgrading” to 2.2 tonight and HOPE they “fixed” something they won’t admit.
December 5th, 2008 at 10:48 am
So, in other words….. use your fabulous Intelligent Phone, just to talk. Turn the rest of the features OFF. How nice!!!!!!!!
December 28th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Have to be quick as my battery is down to 5% and deep into the red.. Yes.. It is true and it sucks balls! Steve Jobs’s balls. Am a MAC user but this just blows. Going to carry a phone with me for when this POS dies on me (again!)
December 29th, 2008 at 4:04 am
This thing is a lot less intuitive than I thought…I don’t mean to play into the notion that Mac users are less technologically literate than their PC counterparts, but based on how user-friendly Apple products have always been, the iPhone’s features are…um…difficult to use.
January 2nd, 2009 at 8:58 pm
I agree with Jose Rivero… What good are the ‘premium’ features of the iPhone if you can only use them for a couple of hours before the battery fizzles out?
I’m disappointed with Apple for assuming that the consumer could merely be enticed by only ‘cool’ bells and whistles. It’s like buying an SUV that only gets 2 miles to the gallon.
January 3rd, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Jose hit it right on the ball–why spend several hundred dollars on a phone with all these cool features if you can’t even use them. The iPhone is fine for someone who is always near a place to charge it, but for someone who travels for business and would need it to check email frequently–this phone is completely useless. I had a Blackberry prior to this and I think I am going to return my iPhone and exchange it for a Blackberry.
February 14th, 2009 at 10:34 am
Just bgt a iphone 3G (2.21)
Battery drains to 20% (Red) after 5 hrs of Usage (As shown in the Usage Page). Everything is turned off including 3G. Mind you, this 5 hrs indicated is not call time but also includes all activities like sms etc.
I would say its very poor battery performance.
Discovered that the manufacturing date on the phone box is Aug 2008.
Tht means its a nearly 6 months old stock.
Could it be that the battery has been out of use for nearly 6 months??
April 6th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Battery drained halfway last night while it was locked on standby. So much for 300 hours of life on standby. It’s pretty stupid because I have to keep my charger on me everywhere I go so that I can give my phone some juice. The good thing is that I do find that it charges pretty quickly…
April 29th, 2009 at 1:27 am
The iPhone battery can only be described as pathetic. I think I’ll return it and go back to the kickass Nokia e71…
April 30th, 2009 at 11:03 am
Something gone terribly wrong when after the installation of a few dozen apps I can go to bed with a phone fully charged, then the next morning find the full charge is half way drained. How do I isolate which of these fool, juice sucking apps is the culprit
June 19th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
@Canadian D: Do you have poor AT&T coverage? The phone trying to stay connected in a poor coverage area can drain the battery…
July 9th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Bought the iphone 3GS 3 days ago and the battery life has been pretty pathetic. Today for the last 4 hours its on Airplane mode which i think turns off all phone and data connections. the battery has drained from 60% to 13%. Turning it off so i have some juice left for the ride home from work. Returning the phone unless apple tells me its a defective unit and replaces it.
July 25th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
I love my iPhone, but the battery life is pretty ridiculous.
July 29th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
guys what the hell is going on with the iphone battery. i bought an iphine 10 days back n it lasts for 15 hours asif it’s been used for the 5 recent years n begging for change n get retirement….
anyone has any solution for that as I cant imagine that a new phone n apple specially will be making such a headache for me.
August 2nd, 2009 at 5:07 pm
battery life it terrible. I have an ancient sony-erricson that has the original battery and I can charge it once a week! My high tech iphone has to be charged daily
August 2nd, 2009 at 8:15 pm
The battery life of my iPhone 3G is automatically consumed very fast, it is decreased from 4 days (standby) to 5 hours (standby) after update of OS version 3.0. In accordance with the tips of improvement of battery life, turn off the features of iPhone, it is incredible to an advance cell phone. The problems are from iPhone’s version 3.0 or later, the infrastructural design of iPhone, no warning advice before update version. If the users accept the tips, then iPhone will advice you to turn off the iPhone when later version is updated. It is a crazy illogical advice.
August 3rd, 2009 at 11:56 am
What a load of Shite!! Went to a concert, and was taking photos and video, and the phone died without warning! Just totally crapped out no warning at all! I am VERY disappointed with the problems of this phone and I upgraded to the 3.0.1 !!
August 25th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Just bought the 3gs yesterday and my battery is at 43% at 1:49pm. I turned off 3g and all the other recommended settings as suggested by Apple. This is very frustrating and I am about to take it back for a refund.
August 31st, 2009 at 4:28 pm
Do I hear a “Class Action Suit” eh? I had returned my new IPhone only 2 weeks after the new ones came out since they were cheaper. The old IPhone battery lasted several days of regular use. But the new phone’s battery is as mention in this thread. I think that they changed something in the new phones. However from this thread. I think that there may be some defective batteries out there!! Smells of a “Class Action Suil” – ANy lawyers out there?
September 5th, 2009 at 3:31 am
Live in France where the only battery saving options I use are to turn location and bluetooth off and I get one days worth of battery (2 days at best).
I went on holiday to the UK, turned off EDGE and 3G to save money and the battery life went up to 4 or 5 days.
To turn things on or off quickly, use SB settings, there’s nothing simpler.
September 6th, 2009 at 2:10 am
Hi Steve,are you reading all these?? Do you know that your iphone 3GS has a batt life issue? My phone’s batt life can deplete as much as 88% overnight and I’m left with a dead phone to begin with in the next morning. On days that I’m luckier, 18%! Usually, I HAVE to charge my phone twice a day! TWICE! Pls… have them recalland replace us with new rectified batt life iphones.
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November 3rd, 2009 at 5:52 pm
That was very helpfull. Thanks
January 27th, 2010 at 9:38 pm
apple,guys should suggest that if apple users want improve battrey life better not use iphone.just buy iphone turn it off and put it in your box or pocket whatever.why dont this guys trying to do something for iphone battrey?if we turn it off all the applications for iphone,then my quetion is why iphone made for?we cant play games,we cant use wifi we cant use music equilaser,becouse of battrey life.i think people stop to buy iphone.and go for new windows mobile,there is lot new featuers,and great battrey life. i think iam quiting iphone,iphone battrey make me sick.
February 18th, 2010 at 2:35 pm
I was experiencing the same 3gs battery power prolems as everyone else. I restored my iPhone as NEW and it has seemed to work so far. Beware though the all of your text messages, camera roll and voice memos will be erased. You can pull off your camera roll by using Microsoft's built in camera scanner driver and move them onto your computer. Hope this helps everyone!
April 14th, 2010 at 4:42 pm
hey thanks for the tip, another solution would be buying the newest version of the iphone the battery lasts much longer