Apple iOS 7 ridiculous battery drain on iPhone 4S

Costello

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Hi guys,

Not sure GBAtemp is the best place to post this but I don't really want to sign up to another forum to ask this. Maybe someone here has a clue.

I decided I'd try out iOS 7 on my iPhone 4S, having an Apple developer account and all.
Downloaded beta 5 last week and installed it. I did a clean install, didn't even restore a previous backup, wanted to start all anew and download apps from scratch.

I immediately had issues with the battery. Within 2 hours outside of my home (yes I do go outside sometimes) the battery was down to 1% and then the phone shut down rapidly. Not only that: the phone was overly hot too. I looked up the symptoms online and found this, among a lot of other articles: http://www.phonesreview.co.uk/2013/07/09/iphone-4s-issues-on-ios-7-beta-3-hot-and-battery-drain/ this one seems to best describe what is happening.

I looked up online for some tips which I tried, to no avail; the battery was still being drained crazy fast. So I disappointingly uninstalled ios 7 and went back to version 6.1.3 which I had previously.

A few days later, I learnt that ios 7 beta 6 had come out. Thought I'd give it a try again. This time I went full bastard on the settings and disabled nearly everything I could, following recommendations from tutorials online. Well still no luck -- I've just made the quick math, my phone battery went from a strong 100% to 90% in 55 minutes *in standby mode with no apps running in the background*. Which means my phone will last just 9 hours if I don't use it at all, in standby mode. It's not hot anymore but I can feel it's not completely cold either.

Since beta 6 is expected to be the final one I'm a bit apprehensive concerning what's going to happen next. What's wrong with my phone?

Costello
 

Issac

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I think it seems like the Apple batteries lose some juice pretty quickly when they've been used for a while. How long have you had your 4S? (I have a friend who bought a iPhone 5 around release, and now the battery is really bad).
Maybe that may have something to do with you not being able to fix the problem?

This is just me guessing, I hope I would have something more concrete.
 

Arras

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Didn't certain earlier iOS versions have this issue as well? Maybe wait for 7.1/7.0.1 and see if that fixes it. If it's a somewhat common problem it'll most likely be fixed eventually.
 

Vengenceonu

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the thing is, some people are saying they managed to fix the problem.
why not me? :(

I find this funny since this is the type of problem we come to you for. I will relish the "king of the jungle's" plight.

In all seriousness, When did you get your Iphone 4? I've noticed on my ipod 4th gen that the total battery power seems to decrease with time passed. A full charge today would only be half as long as it was 2 years ago when i got it. And i didnt even jailbreak it.

As you've said yourself, some have managed to fix the problem so it's most likely just a bug that will be fixed within the first week or 2 of release or else the Apple community will go rampant. (I.e. Apple maps)
 

Costello

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well the battery's fine on iOS 6 so I don't think it's because it's old or anything, I bought it less than two years ago IIRC.
 

Nathan Drake

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I'd simply label this as iOS 7 just not being optimized for the iPhone 4s. It shouldn't be surprising. Tech moves fast these days, and the software moves just as quickly to keep it working the best it can. It may seem like two years shouldn't make a major difference, but if your phone simply isn't made to handle what the OS is trying to do and it butchers your battery life, odds are, you just aren't going to be able to use it.

I wouldn't peg this as simply a beta problem either. Odds are, if it has been a static issue from release to release, it won't be going away in the final build. From Apple's perspective, there isn't much reason to try to fix a new OS version made for newer hardware to work on older hardware. If anything, you'll hurt your initial goal to try to meet a new one that you don't really have to.
 

Costello

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I'd simply label this as iOS 7 just not being optimized for the iPhone 4s. It shouldn't be surprising. Tech moves fast these days, and the software moves just as quickly to keep it working the best it can. It may seem like two years shouldn't make a major difference, but if your phone simply isn't made to handle what the OS is trying to do and it butchers your battery life, odds are, you just aren't going to be able to use it.

I wouldn't peg this as simply a beta problem either. Odds are, if it has been a static issue from release to release, it won't be going away in the final build. From Apple's perspective, there isn't much reason to try to fix a new OS version made for newer hardware to work on older hardware. If anything, you'll hurt your initial goal to try to meet a new one that you don't really have to.

so if we follow your logic, it's perfectly normal that iOS 7 drains battery faster on the iPhone 4S, but it doesn't drain the battery faster on the iPhone 5 ? how do you explain that? I don't think that's how it works... if iOS 7 really required this much more power, it would also drain the iPhone 5 battery faster. Besides a simple UI change wouldn't revolutionize battery usage, remember it's just a simplified version with less glossy. Everything's flat now, with simple fonts.

However I am willing to believe that Apple would intentionally cause iOS 7 to perform terribly bad on an older device. This sounds like the kind of stunts that they would pull... just another way to make their own devices obsolete, what with newer features not being available on old phones etc.
 

chris888222

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Pro-tip: every new iOS update for older iPhones makes the phone worse since it's not properly optimized and requires more power and energy drain, unlike android.
The problem is that many of current Apple's devices uses A5-ish chips, same as those on the 4S minus the smaller die area. The iPad mini and iPod Touch 5th Gen all use A5ish processors and 512MB RAM. If iOS 7 runs bad on the 4S, it probably will be about the same with these "new" devices.

I ran my 4S on beta 1 and the battery drain was horrendous. I switched back to iOS 6 after a day. With the release of beta 3 I tried installing it on my iPhone 5. Really good. I haven't tested it out on the 4S and I don't intend to either, but I've seen local forums and they said that beta 5/6 runs quite well on the 4S, minus some obvious slowdowns. I'm not sure how true is that, but the 4S should be able to run iOS 7 with minimal problems due to the reason stated above.

The only device which probably has the largest problem of running iOS 7 is iPhone 4, the only supported device with the A4 chip. Still, you'll never know if Apple did it deliberately to make iOS 7 suck on the 4S, so that you will upgrade to a newer 5S/C/whatever.

EDIT: I'm not sure if this helps but
http://www.tekrieg.com/news/ios-7-iphone-4s/1001333/


However I am willing to believe that Apple would intentionally cause iOS 7 to perform terribly bad on an older device. This sounds like the kind of stunts that they would pull... just another way to make their own devices obsolete, what with newer features not being available on old phones etc.
The only "killer" feature that the iPhone 4S will not have is AirDrop. That's partly because it doesn't have 5GHz 802.11n Wi-Fi support, but Apple could still have brought it to the device.

Apart from AirDrop, iPhone 4S pretty much still has everything.
 

Nathan Drake

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This may be worth mentioning, but the iPhone 5 is definitely different enough from the 4S (a different chip, more RAM, a stronger CPU, etc.) that optimizations that work best on it may not work so hot on the iPhone 4S. It's certainly something to consider. On the outside, the phones may not be so different, but from what I can tell, the iPhone 5 was a pretty significant leap in terms of the iPhone to a degree that I could easily see a new OS not running so hot on an older model. Even if you argue that the chips are similar, it doesn't change that ultimately, they are different and things won't work exactly the same.

As well, if this OS is being more optimized for the next iPhone (which is rumored to be announced next month), which means even better tech than the iPhone 5, then it would be even less surprising that moves they made to make it work better on the newer tech work as a detriment on older hardware. After all, iOS 7 being in beta still certainly supports the idea.

Edit: I guess, to be more clear, don't be surprised that technology that changes as often as smart phones do isn't continually supportive of the newest and best software. I doubt Apple is trying to jeopardize 4S users. It's likely that iOS 7 simply isn't made for it. It's kind of like, I can put newer versions of Android on my Droid X, but going beyond Gingerbread means taking all the problems that come with using an OS version that wasn't made to be compatible with my device. That includes increased battery drain, on top of many other problems. Sometimes you just have to be content with where you're essentially stuck.
 

chris888222

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Edit: I guess, to be more clear, don't be surprised that technology that changes as often as smart phones do isn't continually supportive of the newest and best software. I doubt Apple is trying to jeopardize 4S users. It's likely that iOS 7 simply isn't made for it. It's kind of like, I can put newer versions of Android on my Droid X, but going beyond Gingerbread means taking all the problems that come with using an OS version that wasn't made to be compatible with my device. That includes increased battery drain, on top of many other problems. Sometimes you just have to be content with where you're essentially stuck.
I did consider this, but if this was true, then iOS 7 won't be made for "still-new" Apple devices (iPad mini, iPod Touch) which have very similar specs compared to the iPhone 4S.

To show if Apple is trying to jeopardize, the easiest way is to compare iOS 7 running on iPad 2 and iPad mini in terms of battery and 'smoothness'. Both devices have the same resolution, same chip (2nd rev iPad 2s have 32nm A5s, just like the mini) and 512MB RAM. Just that one device is over 2+ years old and the other not less than a year.
 

Costello

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I've restored my iPhone to iOS 6.1.3 as it was before, and now I'm getting all sorts of shitty problems!! gahhhhh

1) after restoring I connected to my wifi network... to my surprise it sucked up all the data plan, it used 525 MBytes within a few hours.. I quickly got a message from my operator telling me my plan's data was depleted. Great ! that's a good $15, well-wasted

2) the phone won't activate iMessage anymore, I've tried shittons of "tutorials" and tips on the internet, but to no avail. The imessage configuration window is stuck to "Waiting for activation..."

3) when I get a message or a phone call, it won't recognize the sender, it just displays the phone number. I've checked tons of tips and shit, nope, it really won't!

I am getting seriously annoyed at all those shitty bugs. I guess I'll have to wait for iOS 7 final, but then I hope they'll fix the damn battery issue.
 

chris888222

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I've restored my iPhone to iOS 6.1.3 as it was before, and now I'm getting all sorts of shitty problems!! gahhhhh

1) after restoring I connected to my wifi network... to my surprise it sucked up all the data plan, it used 525 MBytes within a few hours.. I quickly got a message from my operator telling me my plan's data was depleted. Great ! that's a good $15, well-wasted

2) the phone won't activate iMessage anymore, I've tried shittons of "tutorials" and tips on the internet, but to no avail. The imessage configuration window is stuck to "Waiting for activation..."

3) when I get a message or a phone call, it won't recognize the sender, it just displays the phone number. I've checked tons of tips and shit, nope, it really won't!

I am getting seriously annoyed at all those shitty bugs. I guess I'll have to wait for iOS 7 final, but then I hope they'll fix the damn battery issue.
Costy, did you put your phone into DFU mode? Or did you just restore it as it is?
 

Costello

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Costy, did you put your phone into DFU mode? Or did you just restore it as it is?

Yeah, I did a normal restore this time, not DFU. Then I restored a backup I made from the iOS 6 I freshly started two days ago after downgrading from beta 5.
Does that make that much of a difference?

I think I'll just put it in DFU mode, restore ios 6, and start afresh once again (grmmmhhmbm).
 

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