iPhone OS 3.0 Battery Life: Mixed Responses
If you were like the 1 million+ (in 3 days!) who purchased the new iPhone 3GS, one of the biggest and noticeable upgrades you enjoyed was the increased processing speed and battery life. However, if you were like myself and millions of other 3GS users who just couldn’t justify the HUP (darn Rogers and their plans), then you probably settled with the OS 3.0 update.
I found some of the biggest consolation prizes in landscape texting and the spotlight / search function. But with the upgrade, I found my battery draining at almost double the rate. I used to be able to go at least 2 days with regular usage on a single charge. But since the upgrade, I’m finding my battery draining within 12 hours – even keeping it on mostly standby will last only about 24 hours.
Now Apple is usually pretty good with Customer Relations – their reps are polite, helpful and considerate (on the most part). But amid increased reports of poor battery life, it seems there are rumors of an Apple software that will monitor battery usage. If this is true, this little package will keep a log of your battery levels and the consumption each application/function consumes, thus helping Apple narrow the problem down.
A more practical guy, I dug around to see what I could find. Some users tried turning off notifications or wifi while otherwise turned off Push and chose to use Fetch for less frequently. (Desperate, I even turned my brightness down!) Clayton Lai from theAppleBlog suggests that Push Mail setting, may in fact be the culprit at hand and gives us several steps to try and fix the problem.
1) On the Home Screen, tap into Settings
2) Select Mail, Contacts, Calendars
3) Select Fetch New Data and turn off Push (This method turns off Push for all your mail accounts, while preserving Fetch)
4) Do a soft reset of your phone by holding down the Sleep button and the Home button simultaenously until the red slider prompts you to turn your phone off
Though this method has mixed reviews (some have even reported increased battery life, though this doesn’t make sense to me, with the increase in memory processing), some other things that are being suggested on this matter include:
1) Backing up and then reinstalling OS 3.0 (or try running it on factory settings for one day)
2) Doing a hard reset (same procedure as soft reset but keep holding until Apple logo comes on)
3) Draining battery fully and then charging it to full, all on stand-by. As of yet, I haven’t found a perfect “be all, end all” fix, but I’m open to ideas. If this continues, I’m clicking here. What about you? What are you experiencing with your iPhone and what information do you have on it?
Clayton Lai on Battery Saving Tips via [theAppleBlog]
Battery Logging via [iClarified]
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