iPhone 4S Battery Life

A quick search of the internet reveals no shortage of people expressing dismay with the battery life of their new iPhone 4S devices running iOS 5.  I too have joined the fray and expressed some frustrations with the lack of battery life of the 4S.

My iPhone 4 had tremendous battery life.  My typical iPhone day starts when I take it off my bed side charger between 7 and 8am and ends around midnight.  My iPhone 4 would typically be around 70% with normal usage at the end of the day.  The only times I really ran my batter down to the 30% range was when traveling and off WiFi and uploading a lot of pictures using spotty 3G service.  Otherwise the battery life was outstanding.

My 4S however is usually around 25% when I end a normal day - a huge drop in performance and no where near what Apple promised.  If I have any variables now to my normal daily schedule my battery buffer is only 25% before I run out of power.  

One of the things I've always held of my Android friends is that my iPhone battery lasted a long time and they all would agree the iPhone had the better battery, that is until the 4S.

I've invested fair bit of time trying to figure this out but have determined there isn't anything I can do.  I've experimented with all sorts of configurations and with no luck.  So here's what I suggest you do if you too have a 4S and the battery life is disappointing.

1. Stop wasting time on it.  Just use the phone and stop tweaking the settings in a futile attempt to resolve the problem.  There are too many variables and current evidence suggests it isn't your issue anyway.  You probably have it configured fine, just like you are probably holding it fine too.
2. You are not alone, if you do find someone who posts their 4S has the same battery performance as their old 4 did please let me know.
3. For most of us the battery does last the entire day and for me that lets me get my stuff done.  It is just frustrating that compared to what we had before the latest and greatest appears to be under performing.
4. Turning things off will eventually turn the iPhone into an iPod.  I'm going to use the phone and the features I bought it for and until this gets fixed keep a charger handy.
5. My iPad is also running iOS 5 and while it's battery life appears affected too it is not as great.  Typically I can get several hours of use out of my iPad on the previous iOS version and only drop around 15%.  Now I'm dropping around 30% but the iPad holds it battery life better when in standby then the iPhone does.

While I don't like this I intend to be patient and wait this one out, with a charger close by.  My guess is the engineers at Apple, who are much smarter than I am, will figure something out and resolve this problem soon enough for us all to go back to bragging to our Android friends that we again have superior battery life and superior devices.  Until then welcome to the bleeding edge of technology.

Live from my iPad...

It has been a while since I have posted here so I figured it was time to at least say something that was more than 140 characters. While I find Twitter easier due to the shortness of posts I know my loyal audience expects more on this blog.

This post is the first of its kind as I am writing and posting this entirely from my iPad. My iPad and entrance to the Apple world are posts in and of themselves but my point here is there is more to come and as always for the latest follow me on Twitter.

If there is anything wrong with this post, blame the iPad.

Are Bill & Steve fighting over me?

As you probably know by now, I purchased an iPad over the weekend. I’ve been evaluating this decision for several months and trying to make a business case for the device (more on that in future posts). The full story will be told on this blog over time and what better way to start than with the relentless pursuit of Microsoft not to let me go.

The backstory here can be summarized as follows: I’m a PC person, Apple sucks. PC’s are better. So my using an Apple product is very much a paradigm game changing shift.

The fun started with the whole Apple Store experience. . It was as if they could smell my MCSE and knew I was wearing a Windows Mobile 6.5 phone. You can’t just go in there and buy something, you have to put your name on a list and wait for someone to help you. Naturally, the place was packed and after waiting an hour I found out several of the geniuses had called in sick. I thought I could just go pick an iPad off the shelf and head home

The only one they had was the 64gb 3G model. I wanted the 3G but would have been happy with the 16gb but decided the extra $200 was worth the extra space and worth not having to wait another month to get one.

Once I got home I tried to install a free app from the App Store. I have an iTunes account but hadn’t used it in years so I had to update my credit card information. I’m still not sure why a credit card is required for a free app but it is. The problem was that iTunes would not accept my credit card. It kept saying my security code was invalid. Frustrated I Googled the problem and found out that I wasn’t the only one but that the solution was to call the credit card company. I couldn’t figure out what could be wrong with my credit card, after all I had just used it at the Apple Store.

So I broke down and called the credit card company. The nice lady told me my card had been blocked due to an unauthorized purchase at the Apple Store. She said I had never used my card there before and so they blocked my card. She asked me to confirm if the purchase was valid. At this point, I’m laughing aloud. I told the lady she made my day and the charge was valid. She turned my card back on and my iTunes account was back in business so I could install that free app.

Between the long lines and the blocked credit card it is a wonder it all worked out but I have an iPad, I’m using it, I made this post with it, and will be talking a lot more about it….even though I do feel a bit dirty.