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PHoynak · Jul 14, 2008, 12:22 PM

Has anyone else had this problem? Since I upgraded my iPhone (16 gb rev 1) to the 2.0 software my battery life took a nose dive. I changed the push email updates to once an hour (I use gmail and comcast mail) but my phone will go from 1/2 of a charge to dead in about 6 hours. This happens when I dont even touch the phone.

pete.z · Jul 14, 2008, 12:24 PM

Turn off 3G....

http://www.pcworld.com/article/14834...ts_rivals.html

PHoynak · Jul 14, 2008, 12:43 PM

Its the original iPhone....there is no 3G.

gentryfunk · Jul 14, 2008, 05:15 PM

Hey All,

I found that my 1st Gen iPhone + 2.0 OS has seen a 50% drop in battery life. I turned off as many bells and whistles as I could, but the thing is draining the battery like crazy. My real world example....recharge every 3 days in past; now every 1.5 - 1.75 days recharge.

Anybody know what is happening? Push?

TGF

BoingoBongo · Jul 15, 2008, 02:03 AM

That's awful, but at least it seems to clearly be a software issue, which means it could be remedied with a future update.

pete.z · Jul 15, 2008, 02:28 AM

Lets hope it is a software issue,that would mean there is hope for the new iphone too,to get a little bit better battery life.

Randman · Jul 15, 2008, 02:30 AM

Push could very well be doing it.

There may also be a memory leak on some things from the App store which could be doing it.

Try turning off Push, or reducing the time, and see how that works.

pakirk · Jul 15, 2008, 06:18 PM

Originally Posted by Randman

Push could very well be doing it.

There may also be a memory leak on some things from the App store which could be doing it.

Try turning off Push, or reducing the time, and see how that works.

Same problem here. Old iPhone, new software, battery life less than half of what it was. Turned off push, no help.

xtremelyyellow · Jul 15, 2008, 07:40 PM

I think it could be coincidence. My battery started acting like that just before the update. I took it to Apple and they gave me a new phone. So if you're within the one year or have apple care take it back and they will replace it.

BigBadWolf · Jul 15, 2008, 08:43 PM

My battery life has also gone down, but I would say by about 25%. It's not really a big deal, just kind of annoying.

CorpITGuy · Jul 15, 2008, 08:47 PM

One of the biggest myths out there is that push e-mail helps your battery life. Maintaining a constant data connection with frequent pings is just going to be harder on a battery than checking e-mail once every 15 minutes and disconnecting between checks.

In my experience, push e-mail destroys battery life, but it's worth it to me...

pakirk · Jul 15, 2008, 09:15 PM

My battery life was unchanged until the firmware upgrade.

aepple · Jul 16, 2008, 11:20 PM

too funny...

http://www.topnewsblog.info/tblog_10409.htm

Randman · Jul 16, 2008, 11:32 PM

Doesn't load.

Buckaroo · Jul 16, 2008, 11:41 PM

I upgraded to the new 3G and you are right, the new phone battery life is no where near as long. I'm going to be flying for aprox. 8 hours (2 flights) next week, so today, I went and bought a battery extender. I'm suppose to get an extra 6 hours use.

Randman · Jul 17, 2008, 12:16 AM

Originally Posted by Buckaroo

I'm going to be flying for aprox. 8 hours (2 flights) next week, so today, I went and bought a battery extender. I'm suppose to get an extra 6 hours use.

If you are flying, turn it to Airplane mode and you'll save a ton of battery time since you won't be connected to the Internet in the air. Be fine for watching a few movies. If you have a layover, take your plug and cord and find an wall extension to charge up while you have a juice.

stevesnj · Jul 17, 2008, 03:13 PM

my 3g battery life is noticeably longer than my 1st gen iPhone

Nodnarb · Jul 17, 2008, 04:02 PM

Originally Posted by stevesnj

my 3g battery life is noticeably longer than my 1st gen iPhone

There's no way. Is 3G on on your phone?

Mine is not just noticeably shorter, it's ridiculously poor compared with my first gen iPhone. The other phone I could forget to charge for a night, and still use it the entire next day. This phone, I have to charge it by about 7:00 at night or it dies.

Randman · Jul 17, 2008, 04:07 PM

I've swopped to the 3G but a co-worker mate says his first-gen is also down about 25%.

BRussell · Jul 17, 2008, 04:14 PM

Mine is way down from before the 2.0 upgrade, but I think it's the hours I'm spending playing cro-mag rally.

stevesnj · Jul 17, 2008, 05:07 PM

Yes my 3G is on. Im on wireless moreso than 3G but my use is the same. Battery life is much better for me.

DiGi-C · 05:42 PM

I find the battery life comparable to my N95, today under heavy load it lasted about 8 hours (only spent about 20 minutes in totall transfering music & apps across in bits and pieces) doing various tasks such as music through the loudspeaker, speradic web browsing and a few lenghy gaming spells. Over all I'd say 25% better than the notourious N95 but it is early days

lpkmckenna · Jul 17, 2008, 05:48 PM

This looks like a clever product: iPhone/iPod backup battery

- - e r i k - - · Jul 17, 2008, 06:40 PM

http://www.mophie.com/products/juice-pack/?pod=iPhone

3G version should be out in September.

Big-C · Jul 17, 2008, 06:41 PM

I just got the new iphone 3g and am appalled at the poor battery life I'm getting. My original iphone had excellent, excellent battery life, but this one is down to about 20% at 3pm in the afternoon.

I've been hearing that it takes a few days to recondition the battery, and I'm willing to wait a few days to see if it gets better. I hate to think I'd have to return it, and I certainly don't want to, but a phone needs to last at least a single day at work for me to be okay with it. I don't want to be running from charger to charger all day. I also don't want to spend my time micro-managing radio settings in the phone; I just want to use it. 9 hours a day is all I need. ;-)

Anyway, it gives me hope to hear that 1st gen people are having some battery trouble, because maybe, indeed, it is something that can be fixed with a software update. My fingers are crossed!

Randman · Jul 17, 2008, 10:34 PM

That's funny because my first-gen phone had crappy battery life buy my 3g is soooo much better.

Bearsfan34 · Jul 18, 2008, 01:29 AM

I can attest to the iPhone 1st gen battery life taking a nose dive after the 2.0 update. But...

...the battery seems to go "back to normal" once I turned "Push" off, and changed the "Fetch" settings to manual (which is how I used my iPhone before).

I've tried to make a habit of only using push (I use it with two accounts; MobileMe for home and ActiveSync for work) when I'm not in the vicinity of my desk (i.e. in the server room, in another office, etc.).

While having to go through the Settings menu and manually turning off push is a "hassle," it's infrequent & not a big deal. My main gripe with this is that there's no way for me to put a "turn push on/off" shortcut on my home page (I'd LOVE to see a Bluetooth shortcut someday too for the home page).

I tested this theory this week; and with my normal iPod on the iPhone usage (all audio, usually about 4 hours worth per day; a video clip maybe once a day), and push turned ON (using EDGE) for only about an hour/90 minutes total all day, and about 10 minutes of web surfing (wi-fi on) during the work day, my iPhone battery acts normally.

Part of my "the battery is draining like crazy!" problem is that my desk is in a bad spot for AT&T reception...so searching for a signal probably takes some life out of the battery as well.

I admittedly may be wrong, but I firmly believe that in my case, push was draining my battery like mad. Before I took the steps mentioned above, I'd walk in the door at work with a fully-charged iPhone and would then get a warning about 4 PM (about an hour or so before I leave for home). That had *NEVER* happened since I'd owned the iPhone.

Eug · Jul 18, 2008, 01:49 AM

3G drains it like mad on the new iPhone.

I put it on 2G most of the time, but change it to 3G if I want to use heavy data. Personally, I'd like to see a 2G/3G setting button on the home screen.

Angelo78 · Jul 18, 2008, 01:58 AM

At first I was getting less battery life than the original iPhone. Then I realized the AOL AIM application, by default, keeps you signed on even after exiting. After turning that feature off I'm getting about same battery life as before.

For the record I keep the phone on the Edge network most of the time. When I use Safari or certain applications I switch to 3G.

Big-C · Jul 18, 2008, 12:06 PM

As an update to my earlier comment, as soon as I got that 20% warning I plugged it in. 30 minutes later I needed the phone and when I went to unplug it, it showed as totally charged. Eh? I don't think so.

I've read elsewhere that you can better calibrate the battery gauge by letting the phone die out from a charge a few times. I decided to try that, and as of yet (the next day) have not gotten the phone to die. It's just been hovering at the 10% warning, but it's lasted waaaay longer than I ever expected. Oh - and I turned on every single radio, location service, wifi, bluetooth, 3g I could find to help it die out, but it still hasn't done so.

Cool: it's lasting much longer than I expected.
Uncool: it's not giving me a very accurate battery reading.

Anyway, this gives me hope that the phone is just confused a little; I'm going to ignore the warnings for a few days and see if the battery normalizes or something.

ort888 · Jul 18, 2008, 04:18 PM

Originally Posted by Eug

3G drains it like mad on the new iPhone.

I put it on 2G most of the time, but change it to 3G if I want to use heavy data. Personally, I'd like to see a 2G/3G setting button on the home screen.

Yeah, I was thinking about this the other day. Apple really needs shortcut keys for buttons. One button to call your wife, a button to toggle 2G/3G, a button that takes you right to your favorite playlist, etc...

How cool would that be?

turtle777 · Jul 18, 2008, 04:37 PM

Originally Posted by Big-C

As an update to my earlier comment, as soon as I got that 20% warning I plugged it in. 30 minutes later I needed the phone and when I went to unplug it, it showed as totally charged. Eh? I don't think so.

I've read elsewhere that you can better calibrate the battery gauge by letting the phone die out from a charge a few times. I decided to try that, and as of yet (the next day) have not gotten the phone to die. It's just been hovering at the 10% warning, but it's lasted waaaay longer than I ever expected. Oh - and I turned on every single radio, location service, wifi, bluetooth, 3g I could find to help it die out, but it still hasn't done so.

Cool: it's lasting much longer than I expected.
Uncool: it's not giving me a very accurate battery reading.

Anyway, this gives me hope that the phone is just confused a little; I'm going to ignore the warnings for a few days and see if the battery normalizes or something.

Same for me. I'm gonna let it die now to see how long it really lasts.

I hope the battery reading will get more accurate over the next days, otherwise, it's downright useless.

-t