Apple's Iphone OS causes battery problems

My iPhone battery lasts 2 days. Of course, I discovered long back that Push Notification needs to be turned off. With Push Notification on, my battery would not last 4 hours. I have my emails on 15 mins polled, which is good enough for me, and I am sure for most.

"The battery for the new Iphone 3GS is virtually identical to the Iphone 3G's battery, which means that the only thing that changed was the new operating system."

And the CPU... GPU... NAND...

not to mention additional hardware (although theoretically it shouldn't draw power unless in use.. Compass/Improved camera/nike+)

But aside from that then yeah.. the software is the only thing which is different between the 3G and 3GS...

.....with long battery life.....on Windows Mobile 5 or 6. Had=s done for years....

:-)

I have had absolutely no problems with the battery life in my 3GS. It lasts longer than a day with everything turned on except bluetooth. I surf the net, use GPS, record and watch video and use the phone with 3G. I had a 2G from day one and never had any problems with it either. Am I just lucky?

call you mother, your wife, whatever....tell them you aren't going to be a journalist any time soon with reporting like this:

"But the development of a handset operating system that leaves too much switched on highlights the pastel computer and toymaker's lack of solid design experience when it comes to mobile phones."

you have no clue and the reports are far from systemic. My 1G iphone shows no drop in battery life since the upgrade to 3.0, so perhaps you need to find another occupation?

Nick Farrell is about as helpful in the world of tech as an Inuit indian advising a Kalahari bushman.

More useful reports will tell you that used as a phone the battery life of the iPhone is best in class. But of course it does a little bit more than a phone and all the other stuff like GPS is left on.

What right does Farrell have to describe Apple like that? Perhaps he is the original little minded sh1t.

Dear Nick,
Has someone at Apple stole your girlfriend or had an affair with your wife. Why do you hate all things Apple so much. This article is more of Apple bashing than it is objective.

Not all gadgets are perfect. I definitely have some gripes about my Iphone 3G though I still like it. I use it for both work and play.

But your article seems to be 10% facts (from another source, not your own investigative effort) and 90% negative opinion(all from you). All of which leads me to wonder how THE INQUIRER chooses which journalists(if this can even be applied to you) gets to have their report published.

Your article lacks so many credentials and information. How can you possibly claim your "facts" with statements such as "Most people think", "Others think" and "people are saying"? So in other words, you base your facts on what other people think? What scientific evidence can you provide to back up what "other people think"?

You need to go back to school kid. Your article is a joke and you just wasted my time.

1. the 3gs battery has a larger capacity

2. the 3gs processer if higher clock speed, and smaller 45nm process chip fabrication. but i bet it still draws more power.

yes. agreed. this article is very uninformed. you suck.

FAIL = "The battery for the new Iphone 3GS is virtually identical to the Iphone 3G's battery, which means that the only thing that changed was the new operating system."

My 3G lasts over a day with very active use and push turned on, probably longer in fact but I drop it into the dock most nights.

The difference in my confidence over Apple and my long lost confidence in Microsoft is that I expect them both to make mistakes/have problems but only ever expect Apple to truly fix their mistakes.

This report is so off the mark it seems pointless pointing each one of them out. Awful journalism.

The iPhone 3G & the iPhone 3GS have huge hardware differences. So the statement that differences in battery life must be due to OS differences is, to quote Nobel Prize winning physicist Wolfgang Pauli, "That's not right. It's not even wrong." An apparently scientific argument is said to be not even wrong if it is based on assumptions that are known to be incorrect, or alternatively, theories which cannot possibly be falsified or used to predict anything.

U can save urself the trouble of writing an article Nick. Next time around just use twitter. That way u can use only 140 characters and ur story won't be as bad.

Wow, a bit of PC-centric snark there, dude. Oh, by the way, the new Pre has a battery life of about a day, while iPhones run two days without breaking a sweat unless you have high usage, even with bluetooth and WiFi turned on all the time. Rather than writing a thoughtful article, putting the issue in context, this is sort of confused and a bit of an anti-Apple diatribe. With Apple's new laptop battery technology one could expect replacement iPhone batteries to last aout 60% longer, which is significant for a multi-feature phone, oh, and be rechargeable a thousand times.

You're fucking stupid.

Seriously... Lack of facts.
So the software does this??? How come my iPhone 1st gen 2g almost doubled it`s battery life when going from 2.3 to 3.0 Firmware? I have had this phone for over a year and never had any problems at all.
ok ok from time to time i have messed it up and had to put it in DFU mode and restore it but that was my messing with it that was the problem. with 1.1.3 and 2.x firmware i had to charge it every night but now i don't have to do that anymore.

Have it ever occurred that it might be related to only some of the phones? might it be user related?

what about all the people that is happy with their new phones and don't have any issues would you actually see them on a forum telling how happy they are???

Let me answer that for you.. No they would not.

Do some research before publishing news.

And no i am not a fan-boy... but i know how to look on things from 2 sides.

Check your facts before engaging fingers on keyboard. your an idiot!

i love seeing all the apple fanboys come out of the woodwork when a negative story is written about their company. take it easy, boys. apple isn't perfect.

Last time I come to this site. I don't mind hearing negative points on Apple devices.. as every device, including ones made by Apple, have faults..however this is just an uneducated rant.

Seriously, can you not afford an iPhone? It's the only reason I can see you talking the way you do because usually fanboys of a device are the only ones that show bitter hatred to other people's devices. And fanboys typically are only fanboys because they can't afford to have the competitor's device. They make themselves feel better by dissing it all the time, tricking them into thinking they don't want it.

But it's all well and good. I'm sure one day when you can work up 300 bucks, you'll be writing glowing reviews. I don't know anyone in my company who's gone from a cell phone, to the iPhone, who wasn't beaming ear to ear with what they could do with the phone.

Last time I look at this site. Go back to school

How is this an article? Do some research on how to pull your head out of your ass, then research the iphone and then try to write an article. People complained about battery life before OS 3.0. The battery in my 3G, with 3.0, is fine and according to you there is no difference between the 3G and 3GS. I hate google news puts so many fake articles up.

This guy Hates Apple, it's clear. I'm surprised that a big paper would let crap like this fly. Where's the editor?

Once again the Job's Mob guppies rise to the bait.

Wouldn't you say that Motorola is one of the oldest manufacturers? My new Moto Q lasts about 1 day. I really like the random reboots too!!!

Funny article, despite the lack of any real facts! I love seeing Apple Fanboys all ruffled up :D But having said that, who cares. I haven't used my iPhone 3G since I got the G Phone with the HTC Hero Rom. And between buying the 3GS and HTC Hero when it comes out, you couldn't pay me to take the iPhone (well maybe if offered enough cash to buy an HTC Hero as well! he he he) Apple evil attempts to control my life are now over! mwah ha ha ha!

"The difference in my confidence over Apple and my long lost confidence in Microsoft is that I expect them both to make mistakes/have problems but only ever expect Apple to truly fix their mistakes."

Why did you mention Microsoft in an article about a smartphone? Curious...makes you really stand out as an Apple fanboy.

it's only a nice toy. the toy of the moment. I had a iphone and i have to admit its a cool toy but soon something will come along and replace the iphone. Then what? Nick will write something stupid about then we'll complain about that and the process starts all over again.

Get over it people

I aggree with Nick. I rarely have seen an iPhone in public which I attribute to them needing to be on the charger all the time. I do see them sitting on desks constantly plugged in as I walk in my office. But I am sure this is just cause ppl like to keep there phones charged at 100% all the time and has nothing to do with battery life right? Come on people the thing has battery issues. The reason may be debatable but the existence of it is not.

Whilst your trolling against apple zealots disguised as stories can occasionally be quite funny, is there really any need for you to write so many apple related articles?

Seriously - if there's actually a good point that needs to be made, no one is going to pay any attention if you try and make it, due to your undisguised hatred of everything apple.

Just sayin.

"Why did you mention Microsoft in an article about a smartphone? Curious...makes you really stand out as an Apple fanboy."

Because a post from GJWS before mine made reference to push working fine on Windows Mobile (my last smartphone OS) and posting lag let more posts in before mine...?

I didn't feel the need to directly quote and attack him in my post, he wasn't lying and is welcome to use the device he feels is best for him.

Unlike yourself, who felt a spot of name calling would help.

This story was the first one on Google so it has attracted fanboys who feel so insecure about their purchases they adopt the policy of Scientology. Kill the messenger and then no-one will dare stand up to your cult. Note none of the fanboys attack the information... they go for the author who has been covering the Apple beat for the INQ ever since I started reading it.
Such fanboys always say they will never come back to the site, implying that they have ever been here before and that we would miss them if they ever came back.

The 3GS actually has a bigger battery, but I don't notice it in comparison to my 3G. Not sure why that is, but I do use my phone and if I get a whole day out of it I'm lucky. I don't have push turned on, either. Mostly checking email (manually several times through the day), texting, reading news and RSS and browsing.

It's a great device to be sure, but the battery life leaves a lot to be desired. Maybe my old phone didn't browse the internet, but I didn't have to worry about whether or not I needed to bring the charger along or plug it in all the time based on where I was going and how long I would be gone. The iphone makes me a slave to the charger for sure.

At any rate, the WiFi dropping issues are far more serious. My 3G was rock solid stable on my Wireless N router with superfast bandwidth. My 3GS won't stay on a WiFi connection for more than 10 minutes before it drops the signal and then forces me to enter the password again. It's horrible.

Chill. Stop bashing Nick. I noticed my battery life has been crap since I updated to the 3.0 OS. I used to charge it about every 2-3 days, now it's every day with the same usage. Friends of mine have noticed this as well.

Consider yourselves lucky that you don't have this issue and move on. Have a nice day.

Hey all,

I have a Blackberry Curve 8900... With WIFI, Bluetooth, and all regular services running I can get a few days before needing to recharge. Email is pushed...as well as whatever other apps I have running constantly.

And I can change the battery.

Yes, this is off topic and trollish. But not any more than the name calling.

Saw this on a google search and decided to check out the article.
I assumed this was a "news" site....
Like Apple or not, isn't "reporting" supposed to be unbiased?
I won't bother reading anything from this site again...
It's articles like this that undermine the credibility of all "online" news sources....
unfortunate...
adios,
t

Well i bought my wift the iphone 3GS and she needs to chrage it every single day ad doesn't even use email but does browse the net facebook and yahoo and does make around an hour of calls a day.

I myself gone with the Samsung Omina HD phone and at first the battery sucked bad might last a day but after turning off 3G, GPS and the Wifi scanning i can get 4 1/2 days out of it with a little browsing, 6 hours of music playback & 5 hours of calls. Watching HD videos still kills the battery but thats the price too pay sadly.

I thought the people that overclocked their iphone 3GS to 833MHz said when they took it apart the battery in there was infact smaller then in the 3G to make room for the other enhanced features, 3Mpixle camera, faster processor the doubling of RAM and the flash based storage spacea along with the enhanced GPU?

Here is a site that has an abundance of links to reviews and articles which explain the release of 3G S and understanding of its design, features and performance. http://pfx.me/y5

Whilst I like a good Apple bashing as much as the next girl I have to say this was one awful article.

Yes Apple is just another terrible, overpowerful company, but...

The iPhone is actually a nice peice of kit (I really wanted to hate it but just couldn't when I actually used it). Using push on my 3G (since I got it earlier in the year - so not 'new' functionality) the battery lasts for a couple of days.

If you're going to bash at least get the facts right first (or label the article as a rant - at least then we know it's random nonsense :))

First, Apple no longer makes pastel computers. I'm probably what you'd consider a fanboy but those years were very difficult for me. I turned my Apple t-shirts inside out and even used a Dell at the office until those years were behind me. Second, if you haven't seen a Mac since they were fruity colored, you probably haven't noticed they're running a new operating system called OSX.

Every mobile phone ever made (yes Windows, Palm, etc.) suffers from the same variable battery life problem, for the simple reason it needs to transmit with higher power when it's further from the nearest cell tower. All phones adapt their transmit power level to the minimum needed to reach the cell tower. This is done both to conserve battery power, but also to reduce interference as seen by the tower. This is true for both GSM and CDMA, although with CDMA (Verizon primarily in the US), power control is even more important as multiple phones share the same channel with the same tower. Battery life is primarily a factor of your environment and your own usage patterns.

Apple made the controversial decision to integrate the battery within the case so they could fit MORE battery (i.e. providing longer battery life) into a smaller space. A removable battery wastes space with the cover and mechanism, and makes the phone itself larger. It's a pain when the battery dies and i'm not near a charger but it's the same level of pain as having to carry extra batteries with me (and remember to keep them charged themselves). Instead of carrying extra batteries with me and their associated (separate) charger to charge them independently, I simply carry a $35 deck-of-cards-sized battery with a USB plug that charges my phone several times on one charge itself, and any other USB device I have with me at the time. Less hassle.

Regarding the new OS reducing battery life, it's certainly possible there's a bug that's causing the new OS to leave the radios on longer than usual therefore reducing battery life. I'm an iPhone developer and i've seen some beta OS releases affect battery life temporarily until a new release comes out. I haven't noticed it myself yet with OS 3.0 (I have this on my iPhone 3G and 3GS... and still see 3-4 days with light usage, and 1-2 days with moderate use), but you can be sure they'll fix it. Does Microsoft fix (any) of their software problems quickly?

Dude if you haven't used OSX yet give it a try. You can still hate afterwards- and for your particular job it may make no difference to you. That's fair. But Macs before OSX were awful. Apple re-wrote the OS from *scratch*, layering on top of a robust and mature Unix kernel for the ultimate in stability and performance. Macs are about personal productivity (i.e. good software)- that's it. Productivity, ease of use, lower deployment cost in enterprise due to reliability and security, etc. Macs aren't about their checkered past wearing pastel colors and translucent sides bearing themselves for all to see. (Keep in mind every other computer manufacturer mistakenly thought all there was to a Mac was their stupid fruity colors and copied Apple. It was painful to watch.)

Hopefully Apple's years of experience developing the world's most mature, reliable, easy to use, and high performance operating system (OSX), combined with Google's much less mature but very promising entry into the market, will provide some market pressure for Microsoft to improve the experience for their users. While i'm a techie all I care about in a device is that is work reliably with the least amount of "fuss". I don't care about RAM, MHz, etc. like so many PC users cling to but whether I can get my job done quickly and efficiently so I can go home, spend some time outside, and chase my sweetie upstairs to bed. Apple's products reduce my stress level so yes i'm a fanboy.

I work in a company that have almost 80% of computers being from apple, so the obvious step when buying corporate smartphones was iphone. Needless to say we have real BIG problems with the new 3.0. Specially because they have the issue that they DON'T recieve calls. And we're talking about executives and two of the CEOS...
Lucky me I'm in servers dept, but two guys from that dept were fired..
The problem was solved when they disabled the push, reset network settings and reconfigure APN settings.
Also I will add IT had to add a new set of expensive suits to the dept budget when an executive claimed that the overheating of the iphone damaged their (again) expensive suits.
I can't blame that two guys because most of the executives just updated their phones by themselves on itunes despite we were still testing 3.0.
As chief of Servers lair I'm really not buying any more xserve just in case of overheating more expensive suits.

Links:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2043243&tstart=0
http://forums.tutorialninjas.net/questions/4388-cannot-make-receive-calls-iphone-3g-3-0-failed-call.html
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2043243&tstart=0&start=30
etc.. etc..

Isn't it your fault if you hack around with the APN settings- not Apple's?!

Fuck off

I have had ever ver of the iPhone same day came out. The 3gs bost better battery. I have about 4-5 hours before needing a charge.

Push - off
buetooth -offf

I did discover that at a full charge if I launch
"Sonos" app. It's an app to control my audio equipment but need an Internet connection
all audiois wireless. From 100% charge in about 10 minor use I'm down to 96% in 30 min down to about 82%. That works out to about 4% a min
that's about 2-3 hours on the intenet
this is using wifi the entire time

going to try it with out using the Internet at all and compare results

I'm running Os 3.1 ( I'm a Developer)

...has had relatively short battery life. Windows, Symbian, whatever the heck the iPhone uses. To go further, the iPhone has had exceptional battery life with its total functionality compared to other phones I've had.