Special report: Fixing short iPhone battery life

iPhones may exhibit abnormally short battery life for a variety of reasons including, but not limited to:

• problematic software settings
• software bugs that drain the battery faster than normal (possibly introduced by software/firmware updates)
• hardware defects
• improper charging
• improperly calibrated batteries

What’s an abnormally short battery life-span? There’s no easy answer. Apple’s claims (8 hours of talk time, 6 hours of Internet use, 7 hours of video playback or 24 hours of audio playback, 250 hours more than 10 days of standby time) seem somewhat inflated based on in-house experience with iPhones that have (what we believe to be) healthy batteries. If your iPhone is getting significantly less — say 3-4 hours of talk time when not performing other functions — you may be experiencing battery issues.

Our coverage of these issues in broken into the following areas:

• Indicator may not be correct
• Software fixes for abnormally short battery life
• General tips for extending time between charges
• Repair/Replacement
• Reader reports

Indicator may not be correct

The issue, in some cases, may be an overly eager battery indicator. Some users have reported that the battery indicator will suddenly jump ~20% immediately when connected to power. As such, users may think they have a full battery, when the unit actually carries a more shallow charge. If your iPhone is fully charged, it should display a plug icon instead of a lightning bolt icon in the upper-left corner. As such, make sure your battery is fully charged before attempting to gauge whether or not it is funcitoning properly.

Software fixes for abnormally short battery life

Forget Wi-Fi networks Some instances of abnormally short battery life appear to be caused by repeated, failed attempts to automatically join certain wireless networks. The temporary solution is as follows:

1. Navigate to Settings, then select Wi-Fi
2. Tap the arrow next to each listed Wi-Fi network and tap Forget this Network
3. Go back to the Wi-Fi screen and manually join the desired network

Failing that, turn Wi-Fi off, then back on using the Wi-Fi settings screen and re-apply the aforementioned steps, or turn Wi-Fi off altogether.

Delete then re-establish email account Persistent mail checking can quickly drain iPhone batteries. Unfortunately, even if you change the automatic check mechanism (Settings, choose Mail then tap Auto-Check) the preferences may not stick. Several readers have had success extending battery life by deleting then re-establishing their accounts.

Delete and re-install iPhone software This fix is a bit more involved, but has proved effective for a number of users and may be more permanent. It involves deleting iPhone update files from your computer, then restoring your iPhone, forcing it download and install a fresh copy of the latest release from Apple’s servers.

Follow these steps:

On a Mac Look in the directory ~/Library/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates and move the files therein to the Desktop or another location. Next, connect your iPhone to your Mac, and select the “Restore” option from within iTunes.

On a Windows PC Look in the directory C:\Users\Your name\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes\iPhone Software Updates\ or C:\Documents and Settings\username\application data\apple computer\itunes\iphone software updates\ and move the the files therein to another location. Next, connect your iPhone to your computer, and select the “Restore” option from within iTunes.

Restore the iPhone Click the Restore button under the Summary tab. Restoring the phone will erase contacts, calendars, photos and other data on the phone, but will restore automatically backed-up information including text messages, notes, call history, contact favorites, sound settings, widget settings, etc.

Restore the iPhone but don’t restore backup Some users have reported that restoring the iPhone, but not restoring custom settings a data from the computer-stored backup alleviates this issue. Note that you’ll lose text messages, notes, call history, contact favorites, sound settings, widget settings, etc with this method, though you can restore them anytime by simply doing another restore and choosing to push the backup to the phone.

Connect iPhone directly to computer to charge If you are connecting your iPhone to a computer instead of a wall socket to charge it, don’t connect iPhone to your keyboard or another USB hub/bridge. Make sure it is plugged directly into one of your computer’s USB 2.0 ports.

General tips for extending time between charges

Use Airplane mode when appropriate If you don’t need phone or Internet access (when you’re simply listening to music or watching a movie and don’t want to be interrupted, for instance), consider put your iPhone in Airplane mode. This will shut off several internal components, dramatically increasing overall battery life.

Check settings, turn off functions Use the Settings application to turn off any features you aren’t using. If, for instance, you’re in an area without accessible Wi-Fi hotspots, tap on Wi-Fi and drag the slider to Off. If you’re not using Bluetooth, tap General, then Bluetooth and slide the function to Off.

Reduce brightness, use Auto-Brightness The iPhone’s beautiful screen is its biggest power glutton. Tap the Settings application, then tap Brightness. Use the slider to reduce overall brightness to an acceptable level, and turn the Auto-Brightness function On — this will automatically adjust screen brightness based on ambient light conditions.

Don’t persistently check for mail The Monday after the iPhone’s launch (three days of usage), one of our staff members’ unit still had a remaining charge, while the other’s had been recharged several times already. The primary difference? The latter individual’s iPhone was checking email from several account every 15 minutes. Reducing this interval to every hour (In Settings, choose Mail then tap Auto-Check) or Manual significantly increased battery life. If you are going to use a short mail-checking interval, tap the Sounds pane of Settings and turn the option for New Mail off.

Turn off keyboard clicks If you frequently use your iPhone’s keyboard, navigate to the Sounds pane of Settings and turn the option for Keyboard clicks off.

Set a low Auto-Lock Go to Settings then select General, then Auto-Lock. The lower this setting (in minutes) the sooner your iPhone will go into locked mode, which turns off the screen and other functions, saving significant battery power.

Turn off the equalizer Apple recommends turning off the music equalizer if you don’t use it. “Adding EQs to playback uses more of your processor, since they aren’t encoded in the song. If, however, you’ve added EQ to tracks in iTunes, you’ll need to set EQ to ‘flat’ in order to have the effect of “off,” because iPhone keeps your iTunes settings intact.” You can access the equalizer option by tapping iPod in Settings, then tapping EQ. Select the option Flat to reduce power consumption.

Repair/replacement

If none of the aforementioned fixes and tips work to increase your iPhone’s battery life, you may have a defective battery. Visit a local Apple retail store or the iPhone support page for information on obtaining repair/replacement.

Reader reports

• “Yes, my battery life is terrible after 1.1.1. […] My phone is off the charger at 8:30 AM and is normally giving me the 20% battery warning at about 6-8 PM in the evenings and it’s quickly down to 10%. I make sure that I have WIFI off and even the brightness fairly low.” — Ryan Schmidt
• “I’m seeing issues with my battery life at updating to 1.1.1. On some days  I might get 3 hours of idle time before my battery is run down and I have to plug it in. Some days I might get through 6 hours before getting the low battery warning. Before the update I could unplug at 6am go to work and not have to plug it in again till 9pm.” — MIke Welland
• “My wife & I both have iPhones and since updating to 1.1.1 both phones at various times will get in a mode where the battery is rapidly drained. Thanks to your first post pointing a finger towards WiFi as the culprit, I’ve noticed a tell…so far, without exception I’ve been able to verify the phone is in this mode by going to Settings>Wi-Fi. There under the on/off switch it reads “Choose a network…” and when the phone is operating correctly there is a spinning spoke icon to let you know it’s searching for a network (and it will search every 10 secs or so while you’re on this screen). When the phone is messing up you get no spinning spokes
• “I have definitely been having battery troubles since the update. What keeps happening to me is my iPhone seems to get to half charge faster than usual, and then completely dies within an hour or two, giving me the red battery when I try to restart the phone. The strange thing, is if I plug it in for 15-20 minutes, it gets to half charge again and will work fine for several more hours, so it might be an issue with how the iPhone is measuring the charge rather than the battery itself. — MIchael Monello
• “Yes, my battery life is terrible after 1.1.1. It was fairly bad with 1.0.2 but it seems worse. I work all day and don’t really use my phone except for some texting and the occasional installer.app refresh. My phone is off the charger at 8:30 and is normally giving me the 20% battery warning at about 6-8 in the evenings and it’s quickly down to 10%. I make sure that I have SSH off, WIFI off and even the brightness fairly low.”