Back when Apple re-introduced Push Notification at the iPhone 3.0 Sneak Preview Event, Scott Forstall claimed that, unlike background multitasking that could cause an 80% drop in battery life, Push Notification would only cause a 20% drop. While some debated the truth (or truthiness) of his claims, it did set the expectation that users running Push Notification-enabled apps would see lower battery life, and gave an indicator of just how much less.
So, while it too a while, now that we finally have Push Notification, and some of the more popular messengers and games are implemented it, how's your battery life doing?
Are you seeing a hit compared to your pre-Push Notification days, and if so, is it in the 20% range? Let us know which iPhone you have, how often you're getting Push Notifications, and how your battery is holding up!
Reader comments
Is Your iPhone Battery Life 20% Less With Push Notification?
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Had a 3gs got a I4 battery life is half 3gs I am trying every solution except renew and nothing has helped.
I am in total agreement with Desperado. We should not be turning off features that we paid for and we should be getting the battrey life that we were told we would get! Last month I was able to use my phone for 16 minutes. I paid $75.00 for the privilage.
One of my colleagues never used push with his 3.1.2 3GS. Wifi and location services was always on. With little use he managed 3 days before a charge for months on end. After installing trapster and turning on push his phone's battery life decreased a lot!!
Wow, lots of loyal sheep here. It isn't OK for a battery to be dead by the time you get home at night, and have to recharge it every night. I can't think of any other device that acts that way. Other smartphones don't have the same problem.
Ok I was a Blackberry user and went ahead and bought the new iphone, the battery life is so bad I think I am going to trade back to my blackberry. I do not feel I need to carry all the extra chargers to keep me up and running. Apple needs to get this fixed or they are going to have more upset users. My Blackberry bold 9700 lasted at worse two full days. As for tweaking the settings and turning on and off wifi and bluetooth is silly it is a phone feature you should be able to keep them on. I also seen that Apple reduced the battery size by 15%. Anway in the next day or so I may be back in my Blackberry.
I noticed that the batery is draining very fast.
The real problem is wi-fi: When i turn on wi-fi i can not stop the traffic (i see my modem is geting crazy).
I tried to see if i have push mail, notifications, i deleted coupe of suspicious applications - and still i can not stop it from going online. When i turn off the wi-fi it start draining and making data trafic - to stop this i installed the Fake APN from www.unlockit.co.nz. I don;t know how my bill looks now - but i will sue Aplle for this!
when you sign up to the apple store in the terms and agrements they wont take resposibility for your data charge no matter how much
I have the solution to all of your iphone battery issues. Everyone who owns an iphone (and I used to be one), should go out and get a Blackberry. I have a BB Curve 8900, and can go at least 3 days or more without charging the battery. Granted, I dont use my BB for watching movies or listening to music, its nice to know that I can carry it with me and not have to worry about battery life. I still like the iphone and am actually thinking of getting another one, but with everything that I am hearing about battery life, I think i'll stick with my BB for now!
But you can do next to nothing on a blackberry...I dont care about battery if the phone has no use to me
But you can do next to nothing on a blackberry...I dont care about battery if the phone has no use to me
Hi
When 3.0 arrived I enabled push. I noticed my battery draining so I stopped using it.
Now I tryed again. Although I was not using any application, I just turned the option on, and overnight, in stand by, my battery has gone from 100% at 10pm to 85% at 6am! Normally it spends 1% at night.
I am using iPhone 3g with os 3.0.
Recently heard that a PhD student manages to increase iPhone battery life by 12x. More: http://www.ranjith7.com/a-student-increases-iphone-battery-life/
I had a major battery drain that appeared to coincide with the 3.1 update but after much troubleshooting I have narrowed it down to only an issue with MS Exchange with Push on. Setting my Exchange to fetch and the problem is gone. I am leaning toward the issue is actual on the Exchange server or email content side but I have not been able to isolate down to the root cause. The symptom is that I have an "always on" connection with the Exchange server with causes my phone to get hot and my battery to to be completely drained after half a day with little usage and in standby most of the time.
I tried removing all non-deleted meeting invitations on my Exchange account as others suggested and then deleting and reseting my Exchange on my iPhone but this did not work in my case.
Eversince 3.1 and push my battery life has dropped from day to day 1/4 to 4-5 hours. My wife, who has 3GS, has no such problem.
When I turn on push settings my batter run down faster than usual
I updated to 3.1 on my 3G last evening and put the fully charged phone out with my keys to be ready for work in the morning. When I left for work the next morning the phone was already dead (~12 hours). I recharged it at work and lost 35% in about 4 hours (with just wifi on sitting next to me at my desk). UGH. I've turned push off and will see if fetching mail every 30 minutes will help.
If you are having battery problems... answer these questions:
How many mailbox accounts do you have?
How many are push or pull?
How many "notification badges" type apps are you running?
I have the same battery problem. wiht my iphone 3G and software 3.1 the battery life is massively lower than before.
I guess there are same Apps in the background using all power. When I shut down the iPhone and restart it, the problem is almost solved and battery life is normal. That was not the case with software 3.0.
Thanks for answering on this!
Axel
Am I misunderstanding push/pull?
I thought PULL would cause my phone to ask the mail server over and over again... "do I have new mail" every x minutes.
And PUSH... would NEVER have to check for new mail. The SERVER would contact me... and only if there was definitely new mail waiting for me.
No?
I just got my first iPhone (3Gs) and do you Push for my corporate email. I came from Blackberry land. My BB Bold battery lasted 1 1/2 days. My iPhone on my first full day pooped out 3/4 of a day through. I recharged it and and by nights end it was at 50%. Not impressed as I did not even use it hard. Something has to be done.
mokkos Says:
July 30th, 2009 at 12:57 am
Yup my battery life was definitely eaten up with the 3.0 upgrade. Plus, i started to having problems receiving incoming calls and had huge SMS delays (bt 5 to 50min) until I turned my push setting off. Hope that this is improved with the next upgrade.
Referring to the above post, I face the same problem as well. I'm using Iphone 2G with OS 3.0 upgrade. I had the same problem since Saturday when I started to use Frings.My connectivity is via Wifi.From that time onwards, my sms delayed untill I trigger with network activity such as making outgoing sms or calls. In terms of battery life, within 2 hours from full charge, my battery bar seems reducing. Thats a very FAST! Anyone here, kindly share your thoughts. I have tried to do a soft reset as well.Worst case is I will do a fresh upgrade. Appreciate to receive some feedbacks on this.Thank you.
I have a question. Today, we have the option to use PUSHMAIL application (PUSH NOTIFICATION) and MSGPUSH.COM in order to get pushmail on the iphone.
Whichi is more BATTERY consuming? a push email account or and push notification application?
I have just recently started using an app called Push Mail for my gmail and work email. I have Push and Fetch turned off and Push Notifications turned on. BIG DIFFERENCE in my battery life. While I never used email Push (because Gmail email didn't support it and my work email doesn't either) I did use email Fetch a lot for either fetch every 30 minutes or every 1 hour. Seems throughout my day because of those fetchings it drained my battery considerably. However now that Fetch is turned off completely and Push Notifications are turned on I have gotten an increase in battery performance. I tend to let my phone run on EDGE because I don't really need 3G that much unless I want something very fast.
A good example of this is I unplug my iPhone 3GS in the morning at full 100% at 8:00am. By the time 12pm rolled around I would be at around 85%. Let's also include the fact that I do a little surfing, blogging, gaming, you know normal iPhone stuff. My lunch is at 1pm and that's when I have the fun I just mentioned...during that hour. By the time I'm done my battery is down to at least 70% or less!! These outing had my phone on 3G most of the time also. But I tend to leave it on EDGE as I noticed I don't need 3G all that much.
The interesting thing is NOW that I use only Push Notification with all the other stuff I do on he phone - by the time 2pm rolls around I am noticing that I am at or around 80-85% which is a big performance increase in my opinion for my particular device. My 3GS is also jailbroken so I background an app or 2 when I need it.
In summary I think Push Notification was a great idea and it seems to help my iPhone's battery life.
I only started noticing faster battery drain in the last week or so. So I don't think it is 3.0 or IM or my mail push setting as those have not changed. I did install ReQall lately so maybe that is the culprit?
Yup... my battery life was definitely eaten up with the 3.0 upgrade. Plus, i started to having problems receiving incoming calls and had huge SMS delays (bt 5 to 50min) until I turned my push setting off. Hope that this is improved with the next upgrade.
ok guys! I FINALLY FOUND THE ROOT CAUSE !!
i dun use push mail service, but i did use push notification service from eBuddy, MafiaWars, TapTap... ever since i install these application which provide push service, my battery start to drain like water. i try uninstall all these apps, it solves. i try install it again, the problems come back! in order to use these apps without battery drain/heating up... try to DISABLE THE NOTIFICATION IN SETTING(1st page)... IT REALLY SOLVE !!!
I AM HAPPY MAN NOW!!! yeah!!!
from,
j2tech.blogspot.com
While the phone itself is great, the battery life is a MAJOR concern. Its almost impossible to go a full day without recharging. That is with normal usage ie. calls, sms, reading emails once or twice and updating my RSS reader. Want to use the GPS or playing a few games? Forget about that if you still want to use it after lunch to be honest.
My solution is that i always carry an "Iphone Power Station" with me at all times. That gives me two extra charges to get me through the day.
I wouldn't dream of taking it with me on a two day camping trip for example. Let alone rely on its compass or GPS considering how quickly it drains your battery.
Its like a double edged sword really. Its fantastic to have a phone packed with all these features but if you don't have sufficient power to actually use them as they were meant to be used.
hey guys, did anyone or urself notice that IM+ is eating up ur battery? it drain ur battery like water dripping… i could see that effect in my 3GS. that’s sucks…
In my previous post I wrote that my 3G's battery life was horrible. A few days later my 3g had been plugged up for 30 minutes and the battery only went up 2%. The plug was in the battery display not the lightening bolt so apparently it thought it was full. It was at 20%. I unplugged it from the wall charger and took it out and connected it to the car charger. It began charging right away and it was at 100% when I disconnected it. Since then my 3G's battery has worked great. I'm not sure what happened but now I unplug it at 5am and at 11pm it's only down to 40% - 50%. I did update to ultrasn0w 0.9 but that was one or two days later. Any thoughts????
My 3g lasts 1 day (24 hours) on push. I'm not complaining!!!
I have 3 iPhones (2 - 2G's and 1 - 3G). All three have are synched with the exact same contacts, photos, videos, and apps. One of the 2G's battery will last all day. The other 2G will last 10 to 12 hours. The 3G is horrible. It won't last a good 8 hours. All 3 have been jailbroken and unlocked using redsn0w and ultrasn0w. Can anyone explain the difference in battery life? I love these phones but the 3G's battery life is ridiculous.
I bought iphone 3g 16mb as brand new from ebay so how do i know it is brand new is there any way to see it has been used be4 or not?
I'm on my 2nd 3gs in 8 days. First one barely got thru one day before needing to recharge, and I hardly used the phone. Same thing the second day. Third day, I took it off the charger and within 10 minutes, and this is no joke, the battery life went down 40%. Got new 3GS from Apple, first day - charged it, second day, battery lifes seemed to be able to get me thru the day with light use. I recharded when prompted. Today, same crap. Took it off the charger and within 2 hours, with no Push, no Wifi, NOTHING, battery was down 40%. What a load of absolute shiite.
I'm a 25+ year apple user, lover, etc. so this is really hard on me. Apple's got MAJOR PROBLEMS! I won't keep the phone unless they can FIX THE FRIGGIN' PROBLEM!!!
k
I have also experiencing battery drain even I don't use push and push apps! I removed IM+, disabled push but drain still persist... I have 1st gen iPhone JB with redsn0w win.
I also can not send longer than 2 combined sms until I upgrade to 3.0... that's another thing drives me crazy...
10% in 4 hours, that gives you 40 hours. Is that not enough?!
I just pulled out my 3GS which I charged overnight, turned on about 6:30am and which I used to send 1 text this morning, nothing else. It's now about 10:30am and it's already down to 90%.
When I put it in sleep mode, I didn't press the Home button and when I opened it again, it went directly to the text app. Here's my question: because I didn't send it to the home screen after texting, was the texting app running the entire time, thus draining the battery?
you found nothing cause exchange push is just a push like in any other app :)
No problems here, 3G running 3.0.
Still gets me through the day, and that's all I need it to do!
@antonioj
How come you refuse to believe people when they give you real world experience? yes some people are getting poor battery life, and others (like me) aren't noticing any real difference. That doesn't mean we're lying...
I found that its not the push notifications thats killing battery in v3 its the Push Email (exchange) thats causing the problems
Honestly haven't seen a real difference with push notification on. I don't use it too much though - only 2 or 3 pushes a day.
Battery still lasting me the whole day :-)
My battery does drain VERY quickly when playing Tap Tap Revenge 2 though - he he ;-)
I use a BB Storm for work and a White 3G for personal use. Battery life after the upgrade does seem to drain faster. After reading all of the comments, it's nice to know that we as Apple users really are open minded about people and their phone usage. My gosh if everyone used the phone the same way there would not be any advancement or challenges from other phones. I am just saying if you use your phone the way you do & you have issues that's fine speak your mind and maybe Apple will address them or not.
@iBamse:
I too have had Notifications seem to crap out when the phone switches from 3G to Wifi and back again.
I can't believe Apple didn't consider this in the design, but I do seem to see this with IM+, which can seem to drop off the earth some days when I am in wifi range, but work fine when I turn off wifi and stay on 3G.
Teething problems is my guess.
i don't know if its because i have the battery percentage on so i see how rapid the battery is decreasing or not but it DOES seem to decrease a lot faster with PNS on with default settings.
I was going to make a thread about this but i keep forgetting.
As long as my iPhones battery lasts from when I wake up (8:30am) to when I got to sleep (1-2am) I'm happy. And it does even with push notifications on. I have noticed that it does hurt the battery more, but it is still fine for my use and I barely put the damn thing down. I do put it on my iPod/iPhone car charger stand when I drive to and from work, but I only live 10 min away. :)
Don't have any apps I use on the regular that use push notifications. I had Grip Growl and that didn't use too much battery.
Lmao I'm laughing at all of you spouting off percentages. "oh definantly down 23% yadda yadda". Lol did you time it? Do the math?
Anyway, I'm inclined to say that you use your phone more when push is on. That probably hurts.
Like others have said, if it's still alive by the time I go to sleep a-ok, and it's never not been a-ok
I haven't seen any difference and I am a medium to heavy user. I don't think we are comparing apples to apples here. Just because you get get push updates means you actually get a lot of push updates. The more you get the more the screen lights up and it will drain the battery. So when someone says they get push updates are you really? One or two a day is not going to drain your battery compared to someone who has IM app pushing all day long.
iBamse, I have seen the same thing with Exchange Push. If it subscribes on WiFi and then I turn off the phone (which drops the WiFi connection) I will not get any push. It is to stupid to resubscribe when the IP changes I guess.
@icebike
so that's why push is not working? If I'm on wifi when putting the phone into sleep mode I don't seem to get any notifications even if I have full 3g coverage. The phone seems fail to update apple's servers with the new IP to use for the connection when changing network from wifi to 2g while asleep.
I have a few push apps including AIM. On the original iPhone I have had for 2 years, I have noticed the battery life has either stayed the same or has even increased. I find whether or not push is used, when I use the AIM app, my battery life gets drained really fast. I think this is due to it constantly using a connection every second. I am getting the iPhone 3GS in less than 3 weeks so hopefully the battery improves or stays the same.
Exactly Kiwi, you are only connected to one Apple server. All of your third party apps connect on their own to that server. It doesn't matter how many apps you have pushing to you. Having the option turned on will decrease your battery life by 20%. Have 2,000 apps pushing data to your phone will also decrease your battery life by the exact same 20%. This is part of the genius of the Apple PNS. Now, if only Apple could make the notifications themselves more like the Pre...
My girlfriend and I noticed a huge drop in battery life when we turned on push notifications. At least 20% but probably more. And it didn't seem to be affected by how many notifications we received. Just having the option tuned on made the difference.
I've noticed a dramatic loss in battery life with Push Notifications ON. Although as many other users have stated, I've noticed it slightly drop quick with everything OFF as well, but mostly with them PN's ON.
It's tuff love, but you deal with it.
Far more than 23% hit here, on both the 3G and 3Gs.
I think what Apple may have misunderstood also, is realworld usage.
In the past, on Blackberry/WinMo - i'd have MSN or background apps running a few hours here and there. I didn't have it multitasking 24/7, simply when I needed it. Push notification seems to assume you want these things on 24/7, and while it can be turned off - it's a pain to do so each time.
Sorry Apple - but MSN multitasking on Blackberry or WinMo has LESS of an affect on battery life than push notification. I never beleived the 80% claim, and I don't beleive the 23% claim either. Standby claims are fine, but not relevant when it comes to actually using the various apps.
Also push still isn't that reliable yet, never missed an IM when it was in the background!
I usually get bout a day and a half of battery life even with normal usage (calling, txting, web-browsing, playing games etc. I do get push notifications from textfree, which works pretty well.
I guess it's cause i only charge it when it's fuly dead and unplug it as soon as its done charging :)
But yeah, no change in battery life.
Like icebike said, WiFi turns off when the phone turns off unless it has an active stream running. So turning it on and off is sort of a waste. It is WAY more efficient then 3G. I leave mine on and pair it with any WiFi network I can find.
As long as I can get from 6am to 11pm I am happy. I have been running smartphones for a long time now and know how much they eat batteries. Even when I had dumbphones I would charge them every night. It wasn't worth it to get 2 days sometimes and 1.5 other days and be stuck without a phone mid day. Just plug it in at night. No big deal. I really doubt we are going to see a smartphone last more then one day without a massive improvement in battery technology. The phones get more efficient so they keep making the batteries smaller. I would rather have a very slim phone that lasts one full day then a phone that is fat and heavy that goes two days. Apple needs a single app with toggles for WiFi, GPS, BT, Phone, 3G, VPN and tethering. Thank god for SBSetings. I just wish SBSetings had a VPN and tethering toggle.
Prob why Apple by default doesn't turn on the % batt meter, b/c it's dismal! Something Apple might learn from Windows Mobile (scary to say that) besides better control of notifications....allowing to turn off/on Push for certain times of day. e.g., Push can be kept on 8a-5p, then off in early am and early eve. The idea being that stuff can sync hourly or every 3-4hrs, and we don't need instant notifications....in an effort to preserve battery life.
Battery life has been as expected here. My 2g lasted all day and so does my 3gs. I consider myself a mild user. Mainly web-surfing on 3g. Couple podcast, video and audio. Wi-fi is on the whole day but only transmits when I go home. PNS is turned on all day. I always end the day in the green! I guess I've been lucky.
Use the charger. Problem solved.
Just curious, is there an app that tracks your battery life taking into account the various optional settings you might have on or off?
Seen no diiference in 3.0 with push. From 2.1 to 2.2 was a huge jump and 2.2.0 to 2.2.1 was dropoff to 2.1 levels. 2.0 hardly lasted a day.
I have noticed a drop in battery life on my 3GS but that is related to the fact that I use this phone more than any other device I have ever owned. Chargers in 2 rooms in my house, car charger in each vehicle and a charger at work too. I may be looking at a solar charging option too. Battery life is pretty good considering how many times a day I touch the device(calling it a phone does not make sense).
My battery life is compromised when on standby, before I barely noticed a battery reduction when the iPhone was asleep, but now it seems it's on and I'm running an App, so much more than 20%.
I've noticed a decently large hit to my battery life when I enabled push notification for BeeJive. I'm a moderate user (listen to music at work for about 3 hours) and I used to go through 75% of the battery in a day. With the push notification, I noticed I was having to charge the phone when I got home to be able to receive/make calls at night. It isn't too horrible of a situation, but the push notification does make a noticeable impact to battery life.
I too have problems with my battery life..and since I'm unable to swap out my dead battery for a fresh one as with other phones I usely carry another phone for back up. Untill I got ...INCASE... the case that has a built in battery charger..you slide your dead phone and as you use your phone it's being charged.
@Alex:
So you are getting EXACTLY what Apple Predicted.
http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html says:
Video playback: Up to 10 hours (3Gs) 7 Hours (3G).
2 hours is 20% of 10 hours.
If its a 3G, you are getting better than expected.
I don't understand why you consider this a drop.
hmmm. have just switched off push now. will do a 24hr test and report back!
My battery is lasting all day from when I get up (6am) to my commute to work where I play games, check the latest news, watch videos, message people, to my continue use at work for listening to music, to my commute home and my home use. I do recharge every night and I see that I'm usually at 30-40% by 10pm.
My gf who uses hers a little less then I do is at 50% by the end of the day. She plays a lot of games and for most of her work day her iPhone is idle, but she shares the same commutes. And it's white with no discoloration.
@Goldentree.
Bluetooth does not use and significant power unless you are USING it. It costs virtually nothing to have the chip listening for a connection.
Its a little worse with Wifi, but not that much. When the phone is asleep, wifi goes off, and you fall back to 3g/Edge. When the phone is lit up, it starts listening for Wifi. But listening takes little power compared to transmitting.
Radios use almost no power to listen. They use a lot to transmit.
Screen brightness is an issue.
My Wifi, bluetooth, GPS, 3G are ALL on 24/7.
I notice a drop. Goes from 100 to 80% in about 2 hours, watching a movie or playing music while doing mail, calendar, text messages etc.
Debating if I should turn Push off but I really love the 'Find My Iphone' concept from MobileMe so keeping it on for now.
PS: why would anyone compare the iPhone to a RAZR?!?
@Adam, @Jeremy:
Yes, guys, I know the iPhone is better than a Razr.
I was responding to stulaw11 who said that NO PHONE lasts more than one day. Perhaps he meant to say SmartPhone, but he didn't.
Some day we will all look back at the one-day runtime as a cruel joke.
Your battery life will be greatly improved if you just turn off wifi and bluetooth when not in use and turn down your screen brightness. I haven't noticed any decrease in battery life with Push. But then, I only use IM+. I also have to add that, since I am a jailbreaker, I use backgrounder to run other apps in the background and haven't seen the claimed 80% drop in battery life there either.
@Ossi:
It doesn't matter how many Notification APPs you use.
All that matters is the NUMBER of notifications you receive.
Apple maintains exactly ONE TCP/IP connection per PHONE when notifications are turned on. All signaling for any app goes down that single connection.
So I think the difference here is that there are some users that are getting notifications from very busy Instant Message sources, and their radio never gets a rest. Its receiving notifications all day long.
Others like me, get far fewer notifications, in which case it is no worse than a Push Mail connection to a very
low volume mail server.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2044027&tstart=75
51 pages...
More coments...
http://www.computerworld.com/comments/node/9135181
The usual Apple Defense Force might try to throw some smoke into the situation, but it is very obvious something is WRONG
Let´s hope 3.1 corrects it, and comes out quickly, because i do like push notifications
I've noticed that battery life has suffered slightly from my Iphone 3G to my Iphone 3GS, but I think it has more to do with the faster processor eating up more juice than the PNS. When I switched on push for IM+, there was no noticeable change in battery life. It will last a full day easily, 2 if I really push it. It's really all about how you use it. If you are constantly opening and closing tons of apps and playing high-end games and whatnot, then your battery life is going to be ALOT less, for obvious reasons. I personally am happy with the battery life, just be sure you have a juice pack with u to pump it up should you need it, I always have one when i travel.
I haven't noticed any drop in battery life on the 3GS with push notifications on. Easily enough juice to get through a full day.
I only use push with Beejive, i wouldn't say Im using Push very much. And its really only when im in wifi range. But otherwise, My battery lasts long enough for me to play with it all day, walk to and from the pub with music, and play the occasional game. (not doom or sims 3 though, they are the destroyer of batteries. So as said "I'm Golden"
Honestly, if your primary concern is battery life on a phone, if you go hiking for days at a time or something, then get a 'dumb' phone. 'I want music as well!' Get an ipod to go with it. If you still need power, get a solio or something.
You know, i swear part of the whining comes from the 'expected battery life' bandied about in the industry. I think Apple is quite fair in that they give battery life estimates in a variety of situations, so much for standby, so much for talk, so much for music. When people see figures in the hundreds of hours standby on phones like the RAZR they take that as being amazing. Not realizing how these things are tested for that figure, (underhandedly) or how much more complicated and power hungry the iphone is in comparison.
I haven't noticed a drop in battery life either. I'm using Push for 2 different apps, 3G service most of the time. I'm a pretty heavy user and I can squeek out one day. Same as 2.0.
Umh... is there even enough push notification applications out yet, so you can say that it gives you more battery life. I doubt it.
Some people are comical with there responses on this. Bottom line the battery life is atrocious when on 3g period. If you use straight edge it's ridiculously slow waiting for a page to load. It really makes you have to carry two phones. Some people don't have the time to charge in the day while either working or just out and about. There has to be a medium. People tell you t restore and all this b s. Apple put out 3.0 after working on it for about 6 months and people are having problems and we are waiting again for fixes. Don't get me wrong I love the iPhone but honestly I'm really just considering using this as an iPod touch and just getting another phone because this is driving me crazy. I don't care what apple says you need to be able to change the battery or a bigger one. Edge is just great for talking. At last let us pull down from the top a window to change instead of going into the settings without jailbreaking. They don't want you to jailbreak but we are missing functionality. I think I should have waited until they worked this mess out. I've had this phone for almost a year and it's been a long one.
My battery doesn't usually last the day with heavy use.
However, I think one issue with the battery usage is the perception that the battery percentage indicator gives. I have a jailbroken 3G and turned on battery percentage with SBSettings. That thing will drive you nuts. The battery percentage will all of the sudden drop 5% out of nowhere. I also don't like to see it below 50% (half empty). I ended up turning it off. The standard battery bar is enough.
3G 16GB iphone.
My 3G iphone used to last about 36 hours of operation. With the new push notification, it's down to less than 24 Hours...
I should note that, if my push notification isn't on, battery life is about the same as it was before.
TextFree is one app that has push notification on all the time, and that sucked my battery life so bad that I opted to uninstall it.
Beejive has push notification, but at least you can decide how long to have it on after you've exited the app.
Despise the quick drain of battery life, push notification is nice to have, so I will be buying a car charger...
barely used my phone today and im already at 75%
"I use Gmail. I’m still waiting to have push capabilities. I’ll let you know when/if we ever get Gmail push."
:)
I agree with Al. If your battery makes it through a day, then you're golden. The idea that you should be able to go 2,3,4 days ... what's the point? Plug it in each night. Done.
The only PNS I'm currently using is Associated Press. I have not noticed any dip in battery life. If you notice a big drop, try disabling the PNS on each app, 1 at a time. For awhile, the Exchange Server I was using (I know, not the same thing, but it is similar) was draining my battery big time. Turned out, it was maintaining an 'always on' connection such that my phone was never truly in stand-by mode. Never know. A particular PNS service might do the same. It shouldn't, but it might.
I have noticed that I have to charge a little earlier in the day, but, since I normally keep the phone plugged in while at work, it has not had any noticeable effect on my day. (For the record, AP News, Beejive, google calendar, fetch email hourly.)
@Bia
That is not something Omni can fix -- until Apple offers either background processes or some local alternative (e.g. API hooks into Clock or Calendar app?), 3rd party alarms/notifications on non-jailbroken iphones are going to require some manner of network coverage.
@Icebike, a RAZR is a far cry from any smartphone let alone a iPhone. Too many people that come from phones such as the RAZR expect way too much in terms of battery life. It's just a fact that you will have to charge your phone at least once a day *in most cases. Compared to a any "dumb" phone.
Anyone who has owned a 3G Windows Mobile device or any HTC device knows the battery life on the iPhone is not bad.
icebike
a Razr requires a lot less resources. Small screen (which is also not a touchscreen), no wifi, no gps, no iPod, no video... And I highly doubt you or anyone else would play with a RAZR one tenth how much people play with their iPhones all day.
And try playing one of those crappy 16bit games on a RAZR, then play a 3D game on an iPhone 3GS.. See how long the battery lasts on each.
Hint: it's definitely not a RAZR.
I can't believe people are complaining that it onlt lasts one day. Is it hard to plug it in and set it on your night stand while you're asleep? Is there that much of a benefit to being able to keep it off the charger for more than a day really? Also, the Apple push server requires the iPhone to only connect to that server so it doesn't matter how many services you are monitoring, if it was 1 or 100 it would use your battery the exact same amount (unless many notifications are causing you to use the phone more as a result)
I haven't noticed too much of a difference. I'm a moderate to heavy user and on a typical day after being unplugged all day with push notifications on, my iPhone tends to have 20-30% battery left. I've charged and discharged it almost every day for an entire year now and the battery doesn't seem to be showing any wear, which is great news. It should be noted that is an estimate on the percentage because I don't have the money to upgrade to a 3GS out of contract right now and I also do not play games very often on my phone. However, I am greatly enjoying the benefits of 3.0 and haven't really noticed any of the drawbacks outside of a few very minor bugs here and there. Overall, I couldn't be more happy with my 3.0 device, I'm enjoying the benefits by listening to stereo bluetooth right now in fact!
@stulaw11
My RAZR went 4 or 5 days on a single charge.
And that included email and lite web surfing.
Ahh, that's why it seems like my batter started running out quicker, good thing the apple geek didn't mention that when I went to replace my phone
No significant drop.
I'M+ on all tie time monitoring 5 different services plus AP app.
I fetch mail on a 30 minute schedual and use push for google calendars.
I still charge once per day. I really see no difference at all.
NOT Jailbroken.
It'd be really cool if Apple did like almost all other smartphone manufacturers and allowed for a removable battery. With an extra battery always on charge, no one (less people) would complain about battery life. My battery is dead, swap it with one I've been charging all day, put the dead one on the charger, repeat. But I know, that would make too much sense.
I upgraded from a 3G to a 3GS and I don't see any noticeable difference in battery life. On both devices under heavy use, the battery won't last a whole day. Under my normal workload, it'll last a day and I charge it overnight.
By "heavy" use, I mean playing games, watching videos, using Bluetooth, or the GPS. By "normal" use, I mean checking e-mail, browsing the web, or a few phone calls spread throughout the day.
I can't say if Push makes any difference because I've have Push on since day 1. I've also been using the phone more heavily than normal because it's still new. Once I return to my "normal" usage, I think battery life will be fine and pretty much on par with the 3G.
I absolutely noticed the hit right after the upgrade and a few push apps. It was so bad I couldn't get a full day with the same amount of use as pre-3.0. I had to do a clean restore (no previous data re-installed) as per Apple to get iTunes to stop taking 20 minutes to sync (which didn't work). It was actually nice to have a clean install again but guess what, no change in battery after the restore, it's still bad. I have given up on push for now. I was pretty excited about 3.0 but now the only benefit of it is copy/paste which I do like.
Battery goes down faster for sure. Especially while using it now. Wifi seems to eat it up much faster as well. Can make it through the day but normally plug it into my laptop when I get home from work every day now.
I've definitely noticed a drop in battery life. I have 3 apps with Push Notification, but I use the Push feature in only one of them and even then not very much. Still, I'm getting 20% battery notifications frequently. Hopefully this will be fixed in 3.1.
I use Gmail. I'm still waiting to have push capabilities. I'll let you know when/if we ever get Gmail push.
I haven't noticed. The Batt is GREAT! I run beejive and IM+ allday. I am a heavy user. Why both IM's? I can't decide which one to delete there botg great. One tweets the other doesn't. One stays logged in for 3 days? One doesn't.
"I don’t constantly get notifications but who does? "
Is that a joke? Push Notifications where announced to be apple´s answer for people needing to have IM apps running all the time. And those people receive ALOT of notifications. And right now, that makes battery life very very bad
it´s not a SMALL hit...read people´s complaints on apple´s own official forums...
and yeah, i also did a clean install (did not restore from backup)...when push notifications are on, battery life drops like mad
Honestly, I haven't really seen any change at all.
And I have like 4 apps running them.
I don't constantly get notifications but who does?
Anyways, don't see much of a difference.
Like mentioned by "ads", for people having issues with poor battery life - sometimes a restore will work wonders to help solve the battery issue. I would go one step further and start as a new iPhone instead of using a backup file.
I have a 3gs with one push notification app (AIM) and have noticed quite a drop in my normal battery life. I have been spending more time on safari using edge but I have been disappointed in the amount of bat life I get. Especially since the car chargers I had with my original iPhone do not work with the new one.
First off getting through 1 day is the goal of a battery, thats why they invented chargers. No phone is made for more than a full day of regular usage.
Second, yes the battery takes a small hit with push notifications. But did anyone stop to think about maybe because youre USING the phone more the battery SEEMS to drain faster? The screen being on and using the phone more than sitting in idle may be a false sense that the battery is draining faster when its just youre physically using it more than sitting in standby.
Doesnt sound like any fix is needed unless you leave it in idle as much as not using the IM push app or what not, not answering, and seeing if it drains more than with the push off. That's the only TRUE way to test if its the push itself taking the battery vs higher usage replying to all the notifications
My battery is ok with 3.0 but I've heard Apple is working on a new OS release to settle some specific energy issues.
Apple's push notifications are weird. Ok if it's for battery saving, but push is not only for games or IMs - or any other online stuff. I miss alarms in many offline apps, like task managers - and in other various "managers". Exactly the way I always had in my previous Palm/WinMo/Symbian devices.
Remember The Milk now has push, but it doesn't make any sense NOT getting alarms for tasks if you are out of cell/wifi coverage, e.g. during bus or plane trips. I use OmniFocus and hope the guys from OmniGroup fix it.
My battery life drops like a rock on push notifications. It got so bad I had to turn of all push notifications.
I haven't noticed a drop in battery life personally
I have been a beta user of iPhone 3.0 and the battery life without any Push or Notification apps has improved considerably since 2.x. With Find my iPhone turned on and running a few Push apps, the battery life has returned to 2.x levels on my phone. With only Notifications and 3G turned off and Push turned off, the battery life doesn't seem to have changed even with active IM'ing on IM+ and even after having an hour long voice call on Skype via wifi. Everyone's mileage will vary.
For those having an issue, I suggest that they backup their iPhone and do a Restore which will wipe the phone and install 3.0 and then restore the settings and then install all the apps and media files - I think they'll find the battery issues a thing of the past after that.
yeah, i've noticed a drop in battery life when push notification is switch on... I've actually switched it off now for BeeJive..
Sorry iPhoneMilk, but the interwebs say otherwise...and i have o agree...battery life on 3.0 sucks, and most people claim that once they turn push notifications off, it improves more than 20%
Apple better release a new firmware soon, because right now, all their campaign for Push Notifications vs Multitasking seems RIDICULOUS
WOW. That 1st comment..
AMAZING = not even 1 day? HUH?
Mine does last about 1 full day. I am not a heavy user, but HAVE noticed a little drop in battery life with push. I just barely squeek a day out of mine, OR about 8 hours if I listen to Ootunes via wifi.
Anyone ever get 2 full days out of theirs with no charging?
I havent noticed a difference. I only have a couple push apps but the battery seems to last just as long as it did before.
Such a fluff comment above me. Wish I could write the same.
I don't even use Push Notifications and just with the 3.0 update, I've seen a dramatic decrease in battery life with Wi-Fi turned on. It's almost ridiculous. I can watch the battery meter drain if I sit for a few minutes.
I would say so, or say i don't even notice a change at all.. it's hard to tell really because my battery life is amazing.
I am using push for Beejive IM right now, and also IM +
I basically get up in the morning at 6:00am unplug my iPhone and go out to have my day.
I don't plug it in again to charge it until around 10:00pm at night when i go to bed.
My battery lasts me all day long and normally by the time i go to plug it in it's still Green.
So to be short about it.... Turning on push never changed anything for the worse so i don't even pay attention to jotting down how much of a % loss i'm getting.