iPhone 4s battery!!

[miss alia]

My iPhone 4s is running iOS 7.1.1 but it's absolutely KILLING my battery! 30 min of YouTube will drain at least 50% battery power and if I'm still using an app at 30% it will die. This phone is brand new, I literally bought it 5 days ago. Will updating to iOS 8.4.1 give me longer battery life? I've already reset apps and settings that drain the battery. Please help

 

[Eug]

Do not upgrade to iOS 8.4. It is slooooooowwwwwww on that phone.

How is it brand new? Apple doesn't sell it anymore AFAIK. Is it a refurb?

 

[miss alia]

Damn yeah I just checked, it's a refurb. So is there nothing I can do about the battery?

 

[Kaido]

Do not upgrade to iOS 8.4. It is slooooooowwwwwww on that phone.

How is it brand new? Apple doesn't sell it anymore AFAIK. Is it a refurb?

Yeah you aren't kidding. I still miss the compact form factor of the 4S though

 

[Kaido]

Damn yeah I just checked, it's a refurb. So is there nothing I can do about the battery?

Just buy a replacement. They're $20 and include a toolkit for installation:

http://www.amazon.com/TechAhead®-IPhone-Replacement-battery-models/dp/B00DE09Z90

Just hop on Youtube & watch some videos on how to swap the batteries. It's not hard, just a bit annoying since the screws are so small.

 

[mmntech]

From my experience, iOS 8 is no better than iOS 7 when it comes to battery life.

On a four year old phone that's been regularly used, it's likely your battery is starting to wear out. Like Kaido said, you might want to try replacing it.

 

[Eug]

Damn yeah I just checked, it's a refurb. So is there nothing I can do about the battery?

Yeah, get the store that sold it to you to replace the battery. If they won't, then other stores will for cheap. Or you can do it yourself for uber cheap if you're adventurous.

Honestly though, I don't think buying an iPhone 4S "new" refurb in 2015 was good idea. Bare minimum I would recommend in 2015 is the iPhone 5 or 5c.

BTW, Welcome to AnandTech.

 

[rsutoratosu]

Do not upgrade to iOS 8.4. It is slooooooowwwwwww on that phone.

How is it brand new? Apple doesn't sell it anymore AFAIK. Is it a refurb?

Its funny, i google a bunch of 8.4 videos to confirm, most people say its faster.. I upgraded my ipad mini gen 1 to 8.4 and its faster than 8/.1. Its finally usable again. I did read a lot of 8.4 killing battery though..

I'm debating on upgrading my 5 to 8.4 also.

 

[Ichinisan]

Be careful when changing the battery. Poking around those contacts with a screwdriver, you don't want to short-out anything.

 

[Eug]

Its funny, i google a bunch of 8.4 videos to confirm, most people say its faster.. I upgraded my ipad mini gen 1 to 8.4 and its faster than 8/.1. Its finally usable again. I did read a lot of 8.4 killing battery though..

I'm debating on upgrading my 5 to 8.4 also.

8.4 is most definitely not faster than 7.1.x on A5-based devices (iPad mini, iPad 2, iPhone 4S). Not even close, in real world use. iOS 8.4 may be faster than 8.0, but that's not saying much. I'm not even convinced that is the case though.

As for the iPhone 5, it runs fine on 8.4. The much faster SoC with the doubled RAM to 1 GB make a huge difference. iOS 8.4 on the iPhone 5 works well, while iOS 8.4 on A5 devices is painful.

iOS 9 beta is also painful on A5 devices, but it's no worse than 8.4. There is some faint hope that iOS 9.1 will be faster than iOS 9 beta though.

 

[HomerSapien]

Im still using the 4S. Change the default screen brightness. I keep mine around 45-50% and it lasts much longer, granted I am not watching you tube videos. It may seem low at first, but your eyes should adjust.

 

[Zahid Iqbal]

With OS upgradation, batther power should be improved which we don't

 

[davygee]

Recently updated the wifes iPhone 4s to 8.4.1 and it runs perfectly fine. She was on 7.1.1 before and I've not noticed any slowdown and neither has my wife. The problem is the battery. She has had the battery since she got the phone in December 2012 and basically can go to bed with it 100% and wake up and it's sitting at 30% with no apps in the background (it seems). Not sure if it's down to iOS 8 or the battery or a mixture, but seeing as i've replaced the screen 3 times in the last 3 years, it is really easy to replace the 4s battery, there are hardly any screws needing removed to replace it. Also can pick up a replacement battery for like £5 so it's something I will look into as well.

 

[Eug]

Recently updated the wifes iPhone 4s to 8.4.1 and it runs perfectly fine. She was on 7.1.1 before and I've not noticed any slowdown and neither has my wife. The problem is the battery. She has had the battery since she got the phone in December 2012 and basically can go to bed with it 100% and wake up and it's sitting at 30% with no apps in the background (it seems). Not sure if it's down to iOS 8 or the battery or a mixture, but seeing as i've replaced the screen 3 times in the last 3 years, it is really easy to replace the 4s battery, there are hardly any screws needing removed to replace it. Also can pick up a replacement battery for like £5 so it's something I will look into as well.

8.4.1 runs fine sometimes. However, I find it painful to run 8.4.1 on any A5-endowed iDevice for any length of time. Probably it has to do with the fact that I'm running much faster devices as well so, any slowdowns are immediately obvious.

My main machines are the iPad Air 2 and iPhone 5s, whereas my iPad 2 with iOS 8.4 and the iPhone 4S with iOS 8.x I've tried is horrible in comparison in terms of lag.

iOS 9.0 is no better. iOS 9.1 is better but still not as good as iOS 7.1.x. The problem with iOS 7 is that some apps are starting to require iOS 8 or above. Not a surprise, since according to Apple, 87% of eligible devices are already on iOS 8 as of yesterday.

Personally, I would have recommended sticking with 7.1.x for now unless you have apps that don't work with it, and then eventually upgrade to 9.1 or 9.2 when necessary.

I have 9.1 on my iPad 2 currently because I can't downgrade back to 7.1.3. Here's hoping 9.2 is faster than 9.1.

 

[davygee]

8.4.1 runs fine sometimes. However, I find it painful to run 8.4.1 on any A5-endowed iDevice for any length of time. Probably it has to do with the fact that I'm running much faster devices as well so, any slowdowns are immediately obvious.

My main machines are the iPad Air 2 and iPhone 5s, whereas my iPad 2 with iOS 8.4 and the iPhone 4S with iOS 8.x I've tried is horrible in comparison in terms of lag.

iOS 9.0 is no better. iOS 9.1 is better but still not as good as iOS 7.1.x. The problem with iOS 7 is that some apps are starting to require iOS 8 or above. Not a surprise, since according to Apple, 87% of eligible devices are already on iOS 8 as of yesterday.

Personally, I would have recommended sticking with 7.1.x for now unless you have apps that don't work with it, and then eventually upgrade to 9.1 or 9.2 when necessary.

I have 9.1 on my iPad 2 currently because I can't downgrade back to 7.1.3. Here's hoping 9.2 is faster than 9.1.

I suppose if you are using the older device on 8.4.1 for any length of time it may be noticeable. My wife only need to 4s for calls, texts and the odd game of candy crush so may not notice it as much. Likewise, I have a 5s and we have an iPad Air and an iPad Mini 3 and they run it like butter. We also have an original iPad which is only used my our 4 year old for video which is a shame as I love the original iPad, but now with no iPlayer and no Youtube, it's effectively only a husk.

Although I think Apple is doing the right thing now. They are streamlining iOS to work very well on middle range to high range tech, so even if the 4s is getting too slow for iOS 9, it will work well on the iPhone 5, which was released 3 years ago, so getting 4 full years out of an OS on a mobile phone is excellent coverage.

 

[Eug]

Runs well on the iPhone 5. I also think it runs well on the iPhone 5s, although others claim that it actually runs worse on the 5s than the 5, since the 5s is more memory hungry.

I personally think it runs better on the 5s over the 5 (probably because the 5s has a much faster CPU), but for basic daily use the difference is not much. I'd be OK to use a 5 as my daily phone, except for the fact it doesn't have TouchID.

In contrast, both the 5 and 5s feel much, much faster than the 4S. However, once you're actually in an app on the 4S, it works fine. It's more the task switching and app switching on the 4S that is slow. In this case it's likely mostly the memory, since the 4S only has 512 MB RAM.

 

[davygee]

Runs well on the iPhone 5. I also think it runs well on the iPhone 5s, although others claim that it actually runs worse on the 5s than the 5, since the 5s is more memory hungry.

I personally think it runs better on the 5s over the 5 (probably because the 5s has a much faster CPU), but for basic daily use the difference is not much. I'd be OK to use a 5 as my daily phone, except for the fact it doesn't have TouchID.

In contrast, both the 5 and 5s feel much, much faster than the 4S. However, once you're actually in an app on the 4S, it works fine. It's more the task switching and app switching on the 4S that is slow. In this case it's likely mostly the memory, since the 4S only has 512 MB RAM.

Yeah, the memory could be an issue for the 4S, but it could be down to the GPU as well. Seeing as the 5 is twice as fast in GFX tasks, so this would help out with the task switching animations etc.

Well I installed iOS9 on my 5S last night and its very fast, although I'm not sure if it's faster than iOS8.4.1, I do think the animations have been sped up on iOS9, but this could be down to a lower number of frames per animation rather than being able to run the animations quicker.

I also installed it on my Mini 3 and it runs great.

 

[Eug]

iOS 9.0 beta didn't run any faster than 8.4 IMO. It's 9.1 that runs faster, although I notice the speed up more on the iPad 2 than the iPhone 5s. On the 5s, 9.0 already runs well.

The iPad 2 shares a CPU (A5) and memory spec (512 MB) with the iPhone 4S.

 

[davygee]

Do you know what amazes me though. Is that a mobile phone that was released 4 years ago (2011) is getting the most up to date OS and that it will still be supported until (most likely) September 2016.

The iPhone 4s was released with iOS 5 and it now can operate (albeit a wee bit slow) on iOS 9, amazing support from Apple.

Can't say that about Android, can we?