Apple lists ways to extend iPhone battery life – don’t use any of the new 3G features
Posted on 12 July 2008, at 7:38 pm, by Wayne Schulz
I’ve been hearing and reading that the new iPhone 3G is not performing up to par in the battery category. Though the device is rated for 5 hours of 3G talk time or 7 hours of video playback – people seems to be whispering about much shorter battery life. I just found this gem on the official Apple web site. It’s a list of ways that you can extend the life of your new iPhone 3G. Curious what’s on the list? It’s a doozy because essentially what Apple says is to extend the battery life of your new iPhone by NOT using any of the new features (and were largely the reason many of us bought it in the first place and are paying $10 more monthly to AT&T for higher 3G data speeds). Does this list seem just a tad odd to you?
APPLE’S SUGGESTIONS TO OPTIMIZE BATTERY LIFE
- Turn off 3G
- Minimize use of location services
- Turn off push email
- Minimize use of third party applications
So let me get this straight. If I turn off the 3G on the new device that I just paid Apple $299 (primarily to get 3G data speeds) then I’ll have a phone that meets Apple’s stated battery life? Should this be a disclosure on the box? I have a feeling we’re going to keep hearing more about the battery life of the new iPhone 3G in the coming weeks.
Apple battery life suggestions
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July 13th, 2008 at 5:56 am
You can make the battery almost last forever, if you just turn off the device altogether. Sorted!
July 13th, 2008 at 6:00 am
Yeah – geez — were those the weirdest “how to save battery” life tips ever??
The only thing they left out was run it off the charger..
July 13th, 2008 at 8:59 am
Hmmm – this is one more consideration which may make some people (especially those not in 3G areas) decide that they shouldn’t upgrade.
July 13th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
I’m not sure I find this particularly surprising. 3G radios suck a lot of power and the battery for this unit is about the same size as for the 1st gen unit so I’d expect it to have a battery drain concern. I am surprised they did it as a disclosure – probably to avoid being sued. But lots of manufacturers do suggest turning off the 3G radio to save power.
The last item did catch me off guard a little (but probably shouldn’t have) and it should probably be mentioned that it also really affects 1st gen devices – those third party apps can be much more processor and memory intensive than the clip-oriented apps Apple gave you. Super Monkey ball eats up battery VERY fast!
July 16th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
To say that the battery performance on my 3G IPhone has been atrocious is being kind. Within three hours of the phone being powered up, and being used minimally, the battery is almost completely run down. This is atrocious. I will have to carry the charger with me. Using any of the applications like radio stations for more then a few minutes will send the battery into an absolute free fall. If I had known this, I would not have purchased the phone until significant improvements are made. What’s the use of having the ability to download all of these admittedly wonderful features if you cannot use them.
I guess the expression “buyer beware” is unfortunately very appropriate here. That being said, Apple has some major explaining to do, and some firmware improvements to get out there ASAP.
July 17th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Over on the MacRumors forum someone indicated that turning off location services greatly improved their battery life. Might be something to try. Haven’t been able to test since I’ve been in the office and connected to power lately.
July 25th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
“So let me get this straight. If I turn off the 3G on the new device that I just paid Apple $299 (primarily to get 3G data speeds) then I’ll have a phone that meets Apple’s stated battery life?”
If you bother to read, it says on the official iPhone 3g website that during battery testing “…all settings were default except: Call Forwarding was turned on; the Wi-Fi feature Ask to Join Networks was turned off. Wi-Fi was enabled but not associated with a network.”
Wayne Schulz, please do your homework.
August 4th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Here is was REALLY helped my iPhone 3G battery… A LOT! AND I even keep 3G ENABLED!
1) Turn push mail off. Set mail to fetch at 1 hour intervals.
2) Turn WiFi off when not needed.
3) Turn Bluetooth off when not needed.
4) AND… This one is VITALLY IMPORTANT: when you find yourself using GPS, you MUST go into settings and turn Location Services OFF AGAIN! This is a major bug and hopefully Apple fixes it soon. This 4th step is the one that saved me. It meant the different between having my battery drained before lunch – to having it at at about 90% capacity at bedtime!
February 3rd, 2009 at 3:59 pm
I did all of the suggested – the only thing I haven't turned off is the phone itself – very disappointed in this phone. When I called for service, the guy tod me to remove the battery. When I said I had an IPhone – he said Oh…. and I could hear him turning pages – the manual, maybe? – which was very discouraging.
February 24th, 2009 at 6:11 am
Half a day tops. That's as good as it gets (for me). Work bought me this phone (against my suggestion for another device) and they can not reach me atfter 2:00 in the afternoon as the battery is ka-put! Hey, so why am I complaining, right—this should be good??? 3G: an overpriced toy unsuitable for the work environment………Patrick
p.s. It's even worse for the device's "search" function…non-existent! Whose idea of a bad joke is this?
July 8th, 2009 at 4:25 am
This post by Apple is major damage control – here’s the big problem – Apple REDUCED the battery size by 15% to make a sexier box. In their obsessive drive for revenue, they again refused third parties and purchasers to replace batteries in the device. This meant they shoehorned themselves into this product, like it or not.
Push email won’t save you much battery life – mine is set for an hour. It’s Apple’s immense stupidity and arrogance in forcing you the iPhone check email EVERY TIME YOU SO MUCH LOOK AT YOUR EMAIL. You can’t turn that off without turning off your phone’s radio to go into Airplane mode. Then every time you want to review emails you get that annoying message about turning on airplane mode.
Let’s get to 3G – turning off all of the above will yield maybe 90 minutes of data usage with NO VOICE. I’ve tried it. After 90 minutes the phone will be down to dangerously low levels. The phone turns off the radio well above the 0% mark. The video/audio player functions more efficiently. The problem is that I didn’t buy this thing to work as an iPod – I bought it to work as a PHONE first. Apple shouldn’t have shaved the battery and handed it to their iPod team to test it.
Last – Telling people not to use the phone as it is expected to be used is absurd. This includes “excessive use of applications.” What does that mean? The phone doesn’t work with REASONABLE use of applications and nobody would be complaining if the phone didn’t work for EXCESSIVE uses. This is more Apple wordplay marketing gobbledygook. It worked better than “Users can expect the iPhone battery to stay charged for significantly longer periods of time by curtailing their talk time and usage of the phone in the entirety.”
Apple made a big booboo here. They will never recall this big mistake. They locked everyone into forcing us to return phones to AppleCare for replacement rather than having the user replace the battery themselves like every other phone. We’ll just have to see whether enough angry people can convince politicians to deal with the mighty Apple that is never wrong.