I’ve been a bit quiet lately while considering the possible reasons why my new iPhone 4S has the worst battery life of any iPhone I’ve ever owned. Normally by now I would have written some battery troubleshooting tips to share with all of you. However, this time around the problem is anything but normal and the usual tips aren’t helping. So I’ve been quiet about this.

I cannot say the same thing about Apple’s discussion forums since the conversation about battery life there is reaching epic proportions and the conversation there is rather loud.

It might be about to get a lot quieter with this tip, which seems to be working for me.

The problem might be caused by how iOS 5 handles location services. According to one source I found the problem might be caused by a bug in how iOS 5 handles time zone switching based on your current location.

There is a setting in Location Services in the Setting App that might resolve the battery issues we’ve all been experiencing. I tried it for about half a day and it looks like it helped,  but I really need to spend a full day with it and a fresh 100% charge before I get to excited. However, so far it looks good so I thought I’d share what I found.

Open the Settings app , tap Location Services and then tap System Services. Now find the “Setting Time Zone” setting and toggle it Off.

via: cult of mac

Having problems with battery life since upgrading to the iPhone 4S? Apple may be getting in touch with you to help them troubleshoot your battery problems, hopefully solving the iPhone 4S’s woeful drainage issues once and for all.

According to The Guardian, Apple has reached out to at least one user who is experiencing poor battery life with his iPhone 4S:

I then got a call from a senior [Apple] engineer who said he had read my post and was ‘reaching out’ to users for data and admitted this was an issue (and that they aren’t close to finding a fix!) and asked lots of questions about my usage and then asked if he could install the file below and that he would call back the day after to retrieve the info. I extracted the file from my Mac after a sync and emailed it to him. He was incredibly helpful and apologetic in the typical Apple way!

It’s worth noting this particular user was seeing some obscene drain: 10% per hour even in standby mode.

There’s no real word on what is causing the battery problems in the iPhone 4S, but they are definitely worse than in the iPhone 4… so much so that Apple quietyly bumped the standby time of the iPhone 4S down from 300 hours on the iPhone 4 to just 200 hours on the iPhone 4S. Some reports claim that location services are the culprit, while others say it all has to do with corrupted contacts.

Either way, let’s hope Apple gets to the bottom of this soon. From a power management perspective, right now, the iPhone 4S is acting more like an Android phone than an Apple device.

via: cult of mac