# iPhone 4 Battery Draining Fast Suddenly



## HawkEye123 (Jan 27, 2010)

Hey all. 

So just recently, like 2 days ago, I noticed that my battery on my iPhone was draining insanely fast, much faster than before. 

Last night I set my iPhone down before bed with about 75% battery left, when I woke up it was completely dead, wouldn't even turn on.  I had slept for maybe 7-8 hours. I was also using it today, for maybe about 1.5-2 hours, and it went from 100% - 63%.  Usually it would go down to maybe 80%-85%. 

Nothing was running, I closed all apps prior to falling asleep, but before I have left many apps "running" while I was sleeping and the battery lost hardly anything.

This has NEVER happened before at all. Also, my Usage and Standby stats have been the exact same twice, 8 hours, and 9 hours respectively. 

Also, it gets warm while charging, I don't seem to remember that happening, but maybe it did. When it finishes charging it cools off entirely though so I guess it's nothing bad. 

Something is definitely up but I have no idea what it could be. 

Any ideas? Thanks. 

Hmm, it seems like it's back to normal now. That was weird. I'll update the thread if need be.


----------



## Joker Eh (Jan 22, 2008)

remove everything from that so called multi-task area, I found that some apps left in there will drain battery quickly.


----------



## hayesk (Mar 5, 2000)

Only VoIP and audio playing apps should do that. Other apps are suspended and aren't actually running.


----------



## Joker Eh (Jan 22, 2008)

hayesk said:


> Only VoIP and audio playing apps should do that. Other apps are suspended and aren't actually running.


I thought so as well, but I found apps like MSN Messenger to drain the battery quick if left in the multitask area and I know of it to happen on more than one phone. So I know they say they are suspended but I don't think they all are. There are other apps I have had this problem with.


----------



## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

I wonder also wonder about apps like facebook and skype. If I'm not actually logged out of these apps, aren't they still running and gathering information to send me push notifications if I get a message for example?


----------



## kloan (Feb 22, 2002)

Skype definitely keeps running, as it drains my battery faster than any other app... poorly written code is likely the culprit.


----------



## DempsyMac (May 24, 2007)

Skype is very bad for this and have seen it happen even faster then outlined here.

I have also had this happen with out skype I think that Navigon was the culprit.


----------



## speckledmind (Jan 12, 2005)

I’m still new at this, I got my iPhone 4 about two weeks ago, I have had to learn real fast, I can share a tad from what I have learned.

- Download Battery Doctor Pro, best 99 cents you will ever spend, read the help file and follow it to the " T ".

Multitasking: kill a running app
- All running Apps eat into the battery life, the worst ones are those who have a link to the web ( Safari, Skype, Facebook, Twitter etc… ), you need to close those Apps if there not in use, take matters into your own hands by killing running apps. Click on the home button twice and it will show you the dock and running Apps, just tap and hold on a running app and a "-" button appears against all of them. Tap this to kill the app.


----------



## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

TomTom as well will continue to run in the background and drain at least 25% an hour. I think this is characteristic of all GPS apps.


----------



## HawkEye123 (Jan 27, 2010)

Joker Eh said:


> remove everything from that so called multi-task area, I found that some apps left in there will drain battery quickly.


Yeah. I'm sure I closed each app in the multi-task tray, but I guess I didn't. What's weird though is that I've left apps in the multi-task tray all the time before bed, and the battery is only down a bit in the morning. So _something_ happened. 



UCGrafix said:


> I’m still new at this, I got my iPhone 4 about two weeks ago, I have had to learn real fast, I can share a tad from what I have learned.
> 
> - Download Battery Doctor Pro, best 99 cents you will ever spend, read the help file and follow it to the " T ".
> 
> ...


I actually downloaded Battery Doctor Pro a while ago, but haven't use it yet. I'll try it out soon.


----------



## monokitty (Jan 26, 2002)

I really wish all third-party apps quit automatically when you switch back to the home screen. Big pet peeve of mine.


----------



## Joker Eh (Jan 22, 2008)

Lars said:


> I really wish all third-party apps quit automatically when you switch back to the home screen. Big pet peeve of mine.


+1 on that.


----------



## fyrefly (Apr 16, 2005)

Lars said:


> I really wish all third-party apps quit automatically when you switch back to the home screen. Big pet peeve of mine.


It's be great (but probably too complicated) if there was a way to set individual apps to just quit and not stay in the Multi-Tasking tray. I don't need Settings or Phone or a game I tried once to be down there. I'd love to be able to shut that off.


----------



## HawkEye123 (Jan 27, 2010)

Well the battery life on my iPhone is definitely not as good as it was before. I wonder what happened. 

I'm going to restore it and see if that helps, and if need be setup as new phone. 

Hopefully this will fix it.


----------



## kloan (Feb 22, 2002)

Lars said:


> I really wish all third-party apps quit automatically when you switch back to the home screen. Big pet peeve of mine.


Me too, because obviously developers don't know how to program their apps properly, and they all just end up draining the battery.

Fortunately, there is a solution for jailbreakers:
iPhone.MY: SBSettings Toggle Removes All Background Apps

I'm going to install it tonight, just now finally remembered I had bookmarked it before the jailbreak came out for 4.1.

EDIT: Ok, I just installed it, works perfectly so far! I double clicked, saw apps in the tray, swiped up at the top to bring up SBSettings (which is awesome btw, forgot how great that is...), turned background apps off, double clicked again - no more apps in the tray!

Easy peasy. 

This is the kind of stuff that makes jailbreaking so worthwhile.


----------



## kloan (Feb 22, 2002)

Ok, so it only removes the apps from the tray each time you click it. If you open more apps after that, they remain in the tray.

As a quicker way of removing all apps from the tray before you go to sleep, it's still useful.. just not quite as functional as I thought it was.


----------



## Stephanie (Jul 21, 2004)

What I'd like to see is if there'd be some kind of indication or badge in that area to show which apps are actually running, versus which ones are just down there because you used them recently.

At least then you would be able to tell what apps might be suspect.


----------



## polywog (Aug 9, 2007)

fyrefly said:


> It's be great (but probably too complicated) if there was a way to set individual apps to just quit and not stay in the Multi-Tasking tray. I don't need Settings or Phone or a game I tried once to be down there. I'd love to be able to shut that off.


It'd be great if only apps that are actually multitasking stayed there. Never understood why they did it the way they did.


----------



## Stephanie (Jul 21, 2004)

I don't mind it for fast app switching - I've used it for that more than once and it is quicker than going back to home and relaunching from there. Particularily when I'm switching between apps that are on different home pages or buried in different folders. 

But knowing that of the dozen or so apps down there, maybe one or none are actually doing anything, would be nice.

Apple probably never thought it was necessary since apps should only be doing something if they're using one of three specific services, but I've heard of some devs registering the app to use one of those three services even though it doesn't, just so their app will keep on running when in the background.  So at least let the users know what might be running...


----------



## Rounder (Aug 9, 2008)

I've noticed over the course of my ownership of the iPhone 4 since July, that the battery has gradually increased in strength. I don't even bother with closing apps in the multitasking bar as I've noticed it makes 0 difference. (unless it's Skype or a very selected few). I used to use my phone throughout the day from 7 to 5 and have the battery be at 30-50%. Now, it's upwards of 75-85% battery still left. And I'm also jailbroken (which people tend to think eats your battery, totally false if you know what apps you're intalling). A couple of battery cycles as really helped. But the point is, the battery does get better with time and usage.


----------



## HawkEye123 (Jan 27, 2010)

Well my battery life has returned to normal. 

Before the battery died yesterday, I got:

Usage: 6 Hours, 6 Minutes
Standby: 3 Days, 7 Hours

I guess it must have been an app that I left running. Now I make sure I close every app before going to sleep.


----------



## TPCM (May 8, 2010)

kloan said:


> Me too, because obviously developers don't know how to program their apps properly, and they all just end up draining the battery.
> 
> Fortunately, there is a solution for jailbreakers:
> iPhone.MY: SBSettings Toggle Removes All Background Apps
> ...


SBSettings EATS battery.

I find anything that uses Activator does aswell.

-TPCM


----------



## kloan (Feb 22, 2002)

TPCM said:


> SBSettings EATS battery.
> 
> I find anything that uses Activator does aswell.
> 
> -TPCM


Oh really? hmm.. I haven't noticed a decrease in battery life since installing it, but every time I use the remove background apps button, it resets my battery counter, so I lose track of how long the charge has lasted.

There's got to be a better way!! I wish Apple would give us the option to turn it off, or a similar remove apps in one click, with 4.2.


----------



## Joker Eh (Jan 22, 2008)

kloan said:


> there's got to be a better way!! I wish apple would give us the option to turn it off, or a similar remove apps in one click, with 4.2.


+1


----------



## TPCM (May 8, 2010)

kloan said:


> Oh really? hmm.. I haven't noticed a decrease in battery life since installing it, but every time I use the remove background apps button, it resets my battery counter, so I lose track of how long the charge has lasted..


Apparently they just optimized it for iOS 4 last week... hrmm........

-TPCM


----------



## mikesums (Nov 18, 2011)

*Hawkeye did you face the issue again*

Hi,

Last two days, I have faced the exact same problem described here. My battery drains from full charge to zero in 6-7 hours without using phone at all. I have taken all the posible steps to reduce battery usage, switching off 3G, killing all apps, most services like location, notification, etc in off mode.

Yesterday I also removed all the recent apps which I downloaded in last few week plus many other apps. Still no help. 

Any idea on this problem and solution to it will be highly appreciated.


----------

