Will You Kill Siri? Battery drain pain for iPhone 4S and iOS 5 users

Are you one of the lucky ones to have got your hands on the new iPhone 4S. Or are you secretly pleased that you didn’t take the leap as stories of terrible battery life flood the internet?

There is nothing more annoying than losing battery fast and it seems that the iPhone 4S is guilty. It isn’t just the chosen few who own an iPhone 4S that are plagued with trouble. Those of us who have upgraded to iOS 5 are finding that battery life on the iPhone and iPad is seriously affected. And it’s slow!

We’ve done the research and collated the best tips from the best sources, to help your battery life last longer. We’d love to hear your tips too!

One site has suggested killing off Siri. She’s the best thing about the iPhone 4S – so try these other tips first and let us know if Siri makes it out alive!

Back to Basics
There are things that always drain battery life regardless of the operating system or the device.  These include data services, screen brightness and mail.

Solution
– Screen brightness – turn this down for longer battery life
– Keep these off unless you actually use them: bluetooth, WiFi, 3G (for data)
– Turn the push functionality off on your email. Or have it push less often.  Go to Settings – Mail, Contacts, Calendar – Fetch New Data

iCloud Backup
You now have the option of backing up to iCloud rather than through iTunes on your computer. This will be a great relief for many – but is causing headaches for some.

Solution
Turning off non essential features in iCloud will definitely save your battery life. Go to Settings – iCloud – Storage & Backup. After turning off the backup – it more than doubled my battery life!

Buggy Bugs
There seem to be some bugs in iOS 5 which are affecting battery life. Particularly with the Calendar Alerts.

Solution
Turn off notifications in the settings for your calendar. Go to Settings – Notifications – Calendar and switch it off. It appears that the notifications feature is constantly sorting your appointments and this is sucking huge amounts of battery life.

It’s All about Location
Geo location apps need to know your current location in order to work. The new iPhone 4S has a major push on these apps and the new iOS 5 pings more regularly to find your current location. This is going to suck your battery dry faster than a starving vampire!

Solution
Go to Settings – Location Services and select the ones that you wish to be kept regularly updated. Some are a no brainer like Maps, but all those games and other apps that really don’t need to know where you are……Turn them off!

Sneaky System Services
There is a new feature in the iOS 5 update called System Services. This has features such as sending your data to Apple for their stats and information for location based ads and other services. These settings are hiding under Settings – Location Services – System Services (right down the bottom!)

Solution
Turn these ones off:
– Diagnostics and Usage (sends stats to Apple)
– Location Base iAds (on free apps that have advertising – this makes sure it is local advertising – do you ever read it anyway?
– Setting Time Zone (leave this on if you travel regularly – otherwise remember to adjust your time zone if you travel into a new one)
– Traffic (I use the traffic apps so I like the programs that use this to see where there is congestion – however turning this off will help your battery life!)

Another Solution

There are other things you can do and our bestadvice: Never get caught without a battery backup. We have a full range of iPhone battery skins that double your battery life as well as portable battery packs for your iPad and Smart phones.

Check out our range today and it will be in the post tomorrow!