Should I expect battery life on an iPhone 4S to be significantly worse than on a 3GS?
It's anecdotal, but John Gruber (of Daring Fireball) who tends to get a lot of feedback from Apple users, suggested on Twitter that it's a problem for some non-zero percentage of users:
And my iPhone 4S's battery lasts HALF a day, where the 4's battery lasted 1,5 days
@JMoVS I know you're not alone, that other 4S users are seeing short battery life, but that's not normal. Mine lasts as long or longer.
So it sounds like you may have got a dud. If your battery life is substantially worse than a 3GS, it may be worthwhile asking to have your unit swapped for a fresh one.
Every time there's a new iPhone, a certain subset of people immediately claim that the new one's battery life is way worse than the old one. Fact: every iPhone's battery has been better than the one preceding it. Not saying your problem isn't real - it probably is - but one of two things is causing it:
- a software issue
- a defective battery specifically in your phone
Since no one here can help you with 2., we're all going to suggest the basics that Apple helpfully already summarized for us:
- http://www.apple.com/batteries/iphone.html
And I'd add that any battery-draining issues in iOS 5.0 are probably going to be fixed in the inevitable version to follow.