iOS 5 Draining iPhone 4/4S Battery

A number of iPhone users are reporting that iOS 5 appears to be draining the iPhone battery way faster than it should (dropping 12% every 30 minutes in some cases), and that the phone is hot to the touch. Indeed my wife and I have experienced extremely short battery life on our iPhone 4S on Sprint. I have also noticed that the iPhone 4S seems to run a little hot. One user suggested that resetting the network settings appears to have helped some (General > Reset > Reset Network Settings). Too bad that fix won't do anything to fix the poor quality of Sprint's network. ZING!

UPDATE #1 (10/29/11): One possible explanation for poor battery life in the iPhone 4S is a bug in a location-based setting that detects your time zone based on your location. The bug causes the iPhone 4S to continually poll cell phone towers to update your location and calculate your time zone. The bug "causes the Setting Time Zone function to keep the location tracking circuitry running constantly, draining battery power considerably." This would also explain why the iPhone 4S feels warmer than it should. It might be worth it to try disabling this setting temporarily, at least until an official fix is available from Apple.

UPDATE #2 (11/3/11): Apple formally acknowledged the iPhone 4S/iOS 5 battery issues and promised a fix within a couple of weeks.

It's Official: Sprint's network stinks

Article first published as It's Official: Sprint's Network Stinks on Technorati.

Last Friday, my wife and I received our new iPhone 4S phones after pre-ordering them on Sprint.com. We chose Sprint because it was the cheapest plan and offered unlimited data with the iPhone. After spending 4 days with the iPhone 4S on Sprint, we are canceling and switching to AT&T. Sprint's 3G data network is terribly slow when compared to AT&T, we only get 1 signal bar at home, and we've dropped almost all calls today from our home.

This evening, we tested an iPhone 4S side-by-side on AT&T and Sprint, and it was very telling (see this speed test comparison for further validation). Sprint averaged about 1 Mbps or less on download while AT&T averaged around 3 Mbps. I went to the Sprint store to return my phone, and while waiting, I ran a speed test (with a full 5 signal bars) and sadly got the following dismal results (543ms ping, 0.14 Mbps download, 0.01 Mbps upload):

Netflix: Just kidding, no Qwikster

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced in a company blog post that it will be keeping DVDs under the Netflix.com site and the company will continue to offer both streaming video and physical DVDs under one company. This change comes after Netflix announced last month that Netflix would no longer be offering DVDs by mail, but instead would spin off the DVD portion of its service to a new company with a separate website called Qwikster. Due to customer feedback, Netflix has reversed this decision. "This means no change: one website, one account, one password… in other words, no Qwikster," Hastings said. Long live the red Netflix DVD envelopes!

Apple announces the iPhone 4S

Tim Cook, Phil Shiller, and Scott Forstall took the stage in Cupertino, CA today and announced the iPhone 4S. It didn't have the same excitement as events from the days of Steve Jobs (no "one more thing"), but some of the things they showed off were pretty impressive.

Specs

Image courtesy of Engadget

While not a major form factor redesign, the iPhone 4S features significant internal upgrades including: A5 dual-core processor, a dual-core graphics processor (up to 7x faster), an upgraded 8MP camera (f2.4 lens), the ability to shoot full 1080p HD video with image stabilization, and iOS 5 with Apple's "Siri" voice-recognition intelligent assistant (iPhone 4S only). In terms of battery life, Phil Schiller stated that the iPhone 4S will have up to 8 hours talk time (up from 7 hours with iPhone 4).  The antenna has also been re-engineered to utilize two separate antennae (one for sending and one for receiving, which purportedly allow for 4G-like speeds), and now includes the ability to operate on both GSM and CDMA cellular networks (a true world phone).

Pricing and Availability
The iPhone 4S will go on sale October 14 (pre orders Oct 7) in US, Canada, Australia, UK, France, Germany and Japan. iPhone 4S pricing: 16GB ($199), 32GB ($299), 64GB ($399). The iPhone 4S will be available on AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon. iPhone 4 will cost $99 and the iPhone 3GS 8GB will be free with a 2-year contract.

iOS5
iOS5 received quite a bit of coverage this June at WWDC, and Apple today reminded us of many of its features. Aside from Siri, which promises to let you do everything on your phone with voice commands, one feature in particular that I think is super cool is the location-based reminders. For example, you could set a reminder to alert you when you leave work, etc. Also new in iOS 5 is a "Find My Friends" feature that will allow you to see the location of friends who have opted to share their location (even if it is only temporarily, such as at a sporting event or concert). iOS 5 will be released October 12 and will only work with iPhone 3GS or newer iPhones and iPod touch versions 3 or newer (Siri will only work with iPhone 4S).

The iPhone 4S doesn't appear to be an earth-shattering redesign promising to upset the whole mobile industry, as anticipated by some; however, with a significant internal hardware upgrade, and tons of new features in iOS 5, Apple has further strengthened its position in the market. For someone like me who is using a jailbroken iPhone 3G on T-Mobile, I am due for an upgrade, and the iPhone 4S seems like a perfect opportunity to do so. Now, AT&T, Verizon, or Sprint? (Sources: Engadget, Mashable, gdgt)