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Another Apple Launch Hiccup: The iPhone 4s Battery Life

Apple set the bar for smartphones with the introduction of the iPhone. Now over four years later, the fifth generation of the iPhone, the 4S, has hit the ground running; running out of battery life. Numerous complaints are being posted about the abbreviated life of the battery in the new iteration of the iPhone, and Apple is being forced to take notice. There has been much speculation as to the cause of the issue; however, it is becoming clearer to many that this issue seems to go hand in hand with the new iOS 5.0 software that released two days prior to the 4S release.

The issue appears to be processes running behind the scenes that do various things, one of which is verifying the current time zone, a service that seems to run far too frequently. This is a feature that can be disabled, and disabling time zone checking has been reported to help with the issue to a certain degree. Apple has requisitioned some user participation from the complaining customer pool and asked them to add a file to their 4S that will track usage and help target the problem(s). Targeting this will be key to the success of the 4S, but should not hamper sales greatly as Apple is usually quick to action in these situations.

A History Of Launch Failures

The original iPhone was revolutionary, but every release has had some kind of technical problem. The original iPhone could break at an unreasonably fast speed. Something as common as a drop could easily shatter the touchscreen, rendering the phone virtually unusable. This was a common problem, but the iPhone still managed to sell very well.

The iPhone 3G initially came out to praise: critics loved the 3G compatibility, which allowed lightning fast downloads. Despite downloading apps extremely fast, 3G users soon reported numerous hairline cracks, battery life issues and crashing issues. After hearing the complaints, one year later, Apple released the 3GS. The 3GS managed to fix nearly every problem the previous models were plagued with, but they had a new problem on their hands for this release. The iPhone 3GS is notorious for overheating; users constantly complained that the device would refuse to work in a hot car, and several reports even claimed it would break from overheating. Next, Apple released the iPhone 4, and almost immediately got hit with a media barrage about the “grip of death”. If a user would hold the phone, and cover the lower left corner, they would often get poor reception, resulting in dropped calls. This problem actually led to a court case. In response, Apple offered free cases to all iPhone 4 users. These cases fixed the problem, and made the iPhone 4 nearly flawless. Now, with the iPhone 4S launching to battery issues, it seems just another expected failure in the long line of Apple launches.

What To Do?

Overall, this is probably a reason to postpone a purchase of the 4S, but not dissuade anyone completely from buying it. There will definitely be a fix in the near future that will solve the issue and hopefully not create others. Those that exercise patience will save some frustration as Apple sorts this out, but the battery life issues are not a big deal for most individuals who are capable of changing the iPhone’s settings to disable the most battery-hogging services and who have access to outlets at least once every several hours. Also, since the fix is almost certainly going to be a software update, rather than a replacement of the iPhone’s hardware, you can always buy now and fix the battery issues as soon as iOS 5.0.1 is released.

Written By

Posted by Greg Henderson, an Internet Marketer and SEO Associate for a cell phone lookup site FreePhoneTracer.com, and an find an email address site EmailFinder.com.

14 Comments

14 Comments

  1. Harry

    November 4, 2011 at 10:37 am

    Awesome post dude.It’s really popular among the peoples.Its so much informative for the followers like me.It has so much guidance for many people.I really appreciate you for this awesome post.Thanks for sharing.Keep it up.

    • Greg Henderson

      November 9, 2011 at 10:14 pm

      Thanks Harry. I’m glad you enjoyed it. Keep checking back for more posts. I’ve been trying to do 1-2/week.

  2. Paul Salmon

    November 4, 2011 at 12:43 pm

    Most products that are released, whether it is hardware of software, seems to have a few problems. It is the nature of technology, especially since you can’t test every scenario a product may encounter when it is released. At least Apple has determined it to be a software glitch instead of hardware, so it should be easy to fix the battery issue.

    • Greg Henderson

      November 9, 2011 at 10:16 pm

      Software glitches don’t phase me as a consumer too much. I subscribe to the Lean Startup method of releasing a minimum viable product and iterating it to perfect. Hardware glitches are the real issues, which Apple should be glad they avoided.

  3. Joseph

    November 4, 2011 at 2:00 pm

    Funny how you say that. However, I remember Apple initially saying the signal fault in iphone 4 was not a hardware problem and then giving out free covers to all iphone 4 owners. Not sure who to believe on this one!

    • Greg Henderson

      November 9, 2011 at 10:16 pm

      The Death Grip had to be a hardware issue…no real way around that one!

  4. joe

    November 4, 2011 at 2:34 pm

    Well, I guess the late buyer has some advantages too.. 🙂

    • Greg Henderson

      November 9, 2011 at 10:20 pm

      The will send out an update soon or later. Personally, I am waiting for my two year contract to run up and purchase the 5 sometime next year. I feel the 4s was more for non-smartphone users and first time iPhone users. for people who bought the 4 their 2 year contract won’t be over until sometime next year…when i assume the 5 will come out.

  5. Appisaurus

    November 7, 2011 at 8:07 am

    The iPhone 4S sold millions of units on pre-orders and continues to sell easily. As with all brand new goods, however, this 4S is facing a couple of bugs and bumps in the road. Some are pointing to possible coding bugs in iPhone 4S apps that could be draining the battery quickly and completely.

    • Greg Henderson

      November 9, 2011 at 10:21 pm

      Apple with solve it. If there is one thing the company is great at, it is satisfying their extensive user base.

  6. kevin

    November 7, 2011 at 2:14 pm

    I think this is just a normal bump on the road as well as for any other products out there… the 4s will still get back to the race..

    • Greg Henderson

      November 9, 2011 at 10:21 pm

      Kevin, I agree with you 100%. Thanks for the comment!

  7. Danny

    November 9, 2011 at 7:22 am

    There is always something.
    How could they not come accross this problem in the testing phase? It is quite obvious.

    • Greg Henderson

      November 9, 2011 at 10:22 pm

      Good point Danny. It is one I’m sure that resulted from tons of variables and factors interacting. The good part is: it will be solved soon…hopefully.

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