iPad battery performance

[joukowski]

Hello, can you help? I've updated all my apps on my iPad and am now experiencing woeful battery life. I'm loosing at least 11-14% battery every hour is anyone experiencing this and does anyone have any suggestions? I'm running os4.3.5.

 

[Dantana]

Have you tried closing down the apps in the background..... Double click your button and all the background apps will appear... Press x and stop them from running... May be the problem.

 

[jsh1120]

I doubt that it is apps running in the background. They don't really "run." Unless you have some reason to remain on 4.3.5, I'd strongly advise you to update to the most recent version of the OS (5.0.1). That may not solve your problem but it will eliminate one important variable.

 

[joukowski]

yeah i'm 1/2 thinking it could be one of the updated apps in the background that's draining the battery. I've just now deleted all apps I don't think i need and just waiting for a 100% charged so I can totally close all apps and put the iPad to sleep & see what happens tomorrow morning....

jsh1120, i was really keen to get OS5 onto the iPad but after hearing a lot of bad press from people at work over what the latest OS release is doing to their iphones is a bit worrying for me although i don't have an iphone... I also hear apple is working on a newer OS5 that is meant to fix all these bugs, is there any merit in this news? Should I wait for this new release?

All ideas welcome!

 

[MoonlitSonata]

yeah i'm 1/2 thinking it could be one of the updated apps in the background that's draining the battery. I've just now deleted all apps I don't think i need and just waiting for a 100% charged so I can totally close all apps and put the iPad to sleep & see what happens tomorrow morning....

jsh1120, i was really keen to get OS5 onto the iPad but after hearing a lot of bad press from people at work over what the latest OS release is doing to their iphones is a bit worrying for me although i don't have an iphone... I also hear apple is working on a newer OS5 that is meant to fix all these bugs, is there any merit in this news? Should I wait for this new release?

All ideas welcome!

iOS 5.0.1 helped a lot with things 5.0 messed up.

 

[jsh1120]

yeah i'm 1/2 thinking it could be one of the updated apps in the background that's draining the battery. I've just now deleted all apps I don't think i need and just waiting for a 100% charged so I can totally close all apps and put the iPad to sleep & see what happens tomorrow morning....

jsh1120, i was really keen to get OS5 onto the iPad but after hearing a lot of bad press from people at work over what the latest OS release is doing to their iphones is a bit worrying for me although i don't have an iphone... I also hear apple is working on a newer OS5 that is meant to fix all these bugs, is there any merit in this news? Should I wait for this new release?

All ideas welcome!

A couple of points. Although a "rogue app" could be draining your battery, the software architecture of iOS combined with the requirements Apple imposes on apps delivered through iTunes effectively eliminates the problem. Unless you have a corrupted app (and even then) I doubt that apps are the source of your problem. This isn't the place for a discussion of how "multi-tasking" works in iOS, but if you're not running an app in the foreground it is almost certainly "suspended." There are a few exception to this rule, but they wouldn't account for your problem. A much more likely villain is screen brightness set to maximum and not sleeping or wifi or 3G searching.

Second, the update to iOS 5.0 is already available. It's the version you'll get from iTunes (5.0.1) and it resolves (supposedly) the battery drain issues on 5.0. (Though it was never clear if the problems afflicted the iPad. Most complaints were about the iPhone.)

If you find you're still experiencing problems with excessive battery drain, you may have a faulty battery. However, you should recognize that a battery drain of about 11% per hour is not unusual (unless the iPad is sleeping.) At that rate of drain, the iPad would last about 10 hours and that's what is to be expected.

 

[joukowski]

Oops I left out an important detail in my first post: the batt drain occurs whilst the iPad is asleep... Which is also what I should be doing right now - lol. Good night everyone!

 

[tomearp]

I did experience the battery running down ridiculously quickly on my iPad2 after updating to the first iOS 5, but it only happened once, and since updating to the latest iOS 5 it hasn't done it again.

One thing that I find has a great influence on battery life when my ipad is in my bag is how full my bag is. I have an otterbox defender case and the rubber bit over the top of the home button sits proud and can get pressed causing the unlock screen to come on, took me a couple of days to work out what was going on...simple solution; carry less crap in my bag

 

[f4780y]

Battery drain like that is a pretty good indication that a process is panicking in the background. It's not unusual for this to happen after a bad upgrade, but it's quite unusual to be consistent on a well established installation.

If you are fully rebooting the iPad (turning it full off and back on again) and the drain still persists then I would suggest a full restore, but that is quite a drastic course of action so make sure you prepare (sync and backup). You will be forced to go to 5.0.1, but should still be able to restore your files, settings, etc. from the backup.

IF on the off-chance the battery drain persists after that, the problem is likely something in your backup, so you may need to restore again and set up the iPad as a new device. The downside of that is you will lose your settings and app data, although you can of course get all your apps, media, etc. re-installed via iTunes.

 

[paulthefencer]

I have a first gen iPad. I've noticed that my iPad battery drains pretty quick as well, even over night when not in use. I never power the iPad completely off, I just put it into sleep mode and it would still lose power over night. One thing I've started doing is putting the iPad into "airplane" mode over night. That way it doesn't continuously search for wifi signals, and bluetooth is deactived. The next morning I have the same battery strength as I did the night before. Doesn't really explain why the battery drains so fast in the day however. I know it's almost 2 years old next April, but it seems to be dropping faster since the iOS 5 update, and even the 5.0.1 hasn't helped. I use my iPad A LOT so perhaps it's just standard procedure for a battery of this age and use.

 

[joukowski]

All good this morning! No unwanted batt drain at all.

My screen nrightness is set midpoint. I do use 3g quite a bit and being in autralia the signals quite weak some areas & that accounts for more batt drain in use... What should I do next? Keep installing back my apps one at the time to find out which is the problem? Is there a pole or something indicating how the general consensus is re Os 5.0.1? Reminds me of Microsoft where we get one update after another - lol