It wasn't the most sexy upgrade for the iPhone 3GS, but for iPhone lovers, the news that the battery life was improved was welcome news.
Apple said at the iPhone 3GS would get 9 hours of use on Wi-Fi, 10 hours for video playback and 30 hours for music. This compared to the iPhone 3G, which offered 6 hours of Wi-Fi use, 7 hours of video playback and 24 hours of audio.
Yet, when the the 3GS came out, the battery has not seemed to offer much in the way of improvement, complained many users. I, too, have noticed a drop-off in battery life. I thought this might be something that fixes itself after a couple of days, as it did with the iPhone 3G. But the battery life has continued to be rough and though I've never done tests, it doesn't seem any better and possibly worse than the 3G.
It doesn't appear to be an issue with the 3GS' battery. The device has a battery that's about 5-6 percent bigger than the iPhone 3G. The problem seems to lie with the iPhone OS 3.0 software upgrade. Some iPhone 3G users have said the new software has also degraded their battery life.
I talked with Aaron Vronko of Rapid Repair, who was one of the first to disassemble the iPhone 3GS. He said the issue does indeed appear to be with the software. Somehow, the operating system is not working efficiently and apps and functions are requiring more power than they need.
"I would strongly suspect there is a problem in the software that is causing certain features to be overused or not use the hardware in an optimal way," Vronko said.
He said the iPhone may not be throttling the power needs of programs as it should. Another issue could be that there are more "vampires" in the OS, apps that suck the life out of the battery. A big feature of the iPhone 3.0 software is push notification, which allows developers to send out notices and alerts to users even when their apps are not in use.
"The push notification could be operating too often with things like instant messaging," he said. "Or it could be just some other software glitch that Apple didn't catch that is making things overwork the battery."
The fix may come in an upcoming 3.1 update to the OS, said Vronko, which could help address any inefficiencies.
Apple spokeswoman Natalie Harrison told the LA Times that battery life is highly dependent on usage. But if people aren't changing up their usage patterns that much, it shouldn't result in worse performance. At the very least, with all Apple's claims of improved battery life on the 3GS, we should see at least similar battery results compared to the previous iPhone 3G.
This is an ongoing challenge for the iPhone. Each iteration gets more functions but they also invite more usage, which can suck away battery life. The software and hardware have to try and keep pace with the advancements or we end up seeing worse battery life.
So you 3GS users and iPhone 3G owners who are on iPhone OS 3.0, how's your battery life? Are you doing ok?
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