I recently posted some great iPhone battery tips from Ed Shepard. This prompted New Orleans attorney Duris Holmes to write me with another suggestion for saving power on your iPhone: turn it off. Okay, that sounds like a joke, but Duris learned the hard way that it may be best to turn the entire iPhone off — instead of just turning off the antennas — when you won’t use it for a while. He explained:
I
haven’t seen this anywhere else, but if you are going somewhere and
will not be using your iPhone for a few days, I would suggest turning
it off. I went to Canada last week and turned off roaming, 3G, etc.
while I was there so as not to download expensive data. I was
impressed that my iPhone appeared to still be half-charged. Something
went haywire, however, as it would no longer hold any charge when I
returned to the US, even though I was charging three times a day. The Apple Store
ran diagnostics that showed that the phone was
in use for almost as long as it was on, just as if I had talked on it the
whole time.
Fortunately for Duris, the Apple Store replaced his iPhone and he says that the replacement process was “pretty painless and free.” Indeed, I think that one of the reasons that Apple gets such great customer service ratings is that if an iPhone or iPod isn’t working right, Apple Stores are really good about just replacing the unit without giving you any hassle. Nevertheless, it would have been better for Duris if this had never happened in the first place, and I would be interested to hear from anyone else who has had similar experiences.
This is a good time to mention that I always enjoy hearing from iPhone J.D. readers, especially if you have tips to offer others. My e-mail address is on the left, as is my Twitter account if you want to limit yourself to 140 characters.
“…not be using your iPhone for a few days…”
Huh? I can’t imagine what that would be like.
My iPhone battery tip? Have charge cables in every strategic location (all PCs you use and the car) and a Mophie Juice Pack at the ready just in case.
It sucked. I do have chargers everywhere, so power wasn’t the problem. I was just avoiding any chance of incurring roaming charges by using my iPod touch and wireless. (From what I’ve read, using wireless on iPhone won’t avoid roaming charges, which makes little sense, but didn’t want to take a chance.)
I’m not sure what happened in the story. what tripped the battery error? That he was using it without the phone antennas being on? Did you leave it plugged in the whole time? I’m just confused why the battery would go haywire and I can’t glean that from the post.
I have my own story. I used a car charger once and it messed up my battery for a few days. I normally can go almost two days on one charge if I don’t use much of the internet. However after using the charger it wouldn’t even last a day. I planned on taking it back to apple, however I knew that draining the battery completely used to be good for batteries. So that’s what I did. Let it die completely. Played videos on youtube when it was close to dying to speed it up. After two full discharges my battery capacity appear to be normal again.
I turned off the antennas and left phone on unplugged until I charged it the night before I returned. Not sure what happened. Phone still showed half a charge when I plugged it in. Apple people weren’t interested in hearing what caused it because they knew they were just going to replace.
Let’s not forget, too, that like any computer (which the iPhone certainly is), re-booting from time to time is always a good idea.
No doubt about rebooting. In hindsight, should have powered off completely because rebooting and restoring didn’t fix.