iPhone 3.0 battery drain

The iPhone 3.0 firmware is likely responsible for some unusually heavy battery drain on Apple handhelds, claims Aaron Vronko, the CEO of RapidRepair. The group was one of the first to conduct a teardown of the iPhone 3GS. Devices with the v3.0 firmware can sometimes drain "very quickly," Vronko notes, to the extent that they may be unable to make it through a single workday without a recharge. Similar complaints have appeared on Apple's support forums.

An iPhone 3G, for instance, may now drain in as fast as two hours, while a first-generation iPhone can last less than a day on standby. The problem is not believed to be connected to an inefficient battery, as it affects all three iPhone iterations. Theories suggest that the drain could be connected to push notification, which continually polls remote servers for app content. Some v3.0 users have reported better battery life after deleting and restoring e-mail accounts, namely those linked to Microsoft Exchange servers; the technique is not guaranteed to work, however.

Some users on Apple forums propose that batteries may be affected by corrupt backups from previous firmware updates. As a result, one alternate remedy involves performing a factory reset, and installing iPhone 3.0 fresh. Vronko suggests though that the problem may be resolved with iPhone 3.1, still in beta testing.

by MacNN Staff