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ryan

Does your iPhone 4 battery ever discharge completely overnight?

I've been seeing this issue at least once per week, sometimes more. Basically, I leave my phone plugged in during business hours, so when I head home for the day around 6 or 6:30, I leave with a full charge. I don't have push email activated on my device, nor do I really make many calls or use the device much in the evenings, so it's kind of surprising to find a completely discharged phone in the morning.

It seems possible that it's a multitasking battery drain, but I'm not sure that seems entirely likely -- if it was apps gone wild, I think a LOT more people would be complaining about this issue.
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dotEvan

I have less of an issue with battery life when the iPhone is connected to a WiFi network. If it gets in to some cycle where it's searching for AT&T signal, that could probably drain the battery. I've also noticed that for some reason the iPhone will occasionally not connect to my WiFi network at home, even though it's a known network. However, I have an iPhone docking station that I plug my phone in to at night, so I don't have battery issues in the morning.

Perhaps you should check to see if you're on WiFi or 3G when you notice the battery drained in the morning?
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ssstraub

No, typical battery drain I'm seeing is ~5% over 7-8 hours of sleep time. I leave everything toggled on except BT and I have Gmail set up through the Exchange method (for push email). Always on WiFi at home.

The only common problem app I've heard of so far is Skype. The default setting is to auto-logon, so all it takes is opening the app once and you'll be logged on forever until a reboot as switching apps or pressing the home button does NOT log you out (on purpose--so you can receive calls). There's no warning or mention from Skype or anything about this, you just have to figure out that if you leave Skype logged on in the background, you're battery life goes down drastically!

If not Skype, then you could try rebooting your phone before going to bed. That should probably tell you whether it's an app or not. If that fixes it you know you can determine the rogue app by process of elimination.

Also, my bedroom only gets 1-3 bars of coverage, so it's not like I'm in a perfect coverage area.
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Shoshingo

It happened once to me, but in the iPhone's defense I was running the Sleep cycle app while I slept and forgot to connect it to the A/C charger. Your particular issue is curious, though. How does the phone's battery stand in regular day-to-day use? And how does it compare to your old 3GS in that sense?
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FutureTuesday

I had similar problems with the 3G. I'd leave it charging overnight, go to work, and within a few hours of little to no use, the battery would be drained. No push either. Only happened a few times and I could never figure out a pattern. Hasn't happened on my 4G yet.
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gh

I have a similar problem. I leave my unplugged during the day and plugged in at night. About once or twice a week My battery level will be sub-20% when I leave work.

I do have push email, but it seems to be about the same battery life on these days as my 3G with the same settings.(except of course for multitask)
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Todd

Android phones have viewable list of 'running services" and "background data" ON/OFF user preference - doesn't the iPhone have the equivalent?
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Jonbruc

I would suspect background apps also. I think the phones connect to AT&T or Apple to report usage information, but it should not drain to zero. I usually charge mine overnight, but last month, our power was out overnight and I was surprised to see how much juice I still had the next morning.

Or maybe you need a Mophie Juice Pack Air www.engadget.com­/2010­/09­/02­/mophie­-juice­-pack­-air­-...
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jonathansweatt

I don't have regular times that I keep my phone plugged in. I have a charger at home and at work, and I only charge it when it gets down to 10% battery power, then unplug when it's fully charged. If at all possible, I avoid charging it if it still has over 20% battery power.

I do have push enabled, I only have wifi turned on if I'm at a place with wifi for an extended amount of time (at home, library, etc), and only turn on 3G if I'm away from home or wifi and if I need it. I may make a couple of calls per day, but text and use apps with internet a lot.

With this routine, my battery will last anywhere from a day and a half to 2 days. I started this routine with my 3GS, and kept it up with my iPhone 4. I really don't think that multitasking (which of course, isn't really "true" multitasking for most apps) has had much of an effect on my battery life.
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iainmacleod

based on the feedback, I would double click the home button the next time you see this issue. make a list of the apps "running". hold on any app for a couple of secs, and erase to delete the "state" - a bit of testing required, but you might find a culprit!
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Elfboy26

I did have this problem occasionally with my 3gs, but haven't seen it with my 4. If I remember correctly this stopped happening to my 3gs after IOS4.
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Sandlapper

The only time that has happened to me was when I stayed in an old hotel that got no service. I got the feeling that because the phone was searching for a signal all night it killed the battery.
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Welch

That's definitely irregular battery behavior, Ryan. As someone said above, going through the whole night unplugged will only knock off about 5% of my battery meter.

It's always a bummer to hear that your hardware is faulty, but there's really no other explanation here. Take it to the Genius Bar and get it swapped. They also have analytic tools that can confirm if the battery is draining at an above-average pace.
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yboogie

I had that problem. It was draining within a couple of hours and I was kind of upset with my new iphone 4.

I'm not sure which app was doing it but I think it might have been my connection to exchange that was constantly updating. I took off my exchange mail account and then put it back in and it seemed to help. I also suspect my gps related things, It seemed to happen also when Mapquest was running in the back ground. You may want to check background apps by double clicking on the "select" button and you might want to close some of them by holding down the icon and hitting the x...

Just some thoughts. My iphone is back to normal now.
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nickrodriguez

It is most likley due to the phone search for some sort of download from AT&T. AT&T will send updates all the time to the phone for whatever reason.

Do a reset of the network settings and you should see this go away.
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illtempered

You could try to quit all applications before going to bed to see if any one of them is doing it... i think thats a start for your diagnostics
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EBeat

When i had my 3G it would do that...only sometimes though. It would happen though.
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PhotonPanda

As with other people here, I've only seen a few percentage drain overnight unplugged. Battery could be suspect, but it's just as likely to be a rogue app on your phone. I also have wifi and good cell coverage at home, so it's not going to high power seeking or anything.

Apple's method of task switching won't tell you which apps are actually running (it shows all recently used apps) so you'll need something like iStat (from bjango) to see the processes that are running on the phone.
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mentalman1369

I've found location services, push notifications and push email can often drain the battery. try turning all three of these off. Also, it seems there might be a bug where the "Internet Tethering" setting under Settings>Network just keeps on searching/spinning, which also apparently drains the battery heavily.

It may also be worth getting an App called SysStats Monitor off the App Store -- it tells you what processes are running (as well as CPU and RAM usage); and it turns out a 'rogue' process called notification_pro can also really drain battery -- i've noticed somewhere around 1% an hour, which is pretty significant. If all of this don't work, try turning off 3G as well, and perhaps turning mail fetching to manual.

I've done quite a few experiments and it turns out if the phone runs purely on a 2G network/GPRS (with everything else off) it should only drop around 1-2% charge over around 8-9 hours. I've been able to push my iPhone 4 for 8 hours of usage and over 41 hours of standby time. If your phone can't last past 24 hours of standby under 'normal' use, the battery might be a a dud :(
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