In terms of the battery, what are you supposed to do with the iPhone when you get it?

[Jimmy97]

When you first get it, the first charge, what are you supposed to do? As in, charge it fully the before using it, draining completely then charging completely, and so on.
Because I'm kind of worried as I'm not sure if the right thing was done at first. Here's an example of my battery life performance: Fully charged at 3, lasted til 9 using YouTube all the time, though I'm not sure if it was on 3G or Wi-Fi. 6 hours seems pretty good, seeing as it's the advertised Wi-Fi battery life for browsing, and I was on YouTube which counts as browsing + video I guess. But I just want to make sure; does this seem standard?

[ReyZero]

There's alot of arguement about charging with lithium ion batteries, but personally my father and I charge our iPhone every night to top it off and haven't had a problem. Actually on every device I've had, such as the PSP/DS/Media Players/Laptop, I've had them topped off countless times and havn't seen any depreciated battery problems. The only thing I can say is if your battery indicater seems off, let the iPhone die and do a full charge.

[Jimmy97]

By "top off" you mean?
And are you saying it's unimportant what you do with it when you first get it?

[ShadowMunky]

How are you supposed to drain the battery completely ?? The screen just shows a low battery icon and then u can't do anything ?

[bobb-mini]

Don't worry about it. Drain completely once a while to get the batt meter accurate, that's about it. Once-a-while = say once every 3 months. But if u miss, don't sweat it.

Drain completely = just use it until batt meter completely empty, then start playing some video continuosly, the thing will give u a "must charge soon..." or some msg of that sort.

[ShadowMunky]

Don't worry about it. Drain completely once a while to get the batt meter accurate, that's about it. Once-a-while = say once every 3 months. But if u miss, don't sweat it.

Drain completely = just use it until batt meter completely empty, then start playing some video continuosly, the thing will give u a "must charge soon..." or some msg of that sort.
Hmmm my Phone just won't work once the battery goes below 5%

[ShadowMunky]

I have had my iPhone on for 4 days with wifi on, but the phone was on standby. They say the battery lasts 300 hours, and that's 12.5 days, which I think is a bit optimistic or, that must be after a good few charges.

[ReyZero]

I bet if you turned off all the automatic settings, like brightness, the push thing which searches for updates, turn off 3G, put on lowest brightness/sound, and made it so all your phone would do is sit there on standby waiting for phone calls, and not recieve a single one, maybe you'd get 300. But where's the fun in that? :D

[Jimmy97]

Nop. Apple's battery tests are usually pretty accurate, or in most cases higher than advertised. 300 standby hours: "Testing conducted by Apple in May and June 2008 using preproduction iPhone 3G units and software. All settings were default except: Call Forwarding was turned on; the Wi-Fi feature Ask to Join Networks was turned off. Wi-Fi was enabled but not associated with a network. Battery life depends on the cellular network, location, signal strength, feature configuration, usage, and many other factors. Battery tests are conducted using specific iPhone units; actual results may vary."

^According to Apple's site. Wi-Fi was on, 3G was on, and I think Push was off, but I'm not sure. At any rate that's pretty damn impressive, and if you're getting 4 days you must have some factor lowering it significantly. You might want to look into this.

[ShadowMunky]

Nop. Apple's battery tests are usually pretty accurate, or in most cases higher than advertised. 300 standby hours: "Testing conducted by Apple in May and June 2008 using preproduction iPhone 3G units and software. All settings were default except: Call Forwarding was turned on; the Wi-Fi feature Ask to Join Networks was turned off. Wi-Fi was enabled but not associated with a network. Battery life depends on the cellular network, location, signal strength, feature configuration, usage, and many other factors. Battery tests are conducted using specific iPhone units; actual results may vary."

^According to Apple's site. Wi-Fi was on, 3G was on, and I think Push was off, but I'm not sure. At any rate that's pretty damn impressive, and if you're getting 4 days you must have some factor lowering it significantly. You might want to look into this.

I think it's pretty cool, because with my Nokia N80, well, i only got a day at the most from it's battery, even on standby the whole day,so this battery is really excellent. Oh, yeah, if you're thinking of getting one of those Nokia's DO NOT. Currently my settings are : Wi-Fi off, ask to join networks on,ringing volume is only 4 from full, brightness is on the factory setting, with auto brightness on, Location services on, auto lock 1 minute ( don't really know if that would matter), bluetooth off, call forwarding off, call waiting off, TTY off (what is this anyway), iPod sound check off, EQ off, Volume limit off... Anyway that's all i could think of for now, and i haven't used the internet on it, since my stupid service provider only give me my airtime on the 15th of every month.
Thanks Jimmy for being so helpful, as always.:D
Regards
Nate

[iDev]

I couldn't post the links, but type in "Lithium-ion Battery" into Wikipedia. Scroll down to usage guidelines.

Also, Apple explains this. Go to Google and type in "Apple iPhone Battery."

[S2_Mac]

I think part of the confusion is that Apple "changed their tune" about battery care when the iPhone launched. Prior to the iPhone, iPod dox always stressed that the battery it was not a good idea to periodically fully discharge the battery (since Li-ion batteries don't have the "memory" characterstics of NiCad batts, and they don't like being fully drained). All that was needed was to subject the battery to at least one full "charge cycle" per month. (Where "charge cycle" means one battery's worth of discharge and charge; cumulatively, not all at once.)

Then the iPhone was introduced and Apple changed thir mind. The iPhone battery doc (http://www.apple.com/batteries/iphone.html) states "Be sure to go through at least one charge cycle per month (charging the battery to 100% and then completely running it down)," [emphasis added] totally contradicting what they'd said for years before.

To me, it's a head-scratcher -- Apple's definition of "charge cycle" (http://www.apple.com/batteries/) hasn't changed, yet the iPhone Battery doc still tells users to fully discharge the battery...

[ShadowMunky]

I still don't get how to fully discharge the phone. When the battery gets to say 5%, the phone just turns off, when you try to turn it on to use it again it just shows a low battery icon and then i don't know what to do. It seems like keeping on turning the screen on, then waiting for it to go off, then repeating is useless. Please explain how to flatten it fully.
Regards
Nate

[Jimmy97]

Well, speaking logicly here, Apple surely doesn't expect you to do that. If it powers off alone after 5%, that's a full discharge.

[ShadowMunky]

Thanks for clearing that up Jimmy ( as usual )

[S2_Mac]

The between-the-lines there is that fully discharging the battery is not A Good Thing to do, since the hardware itself won't let you do it...despite what Apple's dox say. (In theory, practice and theory are the same. In practice, they are not. ;-)

[jmmtn4aj]

Apple advices full discharge cycles to ensure the battery meter (built into the battery) stays accurate. A full discharge cycle calibrates the meter. Lithium batteries are best kept at ~70% full charge. Personally I just charge it to 100% before I go out and use normally otherwise. Can't really be bothered to keep my batteries at some funny percentage.

I have had my iPhone on for 4 days with wifi on, but the phone was on standby. They say the battery lasts 300 hours, and that's 12.5 days, which I think is a bit optimistic or, that must be after a good few charges.

Wi-fi turns off in standby, unless an app is active and using wi-fi (i.e Last.fm is running and you put it into standby, the radio will continue playing over the wireless network).