Attention all who carry iPhones while backpacking: critical info RE iPhone 5

[R K]

A recent update to Google maps and Google now (Google search) has been causing a lot of battery drain issues. Apparently those two apps are constantly checking and reporting your whereabouts. The culprit is location services. Go to settings > privacy > location services (or just location – I can't remember exactly) and turn it off for both of the Google Apps. To use these apps you have to turn it on again, which is a pain, but worth it for battery life.

[Rocco Speranza]

I've had no such problems with my Verizon Iphone 5 battery life.
I installed the IOS 7 Beta earlier this summer. I don't think it hurt or gained me any battery life.

I went on a 3 day trip with my friend hiking the Art Loeb Trail in Pisgah National Forest. The new control center was very useful for turning the phone back on airplane mode. I used my phone as a Camera, phone, GPS using Gaia gps. I recorded a lot of video as shown on my Youtube channel linked below. Battery lasted the whole day even under heavy use.
http://www.youtube.com/user/mechoutdoors

On a normal overnighter I'd usually be above 50% by time I got out and only so low because I had to use the gps a lot because of the poorly marked trails.

Under my normal daily usage with 4G enabled I drain 1% every 2-3 hours.

[Amy Lauterbach]

"A recent update to Google maps and Google now (Google search) has been causing a lot of battery drain issues."
Yep – the Apple Genius warned me about Google Now.
In the testing I did a couple years ago, I found that having the GPS continuously active takes about 5% per hour. Any app that uses GPS will be a drain. Most conservative solution is to turn off Location Services for all apps that you are not actively using while in the backcountry. Also, you'll want to turn off the sneaky Location things:
Privacy->Location Services->System Services (all the way at bottom of Location Services): Everything OFF (except Compass Calibration which is useful when hiking). You really don't need the phone to track your location so it can feed you location-appropriate advertising :(

I've done enough testing, and gathered feedback from enough people, to draw conclusions. I will update the primary article when I get a half day to rewrite things. In the meantime, please spread the word to your friends who care. All advice assumes you will be outside signal range and want to use the GPS. All data assumes you have done all battery conservation measures described in the original post of this thread: http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=80978

ATT iPhone 4: You should remove the SIM or use the SIM PIN feature to lock the SIM. Result (when combined with all other battery saving steps) is 1-2% drain per day.

ATT iPhone 5: Removing or locking the SIM is a bloody disaster causing drain of 10% per hour when there's no ATT signal — therefore you must leave the SIM active! This is clearly a bug in the interaction of the hardware, firmware, software, and/or SIM. There's no good solution for using the phone outside ATT signal range and with Airplane OFF. Best option: leave the SIM active and put the phone into Airplane Mode when not actually using GPS. Expect a drain of 22% per day when 1) outside signal range, 2) SIM active, and 3) airplane mode OFF. With Airplane mode ON the drain is reduced to 4% per day.

iPhone 5 with GSM and CDMA (i.e. Verizon, Sprint): They have no problem if the SIM is removed or locked. (I am unclear on their battery drain if the SIM is active and will update the info if I learn more.) My brother did a very controlled test: SIM removed, Airplane mode OFF, no signal, all other battery conservation measures in place — he lost 1% battery in 12 hours. DanS did a 9-hour controlled test (although didn't disable all other battery-draining features) and had very modest drain. Several people reported modest drain in backcountry usage, although they did not have controlled test results.

If I didn't already own an ATT iPhone 5 I would definitely choose the Verizon model. It is too risky, IMHO, to rely on engaging Airplane Mode every time I want to use GPS.

[Robert Kelly]

Amy, thanks for this very helpful post. I found exactly what you said to be true – for iPhone 5 and AT&T, you definitely want to use Airplane mode and not SIM lock to get the best battery life. I hope this gets fixed soon.

I have been very happy with Gaia but have not done a lot of testing of competitors.

My wish is for a public domain repository of trail tracks that I could import into Gaia.

[Anthony Meaney]

I took my wife's Iphone4 into the back-country for a week and was very happy with the battery life compared to my android (which even in airplane mode lasts about 8 hours :( )

The only battery issue I had was when connecting with the Delorme for texting – that seemed to suck battery life pretty quickly. Otherwise as I was only using it for a camera and kindle having it in airplane mode was fine. Even with the texting after 6 days the battery life was still at 15%!

So I thought about switching to Iphone5 next year when my contract is up. Hopefully some of the battery issues will be sorted out by then.

[Peter Bakwin]

I've been using my iPhone 4 with Gaia for a while and it works really well. But, the 4 is getting to be a bit dated. I'm wondering if anyone has experience with the battery life of the iPhone 6 (AT&T) used in this mode (i.e., locked SIM)? I know there was a problem with the AT&T iPhone 5 w.r.t. battery life.

[Rocco Speranza]

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=98173&skip_to_post=834092#834092

I posted an update from a 4 day trip here. I have Verizon so I can't confirm if Sim Lock works on AT&T.

[Peter Bakwin]

Thx! Missed that 'cause I was on the trail! Posted to the other thread.

[petemanteau]

On my iPhone 5S I have not noticed rapid battery drain with the SIM pin-locked. I've gone on several multi-day trips, occasionally using GPS and taking pics with the SIM locked. I know you mentioned iPhone 5 experienced the drain; maybe whatever issue is present in that model isn't present in iPhone 5S.

In terms of apps, one to add to the discussion is Bugle. You enter your trip details, your expected check-in time, and select some contacts. If you don't check in by that time, a message will be sent to those contacts (from the Bugle servers, so you don't need to be in signal range) informing them. http://www.gobugle.com/

Default carrier SIM pins might help.
ATT: 1111 (https://www.att.com/esupport/article.jsp?sid=KB95665&cv=820)
TMo: 1234 (https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-8041)

[Amy Lauterbach]

Petemanteau – The substantial battery drain bug occurs with the following configuration: ATT phone, no signal present, SIM locked, Airplane Mode off. Please tell us which carrier you use (ATT, Verizon, TMo, etc), whether you were hiking in an area where signal was present, whether you kept the phone in airplane mode when not using the gsp feature.

[petemanteau]

iPhone 5S, ATT, no signal, SIM locked, never used airplane mode.

Thru hiked the Tahoe Rim Trail (portions do have service, but I kept the SIM locked the vast majority of the time) over 12 days last summer. Kept the phone on (in above state) to take pictures and every once in a while use GPS (mostly just wanted to make sure my pictures were geotagged) and only charged the phone every other day or so, turned it completely off overnight. Plenty of other 2-3 night shorter trips when I didn't even bring a battery.

I might be going on an overnighter next weekend. I'll test it out now that I'm aware of this battery drain issue.

[Peter Bakwin]

Amy's results for the AT&T 5 were so remarkable (8-10% per HOUR!?) that you could easily test your 5S w/o doing a multiday outing. Just put it in that mode overnight. If the test requires no cell signal (how could this possibly matter?) then maybe place the phone inside a microwave oven (making sure that no one uses the oven!!!)?

Did anyone confirm Amy's result for the 5? Maybe she just had a fluky phone??

I wish someone would test an AT&T 6 this way. The bug with the 5 was so amazing that it should be obvious right away if the 6 suffers from the same.

[Amy Lauterbach]

http://adventurealan.com/iphone4gps.htm

Yep, I tested two different ATT iPHone 5's with same results. (FWIW, I spent my career in software development, including QA testing. I've spent many many dozens of hours over the past 4 years testing battery drain in various controlled configurations.)

Yep, the drain is so bad you can easily reproduce quickly at home. Best to test at home in controlled environment.

Yep, there must be NO signal. It makes a difference because the bug occurs when phone goes into taillspin searching. You always drain more battery when phone is busy searching than when it has strong signal, but generally only marginally more.

Our article has info about testing at home using a faraday cage. I had to put phone in metal cookie tin and put tin inside microwave. Microwave alone did not work. Be sure to confirm the faraday cage is working by calling your phone when it's in the cage and SIM is not locked.

PeteM's report is encouraging. It means that the bug has been fixed. Either in the 5s hardware/firmware. Or in a new version of the iOS. I'll retest my 5 with current iOS when I get home in a few days.

I'll try to borrow friends Verizon and ATT iPhone sixes to do some testing. It's not easy to do this because few people want to enable SIM lock feature. However, it's worth finding out prior to purchase.

[Ralph Burgess]

I think it's worth adding: although huge the drain problem on that particular AT&T/phone/OS configuration may no longer be present, it's not clear whether "SIM lock" will ever work quite the same on AT&T phones. The underlying problem is that iPhone software does not allow backcountry users to set their phone up explicitly in the configuration that we want – i.e. cell functions always off, with GPS chip switched on/off as needed. Locking the SIM on Verizon iPhone5 & 6 has been discovered to have this effect, but this is an empirical workaround that gives us what we want – it is not an intentional design feature. Verizon and AT&T use different wireless technologies – CDMA vs GSM; complicated by the introduction of LTE for data. These technologies have made different use of SIM cards – CDMA did not use SIM cards at all – as I recall the Verizon iPhone4 did not have a SIM? Verizon only introduced SIM cards with the iphone5 – possibly to handle LTE data, I'm not quite sure what the Verizon SIM card does. I've never found a clear explanation of all the details, but certainly AT&T and Verizon configurations are still completely different, and they use SIM cards in different ways.

The real answer would be for Apple to allow all iPhones to be set up for backcountry use. I think Android phones can do this? Perhaps Apple don't want to explicitly allow selective activation of cell functions & GPS functions because it might then be ambiguous whether "Flight Mode" was really switching everything off for airplane use.

[Jennifer Mitol]

Can someone tell me how to lock the SIM? I have ATT and the iPhone 5S.

I can't seem to find this!

[Ralph Burgess]

If you're using iOS8, it's Settings > (about halfway down) Phone > (near the bottom) SIM PIN

You then need to power cycle the phone, and when it restarts the SIM will be locked until you choose to unlock it.
You'll get a dialog box to unlock the SIM when you power up, or any time you switch Airplane Mode off, or you can just do it as above from the settings menu.

[Peter Bakwin]

Amy, thanks for your incredibly thorough work on this! You literally saved me from getting a 5 a while back. I'd like to upgrade to a 6 (AT&T), but that bug in the old 5 is make or break for me. If you find the new iOS fixed it for the 5 I'll be more confident that the 6 will work.

[Amy Lauterbach]

jennifer – http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201529

Pete wrote:
Default carrier SIM pins might help.
ATT: 1111 (https://www.att.com/esupport/article.jsp?sid=KB95665&cv=820)
TMo: 1234 (https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-8041)

[Mike M]

I'll add my thanks to Amy's efforts! I'm going to wait as well and see what Amy discovers w/ the iphone6 (ATT)- if it's similar to her findings w/ the iphone5, I'll go w/ an android

I really want to get into the modern swing of things w/ a smartphone :), but it's ability to operate in the backcountry is going to paramount on which way I go

Mike

[Bill Law]

i got my phone battery replaced, for free, by Apple last week.

This was after battery drain issues in everyday use. I wasn't really happy with the rate of battery drain in the backcountry either (much worse than with previous 4S), but I dealt with it. I am hoping things improve there with the new battery.

If you do a search on the Subject:, you'll find the Apple support page that covers this program. Enter your phone's serial number to check if you are eligible.

Bottom line: reports of excess drain on certain iPhone 5s may be due to this defect, and Apple can fix it if so.

Sorry if this was covered above. I re read most of the recent posts and didn't see mention of this.

[Ralph Burgess]

To reiterate what Amy has said above – it would be helpful if people contributing anecdotal data could specify their cell carrier in addition to the iPhone model.

[Ken Bennett]

The most recent iOS update adds battery life to the Usage panel, including listing each app or condition and how much battery life it has used since the last charge. Might be handy information.

In my case it reiterates just how bad T-Mobile service is here in central NC. I have no service in my office, nor really anywhere in my building (on a college campus with great Verizon and AT&T coverage), and I use about a quarter of my battery power every day on "No Cell Service." Grrr.

[Mitchell Ebbott]

Ken, drop by your T-Mobile store and ask them about a CellSpot signal repeater. They gave me one for free, now I finally have reception in my apartment.

[Mike M]

Amy- any luck getting your hands on an iphone6? really hoping that battery life has improved from the 5 (at least on ATT anyways)

thanks

Mike

[Roger Caffin]

Hi all

Being an ultra-techie, I don't own an iPhone or an Android or anything like that. My explanation is that I am too smart (or too stingy) to buy and use one – or the appalling lack of security really puts me off. OK, whatever.

What I want to know is why don't you just take the battery OUT??? The you would have a battery drain of a few % per year. Only insert battery when you need rescue. Else use paper map and compass.

Cheers

[Author]

Posts