Ping Could Be Draining iPhone Battery Life (iOS 4.3)

If you're one of the millions of iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS owners who have updated to iOS 4.3, you may have found the battery on your device drains noticeably faster that it did before. This isn't the first time Apple firmware updates have changed battery consumption, but luckily there seems to be an easy way to improve the situation.

iTunes Ping Apple music sharing

Ping has been cited by Pocket-lint as a possible culprit on the iPad, iPod touch and iPhones running iOS 4.3. The software runs Apple's iTunes-based social networking service, which makes it possible to connect with friends and get related music recommendations. For those who use the service this battery fix won't help, but if you don't find Ping useful then you can turn it off.

To switch off Ping in the background and prevent it from using power:
1. Navigate to Settings -> General -> Restrictions
2. If restrictions are enabled enter your four-digit passcode.
3. If restrictions are not enabled touch Enable Restrictions at the top of the screen then enter a four-digit passcode twice.
4. In the list under Allow scroll down to Ping.
5. Select Ping -> OFF

Now that Ping is deactivated you should see some improvement in battery life. You can get a better idea of how much battery is remaining by turning on the battery percentage indicator in the status bar. Instead of showing just an icon iOS will display the exact percentage of time left on your battery in real-time.

Many iPhone users were concerned about battery life when Apple added multitasking to iOS 4. You can find more information and tips to extend battery life with iOS multitasking here. According to Apple, the reason why they waited to implement the feature until the iOS 4 update was to ensure they had safeguards in place to prevent background processes from taxing the battery when unneeded.

Besides turning off Ping, there are many other ways to extend your battery life with iOS 4.1 and later firmware. If your device continues to have battery problems you can try restoring as a new phone or take the unit to the Apple Store for diagnostic tests. Of course, all iOS devices will eventually need replacement batteries as they get older. The fact is that even with optimized software the lithium-ion batteries themselves degrade over time and after many complete charge cycles they won't have the same lifespan as a new battery.

Comments

Here ia how I fixed the battery drain issue in my iPad 4.3 - http://deepakjulien.com/battery-draining-fast-in-ios-4-3-fixing.html. Hope it helps.

Maybe it's the phone?

Thank you for this. I believe Ping has solved the problem. Other forums have suggested turning off many other services that I have used without issues for a year including push notifications, etc., but I will not do that. Ping is what changed, ping is what I've disabled, and the problem is gone. Now the phone works wonderfully and I can use the features I love without issues.

This works very well, before disable ping my battery worked for 10. Hours on 3G and standby, after disable ping my battery works for 20 hours or more,
Than you very much