From 6 to 5…

This post is for Homer, since he likes reading about software version updates. 😉

After installing the latest, greatest, newly released iOS 6 on my iPhone 4S that all the techboys have been orally masturbating about, I quickly determined that I hated it.

Two big reasons: 1) the Apple Maps app that replaced the Google Maps app sucks sweaty Tijuana donkey balls; and 2) something in this update is sucking the juice out of my battery like Whitney sucking crack off the side of a bathtub.

It’s not like I really use the original Map app that much. But the little I did use the new Apple one convinced me I hated it. I know it’s early in it’s life, but it should have been an option. It looks like once again corporate politics gets in the way of user choice. Wait, it’s an Apple product. There is no user choice. 😉

But the battery drainage? Huge issue for me! In a matter of just two hours of not even using my phone, my battery was completely drained. Kaput! WTF?

So, I did a restore from backup via iTunes to see if maybe something loaded incorrectly when I did the original over-the-air update. Same problem.

Then I just nuked the entire thing and reloaded the OS without restoring from backup. Still having battery drain. Damn.

I did what any former tech guy would do. I rolled my iPhone back to iOS 5.1.1! So much better. No more Whitney battery drainage!

As it always seems to be with an iOS upgrade, it would appear I’m not the only one having issues with battery drainage according to most of the forums I went looking through. So I’ll just wait. It’s not like there’s really anything in this update that I just needed to have anyway.

If anyone else needs to go back to 5.1.1, what follows is how you do it. I had to Google a bit to find the information, so I thought I’d put it here in case I need to do it again. 😉

  1. Download the iOS 5.1.1 IPSW Firmware for your iPhone 4S from Apple’s download servers.
  2. Connect your iPhone via USB and launch iTunes.
  3. Put you iDevice in DFU mode. [Press and hold the Home button and the Power button at the same time. After 10 seconds release the Power button. Continue holding the Home button until iTunes displays a message telling you that it has detected an iPhone in recovery mode.]
  4. Your iPhone should show up in iTunes. Hold down Shift and click on the Restore button, then point it to iOS 5.1.1 IPSW file. Then wait. And wait.

And hopefully you did a backup before you installed iOS 6. Because that’s what you’ll need to restore your information from it. Or else you’ll be reloading your apps and everything else from scratch.

Until next time...
Erik

12 thoughts on “From 6 to 5…

  1. Odd. I had absolutely no battery drain on my older iPhones that were upgraded to iOS 6. Now I’m really curious as to what could have caused that problem.

    1. That makes two of us! Especially since I installed it twice and it did it both times. After rolling back to 5.1.1 and everything going back to normal, it’s definitely something in the OS somehow. It’s just peculiar.

  2. I’ve opted not to update my OS. Since I have an older iPhone, I get almost none of the benefits of what they have to offer. Oh, that and the husband ordered me the 5, so I’ll let the next owner of this phone add whatever OS to it they want.

    1. I was going to upgrade the Husbear’s 4, but decided not to. I’m sure at some point I’ll get him the 5. So he can crank up the size of the text to fill up even more of the screen. 😉

  3. Erik:

    Try disabling the search for WIFI in Settings. I found that drains my battery heavily if it is constantly searching for an available WIFI.

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