Gadget Techie

UPDATE: Once you are done reading this post, make sure to go to the homepage of this blog (http://gadgettechie.net) to read the other parts of this series. You can also click on the Apple category on the right of this page.

You can find the other parts of this series here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5.

Well this is the last test and boy is it interesting!

The setup for this run was as follows:
-3G ON
-Wifi OFF
-Location Services (GPS) OFF
-Push OFF
-Fetch Every 15 Minutes
-Brightness halfway with auto brightness ON

Here is the screenshot:

Nope your eyes do not deceive you. That is indeed 11 hours and 29 minutes of usage on 3G!!!!!!! And the phone is still on right now (about 30 minutes after this screenshot was taken)! I just decided this was enough usage time to show how crazy this is and so I took the screenshot and am typing this post. I have no freaking clue how this happened. This screenshot almost invalidates all of the tests I have run so far.

My only guess as to what happened here is that somehow something was running in the background and that is what racked up the usage time so high. However, the iPhone is not supposed to allow any apps to run in the background (except for the native iPhone apps).

One possible culprit could have been the email. When I went to check my email manually, it just stayed in the “Checking Email” state and never finished. I tried updating each account manually and they were all frozen at the “Checking Email” state. 

Since holding down the Home button for more than 6 seconds acts as an “End Task” and clears the memory that that app is using, I held it down and closed the Mail app. Then I reopened it and this time it was able to update the email accounts and it turns out I had 10 new emails. I normally get about 1 email per half hour and so the fact that I got 10 emails after about 5 hours of not getting any emails tells me that the Mail app was frozen the whole time. It is because of this that I think the Mail app was the cause of such a high usage time. It was probably running in the background (since it is a native iPhone app) and stuck at the “Checking Email” state and thus increasing usage.

My question now is: Even if the frozen Mail app was the cause of such a high usage time, wouldn’t it also drain the battery more since it is using the phone’s processor and maybe even the 3G antenna (depending on what part of the email update process it was stuck on)?

Basically what I am saying is: Yes, the Mail app could have caused an increase in usage while the iPhone was asleep, but this increased usage should have also drained the battery and so the battery should never have lasted through 11 hours of usage!

I don’t know what to make of this and so I have decided to quit running tests. I have not been able to fully enjoy my iPhone since all I have done is make sure I keep all the settings off and don’t run any game apps that might cause the battery to drain faster than it should.

I will still return my C.E.O. Premiere holster since I cannot be sure what effect the magnet has on the phone and I would rather play it safe. I already ordered my Bodyguardz protection skin and it should be arriving tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. I’m still not sure if I will buy another holster or not.

Once I get my Bodyguardz skin, I will apply it to the phone and post pictures as well as a short review.