iPhone 4s problems

[nick danger]

My recently unlocked 4s lost its wifi, and battery life was degrading, so traded it in on a refurb at Apple a month ago. $200. After two weeks, wifi was gone again, and battery life unpredictable. Took it back for another yesterday, and wifi and bluetooth are already gone.

Anyone else having similar experience?

[bayswater]

Is it because it's running iOS 8?

My 4 was stolen in the summer. I got a refurb 4S to replace it and it was fine on iOS 7. From the Apple store, they are supposed to have new batteries, so if yours is dying, it's defective and should be returned again. Don't know why wifi would die.

[nick danger]

Like I said, this is the second apple factory refurb in the last two month. First one lasted two weeks, the second one less than 24 hours.

I know that 4s's had wifi and bluetooth problems with some of the iOS 7 updates, but haven't heard that iOS 8 is doing the same. My guess is that it's a hardware issue. Mostly trying to figure out if I should just give up on the 4s's if this is widespread among any with a little age on them, and any refurb could likely fall in that category.

[bayswater]

All I can say is my 4S, and those used by several others I know, have worked very well and consistently.

[nick danger]

Since it'll only cost me the 40-mile drive to the nearest Apple store to try my 4th one in the last month, I'll give it one more shot. If it's gonna fail, hope it happens before the remainder of the 90-day warranty runs out.

[bayswater]

Too bad you can't go to a different Apple store.

[nick danger]

There are two that are somewhat equidistant, (in KC area) and one is a bit easier to get to. But either one is just going to pull another refurb 4s off the shelf and trade me out.

The one I got two days ago worked fine for about 24 hours, so not sure if running diagnostics would have flagged it as defective.

[nick danger]

I traded the phone in for another 4s. The tech at Apple store said that using restore from backup on computer on iTunes can put vestigial code from previous operating system or apps into new phone, and break it. He recommended setting it up as new phone, and transferring apps and data thru iCloud or otherwise. We set it up to start that process.

My problem is that it appears that I can't restore data from some apps, such as iTunes and iMessage, onto new phone. iTunes doesn't matter, but I really do need to keep that message data accessible. Anybody know any way to transfer that data without restoring from computer on iTunes?

[bayswater]

My problem is that it appears that I can't restore data from some apps, such as iTunes and iMessage, onto new phone. iTunes doesn't matter, but I really do need to keep that message data accessible. Anybody know any way to transfer that data without restoring from computer on iTunes?

When I got the 4S to replace my stolen iPhone, the store in Vancouver did the transfer of my info after asking me to enter my Apple ID and PW into the 4S. No iTunes was involved, and this happened some time after I got notification that my old iPhone had self erased and that the Carabinieri had tracked it down on the Telecom Italia Mobile network and bricked it. My iMessages simply showed up on the 4S, along with all my non Apple mail and other settings. I never activated anything on iCloud for backup, etc, so I have to assume all my messages were sitting on an Apple server somewhere. A bit disturbing if you think about it for too long, but very convenient.

[nick danger]

Thanks for that. I've avoided iCloud up to now, mostly out of laziness, so not sure that any of my messages are stored there. But they are still on my computer, so I can't help but believe that they can be retrieved and transferred. Some of the older ones are still on my old 3gs, which has become a poor man's Touch.

[mikehalloran]

Instead of restoring from your computer, sync instead. This will not restore non-Apple data but should allow your message data to reappear.

[nick danger]

Tried just syncing, but since they are set up as two difference phones (and are in fact two different phones) the new one doesn't have access to the messages on the backup from the old one without doing a restore.

So I took a chance, and backed up the new one to iCloud and then did a restore from backup on computer thru iTunes, which transferred data from contacts, messages and a couple of other apps, but no others, and reverted back to old settings without changing firmware.

So new phone is back to what old one was 24 hours ago. If it breaks it again, I still have 50 plus days of warranty to try something else.

[mikehalloran]

When iOS 7 and 8 came out, there were many articles on how best to conserve battery life. The iPhone 4s is quite prone to rapid discharge if many unnecessary processes aren't turned off.

A quick Google search should find them faster than searching through old threads around here. Search for battery life iOS 8 and the same for iOS 7.

[nick danger]

Thanks, Mike. There's certainly no shortage of things that want to run in the background, most of it unnecessary.

[Phil O]

Search for battery life iOS 8 and the same for iOS 7.

That's exactly what I did and it got my 4s running quite well on iOS8. So it definitely is possible to run 8 on a 4S and still get decent battery life.

Phil