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There are lots of reasons why battery life in smartphones might fall well short of expectations. You could have too many services turned on all the time, each one sipping juice from the lithium-ion battery. There could be a rogue app that's flawed or poorly coded and constantly doing things in the background. It could be a software snafu, and it could be a hardware problem. Or, as one Apple Genius put it, the phone could be stressed out, man.
David Carnoy over at CNet posted his hilariously maddening encounter with one of the so-called Geniuses at his local Apple Store. Carnoy popped in primarily to troubleshoot an iTunes problem he was having, but also brought up the fact that his iPhone 4S was giving up the ghost after 12 hours on minimal use, which is nowhere near what he was getting with his 3GS. The solution? Turn it off, stupid.
Carnoy brought up the fact that he likes to use his iPhone 4S as an alarm clock and keeps it docked at night so it would be fully charged in the morning. Fair enough, except the Apple Genius found him incredible foolish for using a $400 device (64GB model) to wake himself up when "you can get a perfectly good alarm clock for $20 these days." Where was Siri on this one?
What's more, the Apple Genius insisted that unless Carnoy is an on-call doctor or otherwise needs 24/7 availability, he has no business leaving his phone on at night, docked or otherwise. So again, turn it off, but not for the purpose of calibration.
"Well, sometimes the phone locks up because it's stressed, a lot of stuff is running at the same time," the Genius said, adding that Carnoy should give his phone a break at least once a week by turning it off completely. If, after doing that, the battery life is still bad, he might have a problem, another Genius told him.
Read the condescending exchange here and sound off in the comments section below.
Comments are closed on this article
ManRay
November 01, 2011 at 10:06pm
How DARE he use the built-in alarm clock app as an alarm clock!! He deserves a bad battery.
MattyMattMatt
November 01, 2011 at 8:59pm
Well, the common Genius at an Apple store is just an experienced user, nothing more. Tht must be common knowledge by now. Thats not even what I was going to say. In a way they are right, you should turn them off, every now and then, but tht goes for ll smrtphones. Odd errors can occur if you dont. Ive heard of lost memory, corrupt sd crds and just generl slowdowns.
TheKitty
November 01, 2011 at 6:11pm
Siri, give article Google +1
Bleep
Siri, delete troll posts
Bleep
Battery Low
Bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.................
don2041
November 01, 2011 at 3:09pm
Change Maximum PC to Maximum Electrical Things And Stuff, then you can print anything. Of coarse Being a MaxPC reader I will stop reading it because it no longer covers the Maximum PC
Keith E. Whisman
November 01, 2011 at 2:44pm
The whole selling point for Apple products is that they are made for everyone else. The guy/gal that just wants to use his/her computer without getting technical. Apple products after all JUST DO! Whatever LOL... So when it comes to tech speak I'm sure the Mac techs are trained to speak to customers as if they are still in kindergarten.
Awwwwwwwwwwww is your little phone not working right? Poor thing, it just needs to sleep little one. Now come here and give uncle Genius a hug. There there little one.
Archangel1976
November 01, 2011 at 1:20pm
So.... dumb question. How does the conversation go should the person talking with the Apple Genius respond to the doctor question with, "Yes. I am, in fact, a doctor."?
The original article though, is a good example of why customer service should be taken seriously. Yes, in this case, the person happened to be a journalist who turned around and vented to their clientele. However, it's not much different from when I leave a store disgruntled after having been treated in a manner I view as unfairly, and tell the people in my life my own story.
Archangel1976
November 01, 2011 at 1:00pm
Something amazing happened today! I learned to just skip over Engelsstaub's posts.
He says stuff like this:
"You guys, as "journalists," are just pathetic trolls. I'm here to counter that daily now because you all have this stupid crap on your daily agenda. It's better to get hits and read stupid comments than actually keep us up to date on anything useful or applicable to PCs and things relevant to powerusers."
... and follows up with respondents to his posts with things like this:
"Stop throwing around the word "troll" like you're not going to keep coming back to argue on behalf of the author who you can plainly see is a big enough man to respond for himself."
Don't bother responding to my post here either Engels. I'm not going to engage in "discussion" with you. Not taking the bait. I am however skipping over anything you say in response to Apple-related discussions because that's all you ever reply to. So, congratulations. You've proven in a Pavlovian manner that reading your posts is painful, thus I should stop engaging in said activity.
rawrnomnom
November 01, 2011 at 10:07pm
But... but... i like teh trololol... Well put though... Anyone else see his profile pic and think he looks like a massive hick?
Archangel1976
November 02, 2011 at 11:25am
He changed it after I pointed out that his use of the name "Engelsstaub" plus using a pic of one of the band's album covers, made it look like he was the band, or at least one of the band members, a misrepresentation at the minimum, or trademark infringment at worst.
Engelsstaub
November 02, 2011 at 10:00pm
I can assure you that my use of the name Engelsstaub has nothing at all to do with some obscure band. (If you're super-sleuthing off-topic here, that's fine. Type the word engelsstaub into iTunes and see how many songs come back with that title.)
Engelsstaub is a compound-word in another language. It literally means "angel's dust" (as there's no need for an apostrophe in German. Most plurals end with and "en.") Now you learned something else today!
You're just making the part about the album cover up. It was the mosh-dude logo from Dirty Rotten Imbeciles. Maybe that's copyright infringement? I changed the avatar because of an earlier article where we all ganged up on Holly when someone exposed her MySpace. I felt bad and decided maybe I should not be a faceless turd on the 'net making fun of others. She repaid my remorse by saying I look like a "fag." So that's two for "hick" and one for "fag" thus far.
Also you said earlier that I only comment on articles about Apple. Sherlock would click on my screen-name (which is common to a German dictionary) and click track on my profile. You'll see that very many of my comments indeed are, as I fairly admitted ("I'm here daily now to counter that",) but as many are also not.
Sorry for bothering to respond to you. I would not have since you didn't seem interested in the actual "discussion." You just seemed in need of some facts. If you want to assail me or my name personally, I believe you should have some first. Or maybe I've just given some some more crumbs?
Kinetic
November 01, 2011 at 12:34pm
Must be a slow news day. Anyway, if the battery isn't bad then the 4S has the worst battery life I've seen in a while. Either way I don't want one, and the "Genius" acting like an ass doesn't surprise me either.
Keith E. Whisman
November 01, 2011 at 11:32am
Its a good article, ignore these pathetic losers that took the time to read an article they aren't interested in just to bitch about the content.
Instead of ranting about articles you don't like, why don't you losers read the header and then decide if you want to read it. Real douche bags. I thoght it was a good article and relavent as many of us long time MaximumPC subscribers own iPhones. You don't have to be a fanboi to own an Iphone/Ipad/Ipod as they are great devices and are pc compatable. If it works with a PC then it is something that can and should be talked about here. If using these devices required that you own a mac then I would be leading the bitch charge but you don't and I'm not.
Again good article, good to see what what kind of support an Apple store has to offer its customers.
BlazePC
November 01, 2011 at 12:01pm
The story title on this particular one is whiny, frustrated housewife blather - so your advice, as well intentioned as it may have started off to be, is useless. The douchbag part discredited you further.
Anyone giving advice to disgruntled readers about how they should "select" what they read based on the titles doesn't cogitate much.
Engelsstaub
November 01, 2011 at 12:24pm
He was boasting a while back about how he had started an account on Mac|Life just to troll about a MacBook battery hack.
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/researcher_demo_apple_hack_destroys_batteries#comment-153362
...but only others are pathetic losers taking the time to bitch about content. That's not trolling. I'm a troll for daring to post negative critique.
mellamojay
November 01, 2011 at 3:16pm
Your post was not negative critique. Your post was a response to your inability to understand what you read. You post completely contradicts itself in several places. At some point hopefully you will realize this and understand that you do not have the ability to provide unbiased negative critique, not to mention the intellectual capability.
Engelsstaub
November 01, 2011 at 4:20pm
"...a response to my inability to understand..." English is, as you speculated earlier, my second language. I'd be damned if that should make sense even to someone who only speaks English. How exactly am I responding to my inability to understand?
I am not a journo. My negative critique need not be unbiased. And you just want to flame on, answering all of the responses I make that don't pertain to you.
Rather than reply to every one of your insult-ridden posts (or any more,) I'd like to address once more your constant references to English and comprehension: Further below you asked me to "Man up and admit your a dumbass and didnt get the point of the article and move on." Here it is: My a dumbass and didn't get the point of the article.
It's not about this story alone. It's about a staff hellbent on marginalizing people by digging up ridiculous anecdotes about Apple and its users. Daily. One may question why this is even necessary when most people around here could supposedly give a crap about Apple. I, and others here and in the last week even, question why they don't dig up dirt on anyone else. When's the last time you've seen a story on how bad Dell's customer service is? They have a mighty reputation for it, don't they? Maybe it's because Apple doesn't advertise here and Dell does? IDK, that's speculating. You can apply that to nearly any other company as well.
As an aside, I find it sad that comment-stalkers as yourself would say nothing to the psycho down there talking about how a simple post on the internet, in which they disagree, should cause people to go on killing rampages. Again it only speaks volumes to the character and hatred of much of the audience here. It's far more important to rebuke every comment by someone who said something critical or disagreeable than someone who agrees with you while demonstrating homicidal tendencies towards others.
...that is the general conclusion of the hatred towards others fostered here by authors and senior editors who threw around terms like Mac Head to describe other humans who just prefer a different OS. ...or whatever the fuck their problem is. Unless you want links to examples, don't expect any more of my time.
Even their former colleagues are treated with such disrespect and hatred. Smith and Chan are gone...over at Tested now not being dickheads to segments of their audience. So is Gary Whitta. Remeber the podcast where Nathan Edwards asked Gordon Ung if he could forgive him for getting a Mac or whatever if he groveled and told the Master he was wrong? Mr. Ung's response was "fuck him." Like he betrayed some fake-assed honor code that takes precedence over professional courtesy and not being hateful to others for stupid reasons.
mellamojay
November 23, 2011 at 3:10pm
LOL. I took a break from this forum due to retards like you, only to come back to a wall of text that doesnt even address the fact that you still dont get it.. Why do you troll here when the VAST majority think you are a waste of DNA? I will however at least admit that this last post was correctly composed but incorrect that I only speak one language.... considering my screen name is in another language.
Cleaver
November 01, 2011 at 11:13am
Shorter battery life?
Doesn't this guy know that that's a feature of the newer iPhones? Just like a 3 button combo to nab a screenshot on a Mac is a feature, or a one-button mouse was a feature when they had them.
Try to bring up anything wrong with a Mac or any iProduct and it will be quickly QUICKLY be waved off as a feature. It's better to have to push 3 buttons on your keyboard to get a screenshot.
"No, its not, you Apple-toting fanbois." His battery life is shorter than what it should be, then someone needs to replace that battery.
BlazePC
November 01, 2011 at 10:59am
How about if the management of this site starts pushing these "unrelated to PC" stories over to Maximum Tech? Last time I checked, this WAS Maximum PC, right?
Ditch the iPwn/Apple Store digs, the Netflix customer base "up in arms" coverage and the rest of the nonsense and FOCUS on PC hardware the best you can. PC stands for personal computer, right? So go ahead & cover Macs too but coverage of Apple Store employees and the way they treat walkups is, for all intents and purposes, a knitting circle or bridge club mentality.
And for what it is worth, I ditched my printed magazine subscription. No value add. Money saved is money spent more effectively elsewhere.
PS
Also figure out how to make your site interoperable with ALL web browsers. No excuse...just sayin...
Biceps
November 01, 2011 at 11:23am
Don't know if you've visited MaxTech recently, but I don't think it has seen an update in a very long time - looks like it is dead in the water.
In all fairness, the definition of a PC is changing - today's smartphones are arguably PCs in their own right; they have CPUs, OSs, GPUs (or correllaries), RAM, full sound, HD displays, and they can run applications for just about every single conceivable need.
So, to toss it back in your direction, perhaps what needs to change is not the website content, but your understanding of what a personal computer is.
I do agree that this website should have full interoperability with all web (major) browers; I've never had a problem with a specific browser, but can tell you that sometimes MaxPC doesn't update their page fully - just check back in an hour if that is the case.
BlazePC
November 01, 2011 at 11:53am
I cannot typically post comments with IE9. plus - as you pointed out - sometimes the content goes truncated with older submittals not coming up for long spells. I must use Opera to successfully post without a hitch; with IE9 previewing results can be a complete wipe of what I had typed. Sometimes it works, most times it dosen't. I use Opera as a default here because it ALWAYS works (on the comment side of things). I check back periodically to see how IE9 is behaving only to find it is still wonky. And for what it is worth, I've tried IE9 on multiple computers with both Vista and 7.
With regard to the blurring lines of phones vs PC, I won't argue with you. Your point is valid. Problem is when you open that door as an editor you allow all this other "editorialized" blather that, like I said, smacks of knitting circle nonsense. I'd prefer to see the focus on more "traditional" PC platforms but in recognition of the way things are transforming - keep the phone crap to a minimum & TECHNICAL and leave the whiny housewife stuff for other sites. (that last part meant for Paul). IMHO a phone, as powerful as they have become, is nothing close to being a personal computer. Personal Digital Assistant that lets you make phone calls? Sure. Handy? You bet. Worthy of Maximum PC coverage as a high tech device? OK, I'll accept that. But the bridge club mentality still turns people off.
Paul_Lilly
November 01, 2011 at 12:05pm
Maximum Tech is being folded back into Maximum PC. That means more consumer electronic coverage over here on MPC, though it's in addition to the strictly PC related articles, and not in place of them.
You can read about this and other recent changes here.
BlazePC
November 01, 2011 at 12:34pm
So what has really changed here is a "bottom-line" shift because of the recession. So to be absolutely clear, the mother ship ditched Maximum Tech because it couldn't stand on it's own as a revenue generator and it was never really a successful siphon of the "side show" submittals anyway. The tempo and scope of side show pieces here remained the same all along in spite of the existence of Maximum Tech and will continue as such with it's demise. Got it!
As my good friend Paco always says, "Same Same". The only difference is that now you guys are saving coin to keep the primary circus alive. Affirmative!
Let me share this bit of advice then: It's too easy to media link to other side shows; How about you guys work on original content and lose the "easy way out" filler mentality? Create a market differentiator; learn to say "no" (like Steve Jobs always said...), stay focused & original and don't follow the pack. *wink wink*
rawrnomnom
November 01, 2011 at 11:20am
What browser does this not work on. I just tested it in Chrome, FF, IE, IE9, and on my gf's mac Safari and Chrome again... Are you running netscape or something?
bling581
November 01, 2011 at 10:08am
Funny stuff. I can go weeks without turning off my 3GS unless I forget to charge it up and the phone dies. Occassionaly there's a "bug" where I can't get service and I have to turn the phone off and power it up again to fix it. My contract is up this month with AT&T (finally!) so I was going to go to Verizon and get the 4S but now I'm not so sure. I can burn my battery pretty quick with the 3GS playing games so I don't like to hear this issue about the 4S battery.
Side comment: I don't think it's a great idea to use your phone as an alarm clock, but not because it cost $400. Ever forget to put it on the charger the night before and it dies? What about turning off the sound and forgetting to turn it back up? Also there was the famous software bug during daylight savings time that cause people to miss work. I do have an alarm set on my phone, but I use it in conjunction with a regular alarm clock incase I turn it off and fall back asleep. Good thing too because I've done all the above with my phone.
Engelsstaub
November 01, 2011 at 10:05am
Jesus wept.
This publication is never going to stop digging for stupid crumbs to feed a certain segment of troll-disciples. You do realize that Apple Store employees are just people with jobs, right? Many of them don't even own a Mac and could tell you more about Windows.
You guys, as "journalists," are just pathetic trolls. I'm here to counter that daily now because you all have this stupid crap on your daily agenda. It's better to get hits and read stupid comments than actually keep us up to date on anything useful or applicable to PCs and things relevant to powerusers.
"When I inquired as to why my new Focus was getting less gas mileage than my '09 trade-in, the idiot salesman at the Ford dealer responded that "I was driving it all wrong." Yap yap. Maybe talk to the manager when an employee treats us like an asshole? That's what adults I know do.
win7fanboi
November 01, 2011 at 10:32am
You cry and moan about what gets posted on this site but you seem to be spending a crap load of time here. Take your pitchfork somewhere else. This is no place for icult members. It has been mentioned several times already but to reiterate. This is MaximumPC. Get over it or get lost.
acidic
November 01, 2011 at 10:45am
all he knows how to do is bitch and moan like a total little bitch. its people like him that cause others to go on rampages and killing sprees due to his complete ignorance of all things and his holier than thou attitude. i guess he actually cant read and keeps coming back because just like you said that this is maximumpc not maclife or whatever. i guess he gets off by calling everyone else "trolls" when he himself is perhaps the biggest. perhaps he should become an apple "genius" due to his unprecidented knowledge of all things apple and his total loyality to them
rawrnomnom
November 01, 2011 at 11:16am
Dont swear at the trolls... its like food to them... Logic is their poison.
jesse_n_sf
November 01, 2011 at 11:35am
Everyone has a little troll in them, it's just most of us have the knowledge to tame our inner troll to not get out of line.... :-)
acidic
November 01, 2011 at 11:33am
very true and im deeply sorry. i wont let it happen again. i try to refrain from replying to his posts but it is so hard. ill try harder from now on
rawrnomnom
November 01, 2011 at 10:18am
Not really... its more like you complain about your focus and the salesman saying why do you need a 16000 car to get around when a 200 bicycle would do just fine most of the time... The point here is less about the fact that the employee worked for apple, than it is about a customer service representitive of a company being an idiot. With correct training his response to a question he doesn't know should be as follows. "I don't know why your battery life is short, let me ask my manager if he has any ideas" Or if he has an idea "Let me check if a b or c is going on," correct the issue if one is present, if there was no issue present tell the customer what he can do, shorten the timeout on the backlight, turn off wifi or gps when not in use. This points more to poor training by the location he was working at than anything else. The fact that it was an apple store, and that the man who was being helped was a tech journalist are the reasons that it was brought to the media's attention.
Now let me spin you another interesting point of view.
If this had been at a verizon store, with an android phone, you probably wouldn't have commented. Being that it was Apple who was called into question, rather than HTC, Motorolla, or another brand, you jump on the article and begin to call the author of the article "pathetic trolls" for bring attention to something that would interest the readers of the website. So now let's consider that the purpose of a publication be it online, or a paper magazine is to generate revenue through advertisement. By adding stories that people want to read, or as you call them "crumbs", the magazine (Max PC in this instance) Has the revenue to continue to bring other higher quality articles to the consumer.
The best part of all this? You have a choice not to read MaxPc. If you want to read articles fawning over how amazing the apple ecosystem is then go over to macLife, or Endgadget. If you don't like it, stop trolling and don't waste our time.
macncapn
November 01, 2011 at 11:47am
not really, it's more like saying, why do you need to use a $16,000 car for an outdoor radio, instead of a $50 boombox. primary use of a phone is to answer calls, secondary use is as an alarm. primary use of a car is to get around, secondary use would be to use it as a stereo, when working/playing around outside. This isn't a critique of your opinion just the metaphor you use to start it off.
bling581
November 01, 2011 at 10:15am
"You do realize that Apple Store employees are just people with jobs, right? Many of them don't even own a Mac and could tell you more about Windows."
So you're arguing that it's okay for them to spout BS or not have enough knowledge about the products they sell?
The main reason I don't go to Best Buy for the majority of my electronics (besides the prices) is because most of the time I know more than the employee I ask for help. I've even stood there and listened to them tell another customer false information. My sister bought a Mac laptop there and they told her you don't need an AV because Mac's can't get viruses! Doh!
The whole point is that their job is to know about their products. Feeding customers BS is anti-productive because if the customer eventually finds out do you think they're going to shop there again?
Engelsstaub
November 01, 2011 at 10:34am
Speaking to a manager usually works for me. It happens everywhere.
I wasn't arguing for the employees. The person did sound condescending about the alarm clock stuff.
If I had a bad experience on X-Box Live, I'd rather take it up with Microsoft and the managers thereof than go to a PSN forum to air my grievances.
mellamojay
November 01, 2011 at 10:18am
Seriously dude? What crumbs are they looking to feed because aparently you JUST PROVED THEIR POINT. In your own words, "You do realize that Apple Store employees are just people with jobs, right? Many of them don't even own a Mac and could tell you more about Windows". Last I checked these Apple "Geniuses" should probably know what the hell they are talking about considering they are supposed to be the subject matter experts on Apple products.
I am going to venture a guess and say that English is not your first language considering your reading comprehension is a little on the low side. First, you are on a site called MAXIMUM PC, that might clue you into their target audience which is, wait for it, the WINDOWS pc crowd. As such they are doing their job and targeting relevant stories that we would like to read. Personally I love to read about these stories where the Apple base shows that they need a computer with training wheels and Apple "Geniuses" to hold their hands. Second, your quote at the end further proves that the article is correct in saying WTF? regarding performance. If you buy a 2011 Focus after owning a 2009 Focus and are getting WORSE gas mileage the problem is the car because I DOUBT you significally changed your driving habits so much so that your gas mileage would decrease. Not to mention the fact that they touted better "gas mileage" (battery life) in the newer model. Third, I am fairly positive Jesus could give a rats ass about what these guys post on the internet and the fact that you started out your post with that means I should of just skipped reading and responding to you.
GOOD DAY TO YOU SIR!
Engelsstaub
November 01, 2011 at 10:20am
You did see that a member of the staff already answered this, right? The fact that you concluded your angry spiel with GOOD DAY TO YOU SIR! isn't masking the fact that you're likely one of the angry trolls who feeds herein.
mellamojay
November 01, 2011 at 10:36am
Actually that was a play on words from the line of Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory when he says "Good DAY, Sir!" also used by Jon Stewart often in a british accent to mark the end of an argument in a joking way, again proving you dont really understand what you read. Also, you did see that the member of the site basically said that if you dont like it then dont read it. Which means basically for you to F*%K off in a nice way that wont get him in trouble. Saying that my post is an "angry spiel", when anyone with decent reading comprehension can tell that its purely logic based with humor thrown in the end, just shows that you have no counter argument to support your post. Go troll elsewhere, maybe on the Apple forums where logic ceases to exist, because around here logic rules and people like you will get demolished.
Engelsstaub
November 01, 2011 at 10:40am
Stop throwing around the word "troll" like you're not going to keep coming back to argue on behalf of the author who you can plainly see is a big enough man to respond for himself.
mellamojay
November 01, 2011 at 3:13pm
I swear you really are retarded. You are a troll by the definition of troll. I am not coming back here on behalf of the author, I am coming back here to make you look retarded. You post a half assed comment about an article that you hardly understand to an audience that you are not apart of. You dont belong on MaxPC. Like I pointed out, the author told you to EFF off and read something else if you dont like his article. Everyone here is telling you the same thing. You are a sad, ignorant troll who doesnt even understand the language you are trying to use. Man up and admit your a dumbass and didnt get the point of the article and move on.
Paul_Lilly
November 01, 2011 at 10:06am
Or you can always skip right over a story that's not of interest and read about Sapphire's new dual-BIOS videocard, an affordable graphics card for professionals, a new monitor from NEC, Seagate's plans to streamline its hard drive business, Acer's new all-in-one desktops, Ubuntu's push into mobile, and other tech related tidbits you might find more relevant.
rawrnomnom
November 01, 2011 at 10:22am
Love that you guys monitor the comments.
Maybe more review articles and roundups too. Often it just seems like product announcements without a whole lot of real meat to them.
Love the rig builds too. Keep it up.
mellamojay
November 01, 2011 at 10:17am
Don't stress him Paul. Those of us who ACTUALLY subscribe to the magazine enjoy what you do. Keep it up.
Supall
November 01, 2011 at 9:41am
Didn't Maximum PC do an article as to who was smarter Apple Genius or Geek Squad awhile back? We all know that Geek Squad are tards, but did the Apple Genius guy really just tried to give a "simplified" answer?
Jyckle
November 01, 2011 at 9:40am
Apple's Genius techs are about as bad as Best Buy's Geek squad.... Sometimes my Toaster doesnt want to toast very well. I usually unplug it from the wall to let it sleep for a few hours before trying agian.
hmp_goose
November 01, 2011 at 9:37am
But that's the perfect tone to take with a Mac User! Quite a few of them think on this "wavelength" and would respond well to such presentation of advice.
It's also not the first battery ever to have conditioning instructions to it, ether.
Church of Apple will Adore …
