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My iPhone 4S (iOS 6.1.x) dropped it's charge today. It now is charging very slowly. I deleted my iCloud account to see if that would improve battery life. It still is charging slowly, and has taken about 3 hours to charge 37%.
Is there something I can do to "fix" this battery life problem?
Plug it in and then power it off.
The charging circuitry runs from the firmware and not the OS - so you will either get a full charge and have a chance to reboot it in 2 or 4 hours to check on the charge status or know where the failure lies.
It's most likely a temporary CPU hog draining charge as fast as it can accumulate and a simple reboot (hold the home button, slide to power off, restart once it shuts down normally) is generally going to clear this up.
Charge is like a bathtub. If it is draining faster than filling the total level will drop. The iPhone uses a LOT of power for a USB device, so there's a few potential sources of your issue:
The power source may not be rated high enough. If you're using a 3rd-party usb charger, make sure it is. There are a lot of phony Apple chargers out there (yes, it's true) make sure yours is genuine.
The device itself may be drawing power. When charging, turn off the screen when it isn't in-use.
Make sure your GPS isn't in use either, as that will consume gads of power.
Turn off Bluetooth devices paired with the device when not in use.
If none of these fix your issue, post back.
Just go to Settings → General → Reset > Reset All Settings
This is the solution to get the iPhone back to normal (quick) charging! Worked for me after annoying 2 weeks of figuring out why it charged so slow! You won't lose data/contacts. Only Wi-Fi passwords and some basic settings, but this is not a big deal compare to the slow charge problem! Success!
