I freaked out after upgrading to ICS b/c the battery life went bonkers. Initially Sprint offered me a replacement phone, but called back and told me the request was "rejected." Didn't know that such a thing could happen - in the past, when I was with Verizon, if they told me they would replace the handset, it would be shipped overnight. Imagine my surprise when my replacement phone never showed up. I didn't want to rollback to GB b/c I really like some of the features of ICS. Here's what I did...if it's any help to anyone. For starters, after reading every post I could find, I:
1. Cleared cache internally via an cache cleaner app as well as manually cleaning each app's cache.
2. Did 2 factory resets (the second one just for kicks). I did NOT back up my data. After the reset a notification appears that says something along the lines of "software upgrade completed." Please don't quote me on the exact wording but I saw the notification both times.*
3. Cleared cache through the boot menu (volume up + power).
4. Set Wi-Fi to NEVER stay on during sleep. Find this setting under the advanced menu in Wi-Fi. I think this one is a major player.*
5. Fiddled with screen settings, timed out screen in 15 seconds, set touch key lights to turn off after 1.5 secs, and turned OFF motion controls. My haptic feedback is on. And my screen is set to auto brightness.
6.Did some battery pulls and cycling. Turn off phone, plug in charger, charge til 100% (blue LED appears). While charger is still plugged in, remove battery for approximately 5 minutes. Unplug and replace battery. I did this twice after running down the battery until the phone just about turned off. This might have also been a big factor.*
7. Installed Juice Defender.
8. Moved all my photos/music onto my desktop computer from my SD card and formatted the card. This erased all the data from previous apps that might have been interfering. I didn't bother removing the card. Placed all pics/music back onto SD. I do not keep apps on my SD card any longer. There is plenty of USB storage within the phone to hold apps (with previous phones this was not the case). I happen to think this was an important step.*
9. BATTERY SUCCESS
10. Went to Sprint store anyway. Had battery tested. It was "marginal" so Sprint replaced with their own aftermarket varietal. Extra points.*
So far, I love ICS and the battery is good/decent, but not exceptional. I can make it through a full workday and commute home. I'm at 67% after 6h 44m 31s on battery. I can live with that.
*Significant steps?