But clearly, if so many customers are complaining, there must be a problem with some iPhone 3GS batteries. Our testing leads us to suspect their units are defective. If iPhone 3GS owners are experiencing surprisingly meager battery life, they should schedule an appointment at an Apple Store Genius Bar to request an exchange.

I’ve heard a lot of people complain about battery life issues but I haven’t seen them first hand. The battery life on my and my girlfriend’s iPhone 3GS is perfectly fine. I would say mine is at least 30% better than the first generation iPhone I had previously been using and I know for certain that I use the 3GS more often than I did the older model.

I agree with Wired, if you are having battery life that is gone after less than 5 hours of use (check your usage in Settings, General, Usage) than you should have your device looked at or request an exchange.

Update 7/10/09: After spending some more time thinking about the problem I’ve remembered that my first generation iPhone did experience shorter battery life after upgrading to firmware 3.0. Based on this it is clear that 3.0 is one of those releases that adds features but unfortunately, also decreases battery life. But, I’m sure Apple is readying a firmware update that will address some of these battery issues.