Despite setting astounding launch sales records, iPhone 4S owners are plagued by battery drain that even Apple engineers are having difficulty solving.

Like the antenna issue experienced with the initial launch of the iPhone 4, the millions of iPhone 4S owners have been plagued by battery drain that Apple engineers have been working around the clock to solve. The Guardian reported on the issue saying that Apple engineers have been contacting users who have complained about battery drain that is not resolvable with normal means, such as turning off location-based services and terminating passive apps when away from the phone for long periods of time. Apparently, Apple has been requesting that these customers install diagnostic software onto their iPhone so that the battery drain issue can be resolved more efficiently.

Tech Crunch editor Erick Schonfeld spoke his mind on an opinion piece: 'Dear Apple, Please Make My iPhone 4S Battery Life Suck Less.' In it, Schonfeld claims that his iPhone 4S battery died within eight hours after a full charge with normal Internet usage, talk time, and standby. Quite contradictory to the official tech specs from Apple's website:

• Talk time: Up to 8 hours on 3G, up to 14 hours on 2G (GSM)
• Standby time: Up to 200 hours
• Internet use: Up to 6 hours on 3G, up to 9 hours on Wi-Fi
• Video playback: Up to 10 hours
• Audio playback: Up to 40 hours

Many sites and news outlets have, as always, posted tips on how to preserve battery life. Cellphone Accents always carries ever-ready Apple iPhone accessories and cell phone chargers for those needing backup juice. Otherwise, there are options and settings you can configure within the iPhone to optimize its life and minimize battery drain.

Start off by lowering your screen brightness, locking your phone when you do not plan to use it, and disabling location-based services when not needed. Be sure to terminate apps after use as well -- unlike Windows or Mac OS X where you can click an 'X' to terminate a program, you will have to press the home button twice to reveal a list of all active apps on your iPhone. Press and hold any open app for a moment to reveal red minus (-) sign, allowing you to terminate apps to save your phone from inevitable battery drain.

Supermarket apps are making use of the power of mobile technology to give shoppers a 'smarter' experience, offering discounts and other benefits with each visit. Having a smartphones in hand, shoppers can now engage in a mobile experience with their favorite foods and products as a result of supermarkets' push for more customers.

Modiv Media and Ahold teamed up as marketing company and supermarket chain to test a pilot program in Massachusetts allowing customers to scan bar codes into their iPhones. The supermarket app is linked to the rewards card system allowing targeted offers when shopping around.

The pilot program was geared towards supermarket apps and their viability with customers and the supermarket itself. Using smartphone apps cuts costs for the supermarket as customers almost always walk in with their trusted phone. Customers get direct access to ongoing sales on items they continue to purchase directly from supermarket apps while the company can focus on other budget concerns.

Another upside is that many shoppers with smartphones are well accustomed to using barcode scanner apps to shop around for the right prices. Reviews, in addition to prices at various locations are available on barcode scanning apps, which could prove to be quite popular on supermarket apps as well.

The tactics employed by grocery stores could help to improve the overall shopping experience, with more informative buys, faster purchases, and possibly more a interactive experience with the supermarket itself. The advent of new payment options, available through services such as Google Wallet and PayPal, coupled with the supermarket apps experience should prove to be less of a headache for what is a chore to many.

Mobiledia's insight with smart shopping includes developments 'on the forefront of easing the shopping experience. GPS programs to help people locate items in stores are in development, and in the UK and South Korea, apps allow people to point a smartphone at a picture of a product and instantly order it to be shipped to home or office.'

Keep an eye out for when your supermarket makes their app available. For the mean time, check out these 18 apps to help with grocery shopping. While you're out and about, pair your supermarket apps with extra cell phone batteries and a cell phone holster to be an always-ready smart shopper.

Analysts, such as Professor Srinivasan Keshav at the University of Waterloo, suggest that people who send text messages may be succumbing to carriers charging up to 4,000 percent more than the true worth of a text. However, the rise of free messaging services may cause carriers to rethink their exorbitant pricing strategies.

'It's something like a 4,090 percent markup,' says Keshav, in regards with the ten to twenty cent charge that carriers charge each time customers send text messages. The professor estimates that carriers pay about a third of a penny to send a text message over existing cellular networks.

Free message services, such as Apple's iMessage, BlackBerry Messenger, and Facebook Messenger are increasingly on the rise as customers find a way around one of many ways carriers make money off of high priced, low bandwidth services.

'There's a huge amount at stake here. [Wireless carriers] are undermining the core business model for an industry that makes most of its money from services that are high priced and low bandwidth, like texting,' said Bernstein Research analyst Craig Moffett.

Moffett also found customers who send text messages through Verizon allow the carrier to benefit from more than ten percent of its total revenue through texts alone. In the US, people who send text messages contribute to more than two trillion texts each year, generating $20 billion for wireless carriers.

Standalone messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Kik and social media services such as Twitter offer free solutions for those who send text messages and are tired of paying for ridiculous carrier fees. These services allow for much more than the traditional text; group chats, sending photos and video, and cross-platform functionality on top of free usage are amongst the perks offered by messaging apps.

While you are looking for one of numerous free alternatives to send text messages, look to Cellphone Accents for excellently priced cell phone cases and cell phone charms to express your distaste for wireless carrier highway robbery.

In India, the women of New Delhi may have a new weapon in the form of a phone app on their side to safeguard them from would-be attackers in a city plagued by rape and other personal attacks.

'Fight Back' will be launched in November to aid women in a capital city where a rape occurs every 18 hours according to New Delhi police. Backed by Whypoll.org, 'Fight Back' aims to rectify rape gone rampant in New Delhi by allowing the user to activate a phone app which sends a SOS alert via text messages, sending your GPS location to up to five people (police included), and posts on Facebook and Twitter.

Police report that one in every four rape cases in India occur in New Delhi. Buses, metro stations, and markets are populous places that still do not serve as safety zones for women in India. Hindol Sengupta, co-founder of Whypoll, believes their phone app will help women feel safer in such an environment.

'Safety for women has become such a huge issue here and we felt that citizens of Delhi, where possibly the problem exists the most, could use this type of technological intervention. . . we believe this is Asia's first phone application aimed at making women safer.'

The National Crime Records Bureau reports that rape cases in India have increased astronomically since original reports in 1971, leaping 760.4 percent from 2,487 to 21,397 rape cases in 2009. Reuters reports that activists believe these extreme figures to be a 'gross underestimation' of the actual number of crimes committed 'with most women afraid to go to police, fearing stigma and family dishonour.'

Many would-be attackers, at the sight of a potential victim dialing the police, would simply stop and leave. Unfortunately cell phone charms do not double up as pepper spray or tasers (yet), but the 'Fight Back' phone app seems like it will do its best to protect women from such situations, or serve to help law enforcement and your social networks with anything worse that may occur. Cell phone batteries charged, a phone app could be the difference between safety or worse happenings.

Citizens of the wireless world, make room for fashion as Jil Sander has just released a designer cell phone using Windows Phone 7.5 'Mango' on an LG handset.

Jil Sander, based out of Germany, brings her eye for design to the world of smartphones. Her designer cell phone rivals that of HTC's plum-faced Rhyme and ultimately those who are accustomed to the iconic iPhone-centric design seen with many smartphones.

What's notable is that Jil Sander's designer cell phone is not just an overpriced display for your cell phone charms or a blantantly bourgeois bling phone. Instead, it utilizes the latest version of the Windows Phone 7 operating system (codenamed Mango) and handset hardware from LG Electronics -- both of which are underdogs in the current wireless market.

Though the phone was released in Europe, it serves as a precedent for fashion designers to search for markets outside of textiles to sell their brand names. The Jil Sander designer cell phone displays the German fashion house's namesake where you would normally see an LG (or otherwise) logo. The 'home button' sports the telltale Windows logo as Mango's easy-to-use smartphone interface is highly touted by Jil Sander Mobile.

Jil Sander Mobile released a video touting the phone's fashionable features. At face value, they claim 'modernity, purity, and understated luxury' allowing one to 'communicate in style.' The phone is shown to be encased in a blue leather (faux or not is unknown) and when revealed, one can see the model-skinny inspiration Jil Sander took to her namesake designer cell phone. Aesthetics aside, the phone comes pre-loaded with a Jil Sander app, keeping you up to date with the latest fashion going-ons with the fashion house.

The Jil Sander phone bypasses the need for fashionable cell phone covers as it was designed with the intention of fashion-forward functionality. Mango, paired with LG's hardware, should provide its Jil Sander supporters with the designer cell phone experience they have been waiting for.