Apple finally confirmed there's a bug that drains the iPhone 4S battery, and it's caused by iOS 5. When the 4S was announced, everyone expected an improved battery life. We asked it, Apple delivered it. A few weeks later the community deflated: iPhone 4S battery lasts just few hours. Wait, what? At first no one believed that this could be possible, but after certain tests everyone had to admit it. After various publications reported on the issue, Apple decided that it was time to step out of the silent land and make an official statement to AllthingsD.
A small number of customers have reported lower than expected battery life on iOS 5 devices. We have found a few bugs that are affecting battery life and we will release a software update to address those in a few weeks.
That's all good news. Some iOS users believe the battery issue is caused by the location service running when it's not supposed to, while others blame the new notification system. Some users reported an extended battery life after disabling iCloud, location services and weather/stock widgets. This is a strange bug, because users that run iOS 5 on other devices (like the iPhone 3GS) don't encountered any of this. Apple took the first step toward a fix by releasing iOS 5.0.1 beta for developers. Here's the full changelog. Not point No. 1.
iOS 5.0.1 beta contains improvements and other bug fixes including:
- Fixes bugs affecting battery life
- Adds Multitasking Gestures for original iPad
- Resolves bugs with Documents in the Cloud
- Improves voice recognition for Australian users using dictation
- Contains security improvements
- iOS 5.0.1 beta introduces a new way for developers to specify files that should remain on device, even in low storage situations.
