Apple Acknowledges iOS 5 Battery Life Drain, Issues Beta Update to Devs

Apple fesses up to battery woes with iOS 5

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Apple fesses up to battery woes with iOS 5

Apple fesses up to battery woes with iOS 5

Many Apple customers using iOS 5 compatible devices have been complaining of poor battery life after upgrading to latest version of Apple's mobile operating system. A thread over on Apple's own support forums regarding poor battery life on the new iPhone 4S has reached 215 pages and has over 3,200 replies.

Interestingly, numerous suggestions have been given by users and pundits to improve battery life including turning off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, disabling iCloud synchronization and some aspects of Location Services, and cutting down on alerts that appear in iOS 5's new notification center. However, disabling all of these features seriously cripples what is supposed to be one of the premiere mobile operating system on the market.

Now after weeks of silence, Apple is acknowledging that iOS 5 does in fact have a problem with battery life. Or rather, Apple in its typical language explains in a statement to the Wall Street Journal's Ina Fried that a "Small number of customers" were experiencing battery life problems. Whenever Apple encounters a problem with one of its products, this is typically the "scope minimizing" statement that it likes to release. The company goes on to explain, "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."

Apple fesses up to battery woes with iOS 5

While customers may have to wait a few weeks to receive the update, developers have already been issued a beta of iOS 5.0.1 that corrects the battery life drain (among other updates). The release notes including with the beta state that the following issues have been addressed:

• 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 

For the time being, iOS 5 users that are having battery life issues can follow this guide to crippling your device to reclaim some runtime until the fix is released.


Sources: Apple Support Communities, TUAW, The Wall Street Journal/AllThingsD, Mac Rumors