Apple released its iOS 5 update to eliminate the bugs and complaints it received regarding very poor battery life. Owners of the new iPhone 4S, and other iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS users who updated their software to iOS 5 noticed their battery draining at alarming rate, sometimes not even lasting couple of hours from full charge. Apple acknowledged the issue and had announced the details a couple of days back, and started sending the beta version of the 5.0.1 update to developers for the three iPhone models, iPad and iPad 2, and also iPod touch equivalent versions, promising fixes for bugs regarding battery life.
The location system and Siri were suggested as the possible reason behind the issue. Apple engineers started contacting users for their feedback, downloading diagnostics, and trying to nail down the issue. Most users noticed the 10 hour standby power dropping down to 1% with minimal usage. The testers of the beta update returned positive feedback, noticing a marked improvement in the battery life. Users found out that switching off service location services helped them deal with the issue. Although initially made available for registered developers, Apple plans to make the update available for every user ‘over the air’, allowing a direct download without using a computer.
Some of the changes involved the ‘Setting Time Zone’ preference, traffic and general location services. In the initial releases, the Time Zone feature would permanently use your location, indicated by the purple arrow in the menu bar, which would drain the battery quite quickly. Its preferences are now set manually. The Traffic service has been modified to stop using your location as soon as you stop using Maps. Wi-Fi networks and the GPS location chip are also some of the culprits for draining the battery as they constantly check changes in signals, especially GPS, which needs to be amplified.
The update brings the heavily criticized iPhone 4S’s battery life back from 4 hours to the promised time. The promised standby time of the 4S is 200 hours with Wi-Fi running, and 300 hours in the iPhone 4 and 3GS. Most developers have noticed an improvement within 24 hours, with some other issues also being addressed in the update. For example, developers remarked that Siri, the acclaimed built-in voice recognition system, has diversified with better reception of Australian and Scottish accents. The Siri volume bug still remains unresolved. Other improvements include multi tasking gestures for the iPad, security improvements and resolved bugs in iCloud.
