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Apple confirms iOS 5 battery issue, fix coming soon
Shortly after the iPhone 4S launched, customers began reporting about unexpectedly poor battery life. Those complaints escalated last week as various media outfits picked the story up, prompting more users to step forward about their experiences with Apple's latest handset and mobile operating system. Cupertino has kept quiet about the issue until today, when it confirmed the problem in a statement to AllThingsD.
The company acknowledged that a "small number of customers" are experiencing poor battery life on iOS 5 devices. Although Apple was vague about the root of the problem, it acknowledged that there are several bugs affecting the autonomy of its mobile hardware. Unfortunately, it didn't offer any tips on how you can mitigate the issue until a patch is released, but the update should arrive in the next few weeks.
Some users believe that iOS 5's location service is running when it's not supposed to be, while others blame the new notification system. Based on Apple's comment, both could be correct. Users report mixed success in boosting battery life after disabling iCloud, location services, as well as the weather and stock widgets on the notification screen. For whatever it's worth, I'm running iOS 5 on a 3GS with no discernible issues.
Alongside that announcement, Apple has released iOS 5.0.1 beta (build 9A402) for developers. The releases notes mention the upcoming battery life tweaks along with multitasking gestures for the original iPad, bug fixes for Documents in the Cloud, improved voice recognition for Australians using dictation as well as various security improvements. There's also a new way for developers to specify files that should remain on-device.
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User Comments (12)
Post a comment|
Guest
on November 2, 2011 8:09 PM |
Oh don't worry we have a fix coming soon, thanks for your money suckers! |
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aj_the_kidd
on November 2, 2011 8:44 PM |
To be fair it only affected some users |
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spydercanopus
on November 2, 2011 11:07 PM |
My battery has never lasted longer since iOS 5. Using iphone4 |
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Guest
on November 2, 2011 11:28 PM |
The only thing i'm experiencing on my iphone 4 regarding bugs is that when i load several apps while listening spotify, the audio keeps being interrupted for some reason... but as far as battery goes, it really improved my battery life! |
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Guest
on November 3, 2011 1:34 AM |
please bring back 3G on/off switch to ios5 for 4s users |
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Kristo92
on November 3, 2011 1:56 AM |
my 4s 32gb is dieing like three sponges in a rainstorm |
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captainawesome
on November 3, 2011 1:57 AM |
I noticed my whole phone is slower since installing iOS5 |
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Guest
on November 3, 2011 7:31 AM |
I have no battery issues with my iPhone 4s.... So does this mean after the fix I will have super battery life?? The only suckers are people paying $100 more for phones with less features than the iPhone. There is no phone out there worth $299! |
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Guest
on November 3, 2011 7:34 AM |
Ure there a fix. just like the iPhone4. remember the lost signal fix when touching the bottom of the phone?! Apple "Yeah there was a bug in the software that was displaying an extra connection line. Its gone now so since you only loose one line of signal when touching the phone we are displaying one less so when you have 1 line drop to zero the phone works!!" wonder what there going to come up with for the battery |
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noridetoolow
on November 3, 2011 9:27 AM |
Battery life is about the same as always, about the same as my 16GB 3GS was.....iOS 5 has TOTALLY SCREWED my photo album up though! Wow its bad and getting worse and it effects every app that uses photos....this is the first issue ive really had with an iPhone. |
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princeton
on November 3, 2011 5:37 PM |
Guest said: I have no battery issues with my iPhone 4s.... So does this mean after the fix I will have super battery life?? The only suckers are people paying $100 more for phones with less features than the iPhone. There is no phone out there worth $299! You were doing well but then you said "less features than the iPhone" which made it obvious you were trolling. If you refer to an impossible scenario then people will figure out what you're doing. |
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Guest
on November 4, 2011 12:29 AM |
To be completely honest, you;re holding it wrong. |
. Battery life is weird tho - last week my phone wast lasting almost 4 days and now it's down to two with about the same usage. I even turned off some of the location and "diagnostic" (code for privacy invasion) crap.Most Popular
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