Apple Confirms Battery Life Issues With iOS 5, Software Update Coming

[MacRumors]

Apple issued a statement to The Loop's Jim Dalrymple about customer complaints of poor battery life with the new iPhone 4S and iOS 5:

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."

There have been a litany of complaints about iPhone 4S and iOS 5 battery life ever since their release last month. A number of solutions have been proposed by the community for this problem, including turning off Time Zone detection, Bluetooth and others.

Apple has already seeded developers with a 5.0.1 beta that is said to address the issue.

Article Link: Apple Confirms Battery Life Issues With iOS 5, Software Update Coming

[iPad 3]

Originally Posted by MacRumors

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Apple issued a statement to The Loop's Jim Dalrymple about customer complaints of poor battery life with the new iPhone 4S:
There have been a litany of complaints about iPhone 4S battery life ever since the phone was released last month. A number of solutions have been proposed by the community for this problem, including turning off Time Zone detection, Bluetooth and others.

Article Link: Apple Confirms Battery Life Issues With iPhone 4S, Software Update Coming

about time for 4s sucks bad

[mcgroarty]

We've seen the issue on a couple iPhone 4 phones as well. I haven't seen any indication that it's an iPhone 4S fix, but rather a general iOS 5 fix.

[odedia]

This is not specific to the 4S, it's all iPhones.

Clearly, this is a software issue. I had it since Beta 1. Beta 6 fixed it, Beta 7 was bad once again.

[nfl46]

Thanks, Apple!

[dloomer]

Originally Posted by odedia

This is not specific to the 4S, it's all iPhones.

Yes, and I've heard reports that it affects iPads as well. The title of the MR article seems to be a mistake -- nothing in the linked article by Dalrymple or the quote from Apple mentions the 4S specifically, it just says "iOS 5 devices."

[coder12]

<sarcasm>I wish HTC would fix the bug on my Diamond that makes my battery die fast all the time.

...I think the bug was called "windows mobile 6.5" or something... hmm..</sarcasm>

[coolbreeze]

How can it only be "a small number of customers" when all the 4S' run identical software?

Serious question.

Must be PR trying to soften the OMG LIGHTENING ROD IPHONE BREAKING NEWS aspect of it.

[I8P'CS]

Please Apple just make it available for 4s. iPhone 4 is fine, last thing we need is for everyone to update and 4s customers are happy, but the problem has moved to the 4.

[arn]

Originally Posted by coolbreeze

How can it only be "a small number of customers" when all the 4S' run identical software?

Serious question.

Are you suggesting that every bug in all software affects 100% of customers?

Of course not. Despite being same software, certain behavior depends on certain conditions.

arn

[wrkactjob]

I have found that the more I use my iphone and ipad the lower the battery gets.

Here's hoping Apple get this fix distributed soon!


Oh wait!

[gregorypierce]

Originally Posted by coolbreeze

How can it only be "a small number of customers" when all the 4S' run identical software?

Serious question.

Must be PR trying to soften the OMG LIGHTENING ROD IPHONE BREAKING NEWS aspect of it.

I think it is because it relates to iPhones running with a very specific set of settings. On regular settings the battery issue is not apparent. I don't see it on mine for example.

[hofer]

The headline is misleading.The problem is not just with iPhone 4S, it is with devices running IOS 5. I had the issue with my iPhone 4 until I rebuilt my contact file.

[zoonyx]

Originally Posted by coolbreeze

How can it only be "a small number of customers" when all the 4S' run identical software?

Serious question.

Must be PR trying to soften the OMG LIGHTENING ROD IPHONE BREAKING NEWS aspect of it.

My sister upgraded from a HTC Desire to a 4S.

She thinks the 4S battery life is insanely good.... she had to turn off everything on her previous POS phone, just to get it to last most of the day.

[arn]

Originally Posted by hofer

The headline is misleading.The problem is not just with iPhone 4S, it is with devices running IOS 5. I had the issue with my iPhone 4 until I redid my contact file.

fixed the headline

arn

[D.T.]

Originally Posted by arn

Are you suggesting that every bug in all software affects 100% of customers?

Of course not. Despite being same software, certain behavior depends on certain conditions.

arn

Yeah, my wife's iPhone 4, our iPad (original) and at least one 4S owned by a friend who has been carefully monitoring his battery life after reading these reports, haven't had any issues. In fact, I'd swear the iPad battery life has gotten much better on iOS 5.

At any rate, it's definitely something specific and repeatable causing the issue, that we [all] don't do. FWIW, our two devices are both iCloud sync'ing too.

The nice upside to how Apple controls the hardware/OS, without any carrier meddling, means all devices should get resolved at the same time. I waited for _months_ on a couple of other devices because of the carrier flavored OS...

[jayman99]

This is excellent news! The 4S seems to be getting the same or worse battery life as my 2-year old 3GS. Definitely an issue. Glad it will be fixed, hopefully soon.

[blyan]

Originally Posted by odedia

This is not specific to the 4S, it's all iPhones.

Clearly, this is a software issue. I had it since Beta 1. Beta 6 fixed it, Beta 7 was bad once again.

This. Same exact experience with my iPhone 4 and the various betas. Hopefully the new release will actually fix this.

[vitzr]

I give Apple high marks. They responded quite quickly to this issue.

Tim Cook, really knows how to make things happen.

[daneoni]

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 line gets me every time.

[vitzr]

Originally Posted by blyan

This. Same exact experience with my iPhone 4 and the various betas. Hopefully the new release will actually fix this.

No it's not the same, Tim Cook is in charge now, and doing a great job.

[teknishn]

I never had a single battery issue with 3GS or 4 with the iOS5 betas... and I've run every build since day one.

My new 4S does have the problem though. I was able to fix it simply by turning off timezone in location services. Ill turn it back on when I get 5.01 installed and see how it goes. I wouldn't be surprised if there were more battery related bugs besides just this one.

All that being said, Ive found my 4S battery life to be incredibly good.... better than the 4 in most cases.

[w00t951]

Originally Posted by zoonyx

My sister upgraded from a HTC Desire to a 4S.

She thinks the 4S battery life is insanely good.... she had to turn off everything on her previous POS phone, just to get it to last most of the day.

Not very... Desirable... </lol>

[KPOM]

Originally Posted by daneoni

That line gets me every time.

To be fair, it doesn't affect everyone, and not everyone it affects will notice and report it. Anyway, it's nice to see Apple getting out in front of this before it had a chance to turn into another "Antennagate" (I hate the overuse of the suffix "-gate").

[blyan]

Originally Posted by daneoni

That line gets me every time.

I guess if they're talking about the percentage of users who actually reported the problem TO APPLE, then technically they're being accurate? But yeah, definitely a bit of word-twisting going on there.