Almost immediately after Apple released their latest version of the iPhone, the iPhone 4S, users started complaining about the battery life. Even though Apple advertised the iPhone 4S as having longer battery life than the iPhone 4, users complained of a noticeable drop in battery life for the 4S. As an iPhone 4S user myself, I noticed a drop off, even when compared to my iPhone 3GS. Apple indicated it was aware of the reports, but kept pretty much silent on the issue for the last few weeks. Meanwhile, a number of tech blogs helped iPhone 4S users extend their battery life a bit by modifying the “Location Services” options. However, this was still a user fix, rather than one for Apple.
However, today iPhone 4S users can breathe a sigh of relief, as Apple today released the first upgrade for their iOS 5 mobile software, iOS 5.0.1. This update has a few minor tweaks to it, but the most prominent change is, as Apple puts it, “Fixes bugs affecting battery life”.
Apple, being tight-lipped about pretty much everything, hasn’t released the cause of the original problem in the first place, but considering that a software upgrade will fix the problem, one could speculate about coding problems, perhaps involving dual activation of the antennas despite being within one region only, among many other considerations. Lucky for Apple (and iPhone 4S users), the problem appears not to be hardware related, would surely would have hurt future sales and potentially caused significant financial damages to the company in the event a recall would have been issued.
I have yet to download the iOS 5.0.1 upgrade, but I will later tonight. For those of you who have upgraded, let us know in the comments if you see an improvement already!
