iOS Battery Update: iOS 5.1 Beta 3

A week after the release of iOS 5.1 beta 3 the biggest question that seems to be getting asked repeatedly is one that we have become accustomed to ever since the release of iOS 5, back in October. Yes, you guessed it – is the battery life any better yet?

We have been talking about battery life in iOS quite a bit since the issue first reared its ugly head, and we’ve discovered that it isn’t just an iPhone 4S issue, but rather something Apple changed in iOS 5. Since then the company has issued a full update in iOS 5.0.1 and a series of iOS 5.1 betas, but has the latest improved things any? Can we expect to get back to iOS 4.x-levels of battery life?

Well, no, not really…

iDB Oliver been using the beta 3 release of iOS 5.1 with his iPhone 4S for a week now, and in his testing at least, not much has changed by the way of battery life.

What he mean by that is that the iPhone still has its good and its bad days, just as it has since he started with these betas from iOS 5.0 and onwards.

Some days Oliver find the handset still buzzing along nicely at the end of the day, with 20% or more left in the tank. 

At first Oliver thought that the key differentiator here was the use of 3G or Wi-Fi, with the latter giving better results when it comes to battery longevity. That has recently been disproved, at least in my case. That said, there is clearly something going on from day to day that is causing an iPhone with the same usage patterns to vary wildly in its use of power.

At this point, iOS 5.1 in its third beta, Oliver find hisself wondering if this is as good as it is going to get. Has Apple thrown its dice as many times as it can, and we are going to just have to get used to where we are now – unpredictable battery drain?

There is also the unusual drain that occurs when the handset is idle. Last night, for example, I left my iPhone off-charge overnight with 25% of its battery remaining.Oliver awoke this morning to a battery with just 2% left in it. A few emails had been received, but that is it. Where did the 23% go? Yes, he know these things aren’t always accurate, but that is a considerable drop for an idle handset by anyone’s measure.

While not causing any great headaches, it is an indisputable fact that my previous iPhone 4 would routinely last a couple of days on a full charge before iOS 5 began to drain a lot of power around the time Apple released the GM version of its new OS. After that, the issues began.

I’d love to know what Apple added during that release, but we’ll probably never know.

How is your battery life now the dust has settled on the iPhone 4S release?

[Via: idownloadblog]

Bad Battery Life Issues Remain in iOS 5.1

Despite selling iPhones like they’re going out of fashion, it’s not been all unicorns and rainbows for Apple’s big releases recently. Some of the company’s top software outings have suffered a bloody nose as of late, with iCloud and iOS experiencing more than a few hiccups.

Released alongside the iPhone 4S, iOS 5 has taken an aging mobile operating system and added some much needed bells and whistles. The software also fixes some of the long-standing issues that iPhone owners have been complaining about for far too long.

One thing that iOS 5 has introduced is not entirely welcome, and that’s a very real battery life problem…

Not long after the release of iOS 5, many blogs, discussion forums, and chats in bars centered around an issue that a good percentage of iDevices running iOS 5 were running into. People were having worse battery performance than when they were running iOS 4. Since then, we’ve had possible fixes thrown at the wall, but so far, few have really stuck.

Apple even weighed in on the discussion by admitting that iOS 5 did posses some bugs that were causing an unusual battery drain, and that it was working to kill those bugs. When iOS 5.0.1 was seeded to testers and subsequently made public, we all assumed that the battery issue was no more.

We were wrong. Apple’s iOS 5.0.1 did not fix the vast majority of people’s problems, and even managed to give the battery drain issue to people that were not sufferers before.

Apple has now seeded a new beta to developers in the form of iOS 5.1. That’s a whole 0.9 better than the last release, so it must be good, right?

Wrong again.

iDB been using the beta for a few days now, and others with developer access have as well. The general consensus, a consensus borne out by his own testing, is that the battery issues we have been suffering since early October are still there. If anything, they might even be worse!

So, where does that leave us? I’ve heard reports from some people that performing a DFU restore and then using an iCloud backup to restore all data is a surefire way to improve battery life, so I’ve tried that. We’ll see how it goes.

People have also reported that they have had to perform an iCloud backup each time they update iOS to a new release, be that the 5.0.1 release or this new beta. Is something going wrong during the update process when not done as a DFU restore, perhaps? Maybe, but let’s wait and see how battery life fares this time around before getting excited.

I’d love to hear how your iPhone’s battery life is performing on iOS 5.1. How did you upgrade, and on what hardware? Are you finding your iPhone’s battery draining faster than it should?

[Via: idownloadblog]

iOS 5.0.1 Not Helping Improve Battery Life

When Apple dropped iOS 5.0.1 few days ago, the hope amongst many was that it may help to fix the battery issue that was introduced with iOS 5.0.

It is becoming apparent that iOS 5.0.1 may not have actually fixed the battery bug we told you about before, with our own location-based fix still appearing to be the best way of saving precious battery life…

Various reports suggest that the update to iOS 5.0.1 hasn’t fixed battery problems at all, though it is admittedly still very early to tell. During our testing of the two betas that Apple released, we found that we still needed to disable certain location services in order to get a day’s worth of use out of our iPhones.

There is one silver lining to this cloud: Apple’s delta (OTA) updates got their first public outing yesterday, and it would seem that they worked surprisingly well, with few reports of any real issues.

At least that’s one piece of good news for the iOS Team in Cupertino!

How has your iPhone’s battery life been since updating to iOS 5.0.1? We’ve heard reports of people who did not previously have any problems before unfortunately gaining some issues after the update.

Also, jailbreakers have been warned to not update to iOS 5.0.1, so keep that in mind.

[Via: idownloadblog]

Apple Confirms iOS 5 Battery Issues, Releases iOS 5.0.1 to Developers With Fix

Since Apple released iOS 5 and its latest handset with the new software pre-installed to the public, customers have been complaining about poor battery life. It appears that something in the iOS update has directly affected battery performance.

Other than a few rumors of its engineers contacting customers regarding their complaints, Apple has been relatively silent on the matter… until now. AllThingsD has just received an official statement from the company confirming the problem…

“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.”

Apple certainly seems to be taking the issue seriously, as it’s already seeded a 5.0.1 update to developers. The new software contains fixes for the reported battery bugs, as well as for other components, including iCloud and Siri Dictation.

As aforementioned, the 5.0.1 update is only available to developers at this point. Apple likely wants to make sure it does the trick before releasing it to the masses. If you can’t wait for the public release, iDB found that this trick really helps improve battery life on iOS 5.

[Via: idownloadblog]