Apple confirms bug in iOS 5 causing battery life issues

By Mike Dunn November 2, 2011

Complaints of poor battery life on iOS 5 devices first gained some attention over the weekend. Today Apple confirmed to AllthingsD that there is in fact a problem with iOS 5 that is causing battery performance problems in some phones. In fact the official statement from Apple states, “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.”

Unlike the antennagate scandal from last year it does appear that this issue is purely software based, and can be fixed by an update. It is also important to note that this problem is not limited to the iPhone 4S, and it is also happening in older generations of iPhones with the latest version of iOS.

It would be very interesting what Apple considers to be “a small number of customers” seeing how there seems to be countless people citing the problem on Apple’s official support forums. We are also curious why the errors in the OS are only effecting a small number of customers and not all of the customers.

It is nice to see that Apple responded as quickly as it did in this situation, but hearing that it will take a few weeks to address the bugs is disheartening. So have you noticed less than stellar battery life on your shiny new iPhone 4S, or reduced battery life on your idevice since updating to iOS 5?

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