And the iPhone 4S Battery Drain Phenomenon Continues
Update 2:27 p.m.: Apple has responded to the most recent set of problems. In a statement released to AllThingsD, the company said that it is investigating the "few remaining issues."
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Original Post: Apple's software update for the iPhone 4S battery drain doesn't seem to fix the issue for all affected phones, meaning this might require more than a quick-fix from Apple. New phone owners had complained of faster-than-usual battery drain for phones that should have over 200 hours of standby time. Some had schemed possible solutions to the problem, but finally Apple acknowledged that it was a bug on their end. Earlier this week, an update came out that should have made it all go away. Apparently, the update doesn't do the trick.
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Only two days after releasing iOS 5.0.1, those with sluggish phones have taken to Apple's forums, complaining of zero battery-life improvement. The thread shows strings of commenters reporting that even after updating the software, which specifically claimed a bux fix for battery drain, the phone's sucking up battery-life, losing a noticeable percentage by just opening a single app, or unplugging the phone. And not only does the update not fix things, its making things worse for others. Some who had healthy phones before, after upgrading, are complaining of new battery issues.
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For some, the upgrade worked just fine, but for these users fixing the phone might involve more than a simple OS refresh. The update isn't completely useless for everyone. "Frankly the difference is nothing short of amazing," Wired reader Donald Kuntzman, who upgraded his phone earlier this week, told Gadget Lab's Christina Bonnington. "To go almost an entire day without a change in the meter reading seems unbelievable. Where before I could almost watch the battery drain, now it doesn’t move at all." But not all have been as lucky as Kuntzman. While just installing the software worked for him, one commenter on the Apple forums suggests that simply updating won't do it. "Most likely you need to reset the network/device itself and discharge/recharge! It's not magic! Enthusiasm is normal but Apple users have to learn to be methodical," 1AppleaDayNoway writes. A sort of battery refresh, he suggests. But there might be even deeper demons at work here, thinks ZDNet's Adrian Kingsley Hughes. "At this point it’s hard to pin down here whether this is a configuration issue, a app issue, or an issue specific to certain handsets," he writes. Apple has yet to acknowledge the new set of woes.
