Apple iPhone 4S Battery: iOS 5 Fix Sent. Did It Work?

The iPhone 4S. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

It’s really frustrating if your iPhone battery dies  when you’re trying to do something important. You can be in mid-conversation when –

Hello?

That’s what was happening to some owners of the new iPhone 4S, who found that something had been draining their phones’ power inexplicably quickly.

Apple has started sending out a fix, iOS 5.0.1 (you can click HERE for Apple Support to find it), and it seems to be working for many — though not all — people.

Trudy Muller of Apple said, “The recent iOS software update addressed many of the battery issues that some customers experienced on their iOS 5 devices. We continue to investigate a few remaining issues.”

There are some people going to the discussion boards at Apple Support Communities, complaining that their batteries are draining even more quickly than they were before.

“Oh My Days,” wrote a user this morning under the screen name  The APP Store. “This update made my battery life even worse : – ( please sort it out Apple! Make Steve Jobs proud!”

“Before the 5.0.1 update I actually didn’t have any battery problems on my iPhone 4S,” wrote another person using the name Morbo42. “But thanks to this update I now seem to have one, too.”

There were certainly others who seemed quite satisfied — one comment on Wired called the fix “nothing short of amazing.” If you have the phone, please let us know how you’re doing.

New products often have bugs — just remember the “Antennagate” problem reported with the iPhone 4 in 2010 — so Apple said its software update was meant to address several problems:

  • Fixes bugs affecting battery life
  • Adds Multitasking Gestures for original iPad
  • Resolves bugs with Documents in the Cloud
  • Improves voice recognition for Australian users using dictation

That last item was a source of some mirth in various parts of the world. As Lauren Effron of ABC News reported last week, Siri, the “virtual assistant” built into the iPhone 4S to take voice commands, had trouble with various accents. When a Bostonian asked, “Can I pahk my caaar in Havahd Yahd?” Siri interpreted that as “haven’t yet.” And when a Scotsman asked “Can you dance with me?” the app interpreted that as “Can you dutch women?”