A couple of weeks ago, as complaints began to mount regarding the dismal battery life of the iPhone 4S, Apple attributed much of it to preferences in iOS 5.
The most popular tip? Navigate to Settings > Location Services > System Services to check to see if the location arrow icon is showing in the status bar (on the right side, by the battery icon). Tests suggest that by turning off “Setting Time Zone” in this section, you’ll save valuable battery life.* (*This has been confirmed on iPhone 4S, 4 and 3G.)
However, the problem appears to be bigger than that. This week, Apple acknowledged that there was more to it—namely that they believe excessive battery drain is due to iOS 5 bugs. An update hasn’t been released as of yet, but is in the works and should be out “in a few weeks,” according to Apple.
On Apple’s discussion forum, the thread regarding the issue is up to 228 pages (and counting) as of this writing. See it here.
We’ll report back when the update is available for download, so until then, if you’re one of the many having the issue, try the tip above!