iOS 5.0.2 on the Way, iOS 5.1 Soon Thereafter, Says Apple Engineer

An Apple engineer quoted by a German Mac-centric blog says iOS 5.0.2 is on its way to iCustomers next week, with iOS 5.1 following soon thereafter with a few tweaks aimed to make Siri smarter.

Macerkopf reports (machine translated) that this person is working on the iOS division at Apple, and that he and his fellow software engineers have finally resolved the widespread battery drainage problems. All Apple needs to do right now is launch the next incremental software update packing said fix.

And that’s next week, says this person. iOS 5.0.2 will arrive with the second (and hopefully final) battery-gate patch, and likely other minor fixes and improvements as well.

Editor’s note
iPhone customers who have installed iOS 5 and iOS 5.0.1 continue to report poor battery life. My experience has been the same on iOS 5.0.1 but I must point out that iOS 5 did not exhibit the flaw on my iPhone 4. I’m one of the people who ‘caught’ battery-gate in the interim.

But the fun’s just beginning, says the source. The iOS team is also working hard to deliver another software update in the near future - iOS 5.1, which is said to contain a few extra tricks for Siri, the personal assistant.

Specifically, the Apple engineer said the new functionality will be awesome. Siri will be able to take pictures for you when you tell it to, even make videos while you’re at it, as well as switch WiFi and Bluetooth on and off by voice.

Siri is constantly being improved not just through iOS software updates, but also on Apple’s servers, where the assistant’s big brain resides.

Siri collects more and more information about language every day, and understands even more types of scenarios (context) as users input frequently used commands. Put in the simplest way possible, Siri is like a kid going to school learning something new every day.