14 DAY TRIAL // While many iDevices continue to be plagued by the ever-present power drain bug, some iPhone owners who recently updated to iOS 6.1 are actually reporting improvements in the battery department.
Numerous threads on Apple Support Communities have been actively discussing battery drainage on iOS 6 ever since the software came out late last year.
The problem isn’t necessarily inherent to the new mobile OS as previous versions (iOS 4, iOS 5) have had similar issues.
However, some customers are actually signaling improvements in the power department after updating their iDevices to iOS 6.1, the newest version of the mobile software from Cupertino.
One such happy camper is Michael Ginsberg, who writes on Apple’s forums, “I upgraded to iOS 6.1 a few hours ago and I must say that my iPhone 5 (previously running iOS 6.0.2) is getting insane battery life.”
“I have been using my iPhone for almost 45 minutes, standy [sic] for 2 hours and the iPhone is still at 100%. This is just crazy. I will continue to test tomorrow when at work and see what I get all day,” he adds.
Another customer, using the Internet handle Beatnik69, reports a similar experience, adding that his cellular connectivity is much better (resulting in less power drain too).
“My 3gs is the best after update, very improves battery life and ultra fast i can believe how a 2009 device can do it so well. More than 1% per hour standing by means you have a problem with some app,” he writes.
He advises fellow iPhone owners to try using monitoring apps to find which tasks are taxing the phone’s processor. “A must for everybody,” claims Beatnik69.
Others reported similar behavior, but many commenters on the same thread are reporting the exact opposite.
Apple is actively testing iOS 6.1.1 builds internally with the purpose of addressing known issues in the software. A public release should not be too far off, considering the amount of bad press generated by the bugs discovered in iOS 6.1 these past few days.