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Apple confirms iOS 5 battery problems, fix coming in iOS 5.0.1

Apple confirms iOS 5 battery problems, fix coming in iOS 5.0.1

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We have confirmation from Apple that there are, in fact, confirmed battery life problems that need to be addressed in the new operating system:

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iPhone 4S battery life
iPhone 4S battery life

We've been wondering if the iOS 5 battery issues people have been reporting would get a clearer explanation and unfortunately that explanation isn't quite here yet. What we do have is confirmation from Apple that there are, in fact, confirmed battery life problems that need to be addressed in the new operating system:

"A small number of customers have reported lower than expected battery life on iOS 5 devices," Apple said in a statement to AllThingsD. "We have found a few bugs that are affecting battery life and we will release a software update to address those in a few weeks."

Apple didn't say exactly what the "few bugs" were, but leading candidates right now are iCloud sync and notifications. Apple has just posted a developer beta for iOS 5.0.1, with the following changelog:

iOS 5.0.1 beta contains improvements and other bug fixes including:
- 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
- Contains security improvements

Emphasis ours above. Hopefully Apple will be able to stick to, or even accelerate, the "few weeks" timeframe it gave to All Things D. In the meantime, we'll be sitting in our Apple Core forums, looking for interim solutions.