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Apple issued an uncharacteristic statement to All Things D today acknowledging that some iPhone 4S owners have been experiencing worse than expected battery life from their new devices. They stated that this was due to a few bugs in iOS5 that would be addressed with a software update ‘in the coming weeks’.
When I received my iPhone 4S, the battery life was noticeably worse than my iPhone 4, however I put this down to me using it more and messing around with Siri. Today, the battery life on my iPhone 4S is at least as good as on my iPhone 4, running the GM release of iOS5.
If you’re finding that you have reduced battery life on your iPhone 4S (or your iPhone 4/3GS running iOS5), these tips might help you. I don’t recommend turning off features that you’re likely to use, however there are a couple of things you can safely turn off that won’t impact your use of the device.
In Settings, tap Location Services and scroll to the bottom of the list. In System Services, turn off Location-Based iAds and Setting Time Zone. For me, this System Service was using the GPS constantly, presumably to monitor which time zone I was in. The disadvantage to turning these off is that you won’t get location-targeted ads and you’ll have to manually change your time zone (not a big deal for me here in the UK) – if you travel a lot, you’ll have to decide if it’s worth it for you.
It goes without saying that turning off Bluetooth and/or WiFi when you’re not using them will help, but for many people (myself included) this isn’t always practical.
Have you found anything else that improves battery life for you under iOS5?
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1Password is the second thing I install on any new Mac or iOS device (after Dropbox). If you’re not using it, go and check it out.
Incidentally, this is my first piece writing for AppStorm. If there are any iPad apps you’d like reviewed, drop me a tweet or leave a comment.
