(Image Source: Flickr/MattsMacintosh)
BY MEGAN NOE
ANCHOR ANTHONY MARTINEZ
After thousands of iPhone users took to Apple’s support forum to complain their smartphones drain juice at record speed, Thursday’s update seemed a welcome fix:
“The company has just released a software update that should improve the phone’s battery life. Apple says it found bugs in the software that was pre-installed on the 4S. There have been a number of complaints that the phones needed constant recharging.” (ABC)
So did Thursday’s - iOS 5.0.1 - update make things better....or worse?
Comments like this one on the Apple support web page aren’t uncommon:
“Yesterday I upgraded to 5.0.1 and now battery life is SIGNIFICANTLY WORSE. Yesterday 20 min of web surfing took it down 1%. This morning, after the upgrade last night, 20 min of surfing took it down 10%. That's 10 times worse! Please help! How do I go back to 5.0.0?”
And Daily Convo reports iPhone users are citing new problems thanks to the update.
“Others are claiming that the 5.0.1 update is causing problems with the inbuilt microphone, WiFi signal loss as well as mobile network coverage loss. Others are complaining that the iPhone no longer remembers contact names when it receives a text message, simply listing the number of the sender as the contact name.”
But as PCWorld points out, not everyone with a new iPhone is having battery problems.
“Most of the reports from unhappy iPhone users have proved impossible to replicate. Although one staffer had difficulty installing the update, none of the iGadget users in the PCWorld/Macworld offices have noticed any problems with their phones or tablets since installing 5.0.1. And, as far as we can tell, no other tech publication that we've seen has been able to concretely verify the reported glitches either.”
So why the different results? A Forbes writer suggests it could be the mixture of apps or software configurations. Or perhaps a more expensive problem...
“The different reactions to the same software indicate that the hardware is not exactly the same underneath. Given the volumes produced there might be multi-manufacturer sourcing going on, not of assembly, but perhaps of certain components. And perhaps some but not all of those different combinations of components are causing the problem.”
Apple says it will continue to investigate remaining issues.
