iOS 5.0.1 Beta Resolves Battery Life Issues for iPhone 4S & iOS 5, Public Release Soon

Apple has acknowledged battery draining issues with iOS 5 and has since released a beta version of iOS 5.0.1 to developers, indicating a public release is due soon. The update aims to fix iOS 5 battery problems without modifications of settings, bring multitasking gestures to iPad 1 without the third party tweak, and resolve several other bugs and issues that shipped with iOS 5.

Currently iPhone 4S can disable Location Services like Reminders and Time Zone to improve their battery life, but the official fix from Apple will appear soon and should allow 4S users to re-enable such features.

Some battery life issues with the iPhone 4S and iOS 5 were confirmed directly by Apple in a short statement to The Loop, saying:

“A small number of customers have reported lower than expected battery life on iOS 5 devices. 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.”

This was quickly confirmed by developers indirectly, with the release of the iOS 5.0.1 beta update. The primary fixes in the developer build 9A402 are:

– 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

The beta release is available for all models of iPad and iPad 2, iPhone 4 CDMA & GSM, iPhone 4S, iPhone 3GS, and iPod touch 3rd and 4th generations.

If you are not a developer, try some of these tips to regain battery life until the 5.0.1 update becomes publicly available.