iOS beta to fix battery problems is out

Rich Fiscus
3 Nov 2011 5:33

Apple has released a beta of iOS 5.0.1 to developers which to addresses the battery life problems experienced by some iPhone owners.
Yesterday the company announced they had found the culprit behind the issue, which results in the iPhone battery significantly faster than normal. The problem doesn't affect all phones.

This update also adds multitasking gestures to the original iPad, a feature which was added in a beta of iOS 4.3, disabled in the final release version, and then enabled again, only for iPad 2 owners, in iOS 5.
According to the release notes (via Mac Rumors):

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

iOS 5.0.1 beta introduces a new way for developers to specify files that should remain on device, even in low storage situations.

This is a significant improvement over Apple's handling of last year's so-called Antennagate drama, when they spent weeks denying a problem even existed and blaming customers for using the phone incorrectly before eventually giving away free bumpers to fix it.