Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) admitted on Wednesday that it found a software bug within iOS 5 that is causing customers to experience poor battery life on their devices, and promised to deliver a software patch to fix the issue.
"A small number of customers have reported lower than expected battery life on iOS 5 devices," Apple said in a statement, which was first reported by 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."
The company declined to comment beyond the statement.
Customers have flocked to Apple support forums and around the Internet in the weeks since Apple pushed out the iOS 5 update and released the iPhone 4S, which comes pre-loaded with iOS 5, on Oct. 14. Apple had been silent on the issue up until this point. The new software contains numerous new features, most notably the ability to sync music, photos and other content via Wi-Fi as well as the ability to access Apple's iCloud cloud storage service. Some customers have proposed workarounds such as limiting notifications to conserve battery life.
This is not the first time Apple has been hit with an iPhone snafu shortly after a new model was introduced. Most notably, after the iPhone 4 was launched last year customers complained of signal weakness when gripping the device in a certain way, causing antenna attenuation. During a news conference to address the issue, Apple announced it would offer free bumper cases to customers to fix the issue.
For more:
- see this AllThingsD article
- see this WSJ article (sub. req.)
- see this Reuters article
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