Ben Reid on April 25, 2014, 2:43 am

iOS 7.1.1 Allegedly Fixes Severe Battery Drain Issues On iPhone And iPad

Apple only rolled out its rudimentary iOS 7.1.1 update on Tuesday, but over the past 48 hours or so, we’ve stumbled across some interesting little tweaks. As well as the new App Store feature that shows which apps offer in-app purchases, it has now emerged that in terms of battery life on iPhone and iPad, those choosing to update can enjoy some reasonable improvements.

But don’t get too excited about these new revelations. In fact, it looks as though Apple has only repaired some of the battery drain that seemed to occur following the iOS 7.1 update, effectively returning things back to normal.

Following the release of iOS 7.1, which included CarPlay, iTunes Radio improvements and some notable tweaks to the Calendar app, some users were reporting a drop off in battery retention, something corroborated by several controlled tests carried out by blogs all over the Web.

ZDNet was one such blog, but having updated to iOS 7.1.1 and run some more tests, has discovered that battery life has been much improved. The test ZDNet runs involves using a fully juiced-up device for six hours, and taking note of the battery life still remaining thereafter. On iOS 7.0.x, the iPhone would retain almost three quarters, or 74 percent of its battery, but on iOS 7.1, this six-hour figure fell spectacularly to a mere 48 percent.

Apparently, after updating to iOS 7.1.1, the test leaves the iPhone with a much healthier 76 percent to play around with, and although this isn’t much of a bump on the original figure, it’s good to see that Apple has restored a degree of order.

Whenever a major-ish new piece of firmware is released, it often takes one or two further housekeeping updates to iron out any lingering bugs, and so it has proved here. iOS 7.1 mightn’t have been a major overhaul, but it has unsettled the Apple software enough to cause these significant dips in battery life. Hopefully, everything has now been sorted out, and there are no nagging issues prevalent within iOS 7.1.1.

For those of you who were noticing problems with battery when running iOS 7.1 on iPhone and iPad, have they been remedied with this latest update? But the time which we’ve spent with an iPhone and iPad both here at Redmond Pie, that seems to be the case. Do share your comments below, and if you still haven’t made the jump from iOS 7.1, it’s highly recommended that you do so.

(Source: ZDNet)