iOS 6.1.1 arrives to fix iPhone 4S battery life

 

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By Nicole Kobie

Posted on 12 Feb 2013 at 09:30

Apple has released iOS 6.1.1, updating the OS for iPhone 4S after a series of complaints about connectivity and battery life.

The update comes after Vodafone told users not to update to iOS 6.1, saying the upgrade was hurting 3G performance on the iPhone 4S.

"This update fixes an issue that could impact cellular performance and reliability for iPhone 4S," Apple said. The update appears to be only for that handset.

Apple released iOS 6.1 at the end of January. It included a few new features, extending 4G support to the UK and fixing security bugs.

Over the weekend, Vodafone sent a text to iPhone 4S users, warning them to steer clear of the update. "We’re aware of an issue caused by Apple iPhone 4S handsets that have been upgraded to iOS 6.1 which impacts performance on 3G," a Vodafone spokesperson said. "Some customers may occasionally experience difficulty in connecting to the network to make or receive calls or texts or to connect to the internet."

Vodafone said the connection problems were "intermittent" and warned users to wait until the problem was fixed to update.

Battery life complaints

Apple's forums are also plagued with complaints that battery life is significantly shorter than before the iOS 6.1 update, and not only on the iPhone 4S that Vodafone and Apple have singled out. "Recently upgraded to 6.1 and today the phone lasted about four hours before it completely drained," said one user on the Apple support forums.

Forum users suggested the battery drain is related to a problem with Exchange email, with the calendar incessantly pinging servers for updates - with some companies getting so many requests they've started blocking iOS 6.1 devices, according to ZDNet.