iPhone Got 99 Battery Problems

Apple have already tried to fix this problem with the iOS 5.0.1 release (how cool was over-the-air updating by the way) but it hasn’t fixed the problem for all.

Personally I never had a problem and my 4S still manages about a day, sometimes longer depending on what I’m doing.

I think the main problem here is with the new notifications. Before you’d get the big-blue box and you could just say not now and it would go away.

Now if you’re on the lock screen you can ignore it and go away. Then when you come back it’s still there but just tucked under the time. That’s got to be using some memory which uses battery power, right?

Yes I get emails from Tesco. No, I didn't read it.

Then even if you don’t open it, it’s also being stored in Notification Center along with any other notifications you’re ignoring. Now this might be another area where your battery is being drained quickly.

The Weather widget at the top is set by default to get weather for your current location. If you are constantly pulling open notification center down then it is looking for your location again. It may have some smarts to not do it for a certain length of time but it will do it throughout the day. You can turn this off from Settings, the Location Services.

Now the main reason for posting this is my idea for lock screen notifications. This mainly comes from suddenly being awoken by a bright light to realize it was just my iPhone lighting up with a notification. I therefore turned it over and went back to bed. This led me to the idea that Apple must be able to tell when your iPhone is lying flat, face down on a table.

They not only have the light sensor but also the accelerometer to help them out. Therefore if you lie it face down then your notifications should not light up the lock screen and only appear when you unlock the screen.

What do you think? Would it work to save battery or am I just clutching at straws?

A Few Apple Leaks

So recently it seems Apple have decided not to worry about leaks anymore. Before nothing would ever be leaked before time. First of course was the infamous iPhone 4 loss, then just this week, two iOS leaks.

Of course it’s hard to keep everything secret but it’s almost like they want them to be found so they can gauge public reaction.

So first off was a panorama option found in the Camera app that will help you take a wide-angled picture. Below you can see the rough trials on 9to5Mac.

It still seems to be quite rough so may be ages away from being included in an iOS 5 update.

Then just today is what looks like an auto-correct typing bar to help with your spelling. From the screenshots it looks like it appears as you start typing and you can tap the word you want to complete it. See the picture below from TUAW.

To me this doesn’t seem like it would help much, unless you are typing a word longer than 5 letters. I think it would depend on how quickly the corrections appear though and if it learns your favorite words quickly. The auto-correct of the iPhone is pretty good to begin with so this just seems like an unnecessary feature.

So these are obviously quite small features and maybe it just goes to show how confident Apple are that they can have things leaked and it doesn’t matter.