Apple’s iOS 7.1 update for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, came with one dreaded hiccup – shrinking battery life. Running out of battery power is every device owner’s worst nightmare, apart from their beloved gadget being stolen, of course. So imagine what those who downloaded the refresh are feeling like now that they’ve installed the latest version of the software.
If you’re one of them and facing the battery problem, you can sit around complaining or fix it. Because Apple sure ain’t making amends in a hurry. And we know you want the good things about iOS 7.1 on your iPhone. There’s CarPlay for one. And then a more ‘human’ Siri, the ability to automatically enable HDR when taking photos, enhanced Touch ID fingerprint recognition, the home screen bug crash fix and so on.
How to fix it
Now ZDNet says that there are several things you could try before giving up and waiting for Apple to do something about the battery drain issue. Starting with the biggest move first, meaning the others we’re about to mention will look less troubling in comparison, you can reinstall iOS 7.1 through iTunes. Apparently, it’s better to do so using iTunes than going for the OTA (over-the-air) upgrade.
But do remember to back up your data before making this move since it will result in all of your phone’s contents being erased completely. Or you could use the iPhone heavily and thus force it through some charge/discharge cycles. This is supposed to help counter the theory that an update results in the device’s battery calibration data being lost and hence the quick power loss issue.
Want another solution? There are two more. You could reset the iOS device. It’s up to you whether you want to implement a major or a minor reset. The latter involves going to Settings, General, Reset and picking Reset All Settings. The other way to go about it is to snuff out not just your settings, but also your data stored on the Apple phone, tablet or media player. Just hit Erase All Content and Settings instead of Reset All Settings.
You can head over to the ZDNet page for more details.