Apple has officially released a minor update to iOS 5, which is intended to fix the battery drain problem some users have experienced. Based on early tests from some users, the iOS 5.0.1 update does, in fact, fix this problem.
For users who did experience battery life drain after updating to iOS 5 (or with the new iPhone 4S, which comes pre-loaded with iOS 5), the update will certainly offer relief from the pains of having to charge more than once every day or two. That said, not all users had any problem with battery life after updating to iOS 5. So for them, 5.0.1 will offer almost nothing new.
Aside from the battery fix, the update also enables mutlitasking gestures for the original iPad, eliminates some bugs that have popped up with Documents in iCloud, and improvements to the Siri voice control system for Australian users.
According to our tests, the update to 5.0.1 is not yet available as an over-the-air download — a feature that has served as one of the many selling points of Apple’s newest OS. Instead, anxious users will have to download it from iTunes the old fashioned way, by connecting to your PC with a USB cable.
UPDATE: Over-the-air update for iOS 5.0.1 is now available (at least for us), but developers who downloaded an earlier version of 5.0.1 are reportedly unable to update to the final version over the air — annoying, but not a big deal, for most users.
