Norwegian journalist Jarle Aasland wrote Steve Jobs to ask if battery life on the iPhone 3GS is being worsened when upgrading to iOS 4, according to a report Mr. Aasland wrote for Aftenbladet (Google translation), Mr. Jobs replied with a simple answer, “Nope.”
“After installing the new system - iOS4 - I have a sneaking feeling that the battery does not last as long as before,” Mr. Aasland offered by way of explanation on why he was writing Mr. Jobs, also citing user complaints on the Internet, including a long thread on Apple’s own support forums.
That thread is now 27 pages long, and includes a mix of posts from people finding their battery life shortened after updating to iOS 4, those who have not found any problems, and at least one poster who said his battery life had increased. Still others were blaming different services or specific apps for their own decreases, and there were several posts from users who believe it was apps running in the background accessing data that was to blame for the decrease in performance.
In other words, there may or may not be an actual issue with iOS 4 on the device, with some 3GS users being confused or concerned with their own experience after the update.
Mr. Aasland decided to Write Mr. Jobs and ask, “Any reason battery performance on a 3GS running iOS4 Islands [should be] worse than it was running [iPhone OS 3.x]?”
Mr. Jobs one word response, according to the journalist, “Nope.”
Assuming the response is actually from Apple’s CEO, this would be one of the growing number of incidences of Mr. Jobs replying directly to people who write to him with questions. In this case, it would signify that Apple doesn’t believe there is an issue with the OS when running on the iPhone 3GS.