iPhone 4s' battery woes due to time zone settings?

Tweaking a time zone setting in the new iPhone 4S smartphone may solve the battery “drain" problem experienced by some users of the new device, a tech blogger said over the weekend. Oliver Haslam said he traced the short battery life to a bug in the new iOS 5 operating system that continuously draws power from the battery when automatic setting of time zone is on. “It appears that iOS 5′s GM (Gold Master) release introduced a bug that causes the Setting Time Zone function to keep the location tracking circuitry running constantly, draining battery power considerably. Switching it off may mean that your iPhone will no longer set its own time zone when you travel, but that’s a small price to pay for having your iPhone last more than 12 hours on a full charge," he said in a blog post. Earlier reports over the weekend said Apple engineers had been contacting users of the iPhone 4S directly regarding the shortened battery life. Haslam said that when Apple released iOS 5 earlier this year, he noticed his iPhone 4’s battery life was lasting roughly half of what it was before. The problem persisted after he got the iPhone 4S, which also runs on iOS 5. So far, he said he has tested this method on four iPhone 4S handsets, including an iPhone 4 and an iPhone 3GS. “All have reported drastically improved battery life after switching ‘Setting Time Zone’ off," he said. A separate report on UK’s The Guardian said location services can prompt large drains on any smartphone’s battery. It said these services use a combination of the Wi-Fi network name, where available, plus mobile mast data and GPS sensor input, to calculate the phone’s position. — TJD, GMA News