Tonight, Australian time which will be morning time September 16 over in the USA, Apple will begin rolling out iOS 9. This will be in time for the release of the iPhone 6s and 6s+, as have been previous iOS releases.
I wouldn’t normally write about an iOS update , but reportedly Apple has tweaked its software to be less power hungry and has added a Low Power Mode to further extend the life of the battery. Let’s hope so!
That will be good news for all the users that get sub standard battery times because of all the apps and background processes that run. We all run more and more apps, and use our smartphones more so any more battery time would be great.
I read about some tests that were done to see how iOS 9 performed prior to the release today.
In the first test, the new iOS version was put on an existing iPhone 6, and an extra 40 minutes was gained. Not bad I guess, but not exactly great to write home about….. although I guess you could now because your iphone is still working (bad joke – sorry).
The second test that I read about was using the new ‘Low Power Mode’ – Turning the test phone on to Low Power Mode for the entire testing period pushed an iPhone 6 running iOS9 to a battery life of 11 hours and 38 minutes compared with 8 hours for a iPhone 6 running iOS8.
Pretty good I will admit, but let’s see how it goes with a ‘normal user’ and not under a controlled testing environment. So if you’re reading this after getting the new software version, please leave a comment below on the battery life now.
Just one other thing with the new iOS – Good news is that the download requires you to have only 1.3GB of free space, which is far less 4.58GB required by iOS8. I had barely enough room for a couple more apps and photos, so iOS 8 required me to have a big cleanup before installing.