On 7 March Apple made their latest press release announcing the upcoming iPad, and also happier news for Japanese users that the new update to iOS has taught Siri how to speak their language.  Yet, beneath all this fanfare one whopping issue lurks that’s enough of a let-down to crush even the most ardent fanboy’s heart.

The battery display is all out of whack.  Not only that it’s out of whack in the most disappointing way possible.

A blogger on No Second Life, Takeshi Tachibana, did an experiment that found that he could leave his iPhone on for three hours with the new update (only lit up, no applications) and the battery stayed at 100%.  It was an amazing claim that we had to test.

Watching a video I had saved on mine we watched a video from 1:15pm to 2:43pm without stopping.  When we started the battery meter read 100% but when we finished we were shocked to see that it only dipped to 93%.  Never before had any portable device managed such power saving prowess.

Just as we were about to report this update to end all updates that had solved people’s main gripe with smartphones – the battery life, reality hit us in the face like an errant cigarette butt flicked from the open window of a passing limo carrying an Apple exec.

Faster than we could blink, the battery gauge had dropped to 50%. It’s a disturbing sight to see under any circumstances but going from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows like that is simply gut-wrenching.

Even without the emotional roller-coaster of discovering the bug, having a messed up battery meter is a really huge problem for any mobile device.  This hopefully soon to be fixed flaw does a lot to sully all the benefits that came with the new update.  Perhaps the new iPad  is going to be powered by the tears of iPhone users?

Photos: RocketNews
Source: No Second Life (Japanese)

–       Hopefully they can work out the kinks in iOS5.1 quickly.

[ Read in Japanese ]