Are fake iOS 5 battery fixes circulating?

Do you remember all of those complaints we heard a couple of months ago about iOS 5 battery life? Things have been (mostly) quiet on that front for a while. Apple’s iOS 5.0.1 update helped some users’ handsets to last longer, but not everyone was satisfied.

Fast forward to last weekend, when the iPhone 4S finally got its first jailbreak. News spread of a jailbreak tweak that was promising a dramatic improvement in battery life for all who installed it. All that was asked of you was a one-time payment of $4.99 for “beta access” to the insanelyi Cydia repo.

If you think this sounds sketchy, you aren’t alone. Two trusted iOS developers, Dustin Howett and Sam Bingner, took matters into their own hands to find out if the app had any credibility. Their conclusion? It’s nothing but meaningless code designed to sell VIP memberships. They said that all the app does is replace some code in one file (if this were actually a fix, anyone with iFile or SSH access could fix it without paying a dime). After doing some testing, the developers said that they couldn’t find any possible effect that changing this code would have on battery life.

Yet many users in the insanelyi forum were posting messages saying that they were seeing improved battery life after installing the tweak. Is it possible that Howett and Bingner were wrong? You never know, because battery life is a tricky spec to nail down, but it’s possible the forum users could have been experiencing a placebo effect. Another possibility is that the forum was being trolled with fake posts to promote the app.

We haven’t tested the app, so it’s basically the word of two developers vs. the claims of a promotion and some users in a third-party Cydia repo. Use your own discretion, but we wouldn’t advise you to leap into this one with open arms.

via iDownloadBlog