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Another ding for Ping.
When Apple rolled out iOS 4.3 a couple weeks ago, it quietly added a few features to the widely reviled Ping social-network service: push notifications for comments and follow requests, parental controls, and so on.
Soon after, many users started reporting a sizable drop in iPhone, iPod, and/or iPad battery life–and it wasn’t long before Ping began to emerge as the culprit.
Fortunately, as reported at Pocket-lint and elsewhere, there’s a simple fix for the problem: turn off Ping. Here’s how:
- Tap the Settings icon.
- Tap General, then Restrictions.
- Tap Enable Restrictions.
- Enter a four-digit passcode, which is required to enable restrictions (and to access it later). Make sure it’s something you can remember! (Write it down if you can’t.)
- Set Ping to Off.
That’s all there is to it. If you check the reader comments at sites like the aforementioned Pocket-lint and Lifehacker, you’ll see that at least some users have reported much-improved battery life after making the change.
I wasn’t able to test this myself, as I never got around to updating my iPhone 4 to iOS 4.3. Rather, I just installed iOS 4.3.1, which arrived yesterday and may itself be a fix for the Ping battery-drain issue.
If you’ve noticed a decrease in battery life after installing iOS 4.3 and/or an improvement with iOS 4.3.1, hit the comments and let us know what’s up!
