Facebook iOS App Update Fixes Battery Drain Issue

If you're an iOS user experiencing a Facebook app-induced battery drain, this is for you!

iPhones may well be on the bottom of the roster when it comes to battery life. It's part of the reason standard iOS updates are putting proper attention to "power saving" in order to somehow address the issue, albeit inadequately. Complaints and critiques were fired recently on social media giant Facebook for being a catastrophic contributing factor to decreased battery life -- even with the user closing the app completely.

Today, Facebook admits to its app deficiencies and puts an end to the distress of iOS users everywhere. Fortune reports that the "fix" was released more than a week after Facebook  committed to fixing the issue "soon."

The first key issue Facebook engineering manager Ari Grant identified, as per Wired, is the "CPU Spin" located in the network code. He likened the bug to a child in a car incessantly asking, "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?"in spite of the question not resulting to arriving at the destination. According to Grant, the "repeated processing" is why the Facebook app ends up using up more power.

Grant also admitted to mismanaging audio sessions, which is the second identified key issue. Apparently, when users watch a video, the audio session just keeps on going even after watching then closing the app. "This is similar to when you close a music app and want to keep listening to the music while you do other things, except in this case it was unintentional and nothing kept playing," Grant explains in writing. He resolves that the new bug fix will totally get rid of the background audio, therefore extending battery life.

Moreover, Grant clarifies in a post that the issues they have uncovered are not, in any way, correlated with the Location History or location features, for that matter. "If you haven't opted into this feature by setting Location Access to Always and enabling Location History inside the app, then we aren't accessing your device's location in the background. The issues described above don't change this at all," Grant explains.

Grant concludes the post as per Fortune, apologizing for the nuisances the bugs has caused, adding that the Facebook team is committed to continue developing the battery usage of the Facebook app and encouraging iOS users to see for themselves the improvements in the latest update.

Read Grant's full statement here.