It has been confirmed by Facebook that its iOS app has been draining iPhone batteries faster than usual but said an update was on its way.
Numerous reports and complaints over the past few weeks have claimed that the Facebook app was consuming larger amounts of battery life than usual including when the app was not in use.
Facebook’s Ari Grant (engineering manager) explained that there had been a couple of significant issues with the app and that the team was working on a solution to rectify them.
He explained that the first problem was down to an issue called CPU spin.
“The first issue we found was a “CPU spin” in our network code. A CPU spin is like a child in a car asking, “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?” with the question not resulting in any progress to reaching the destination. This repeated processing causes our app to use more battery than intended. The version released today has some improvements that should start making this better.”
The second is relates to audio and according to Grant, watching a video or listening to music on Facebook and then shutting it down causes the audio session to remain open. So even the it does not sound like any music is playing, the app is behaving like it is and therefore draining the battery.
Mr Grant was also forced to deny that the battery draining was due to additional location-tracking features being switched on and which some developers had offered up earlier.
The latest version of the Facebook app should iron out many of the battery drainage issues but as Grant explained, many will take longer to fix.
