INRIX Traffic is a free app for iPhone and iPad that uses traffic information from fleet vehicles and individual app users to provide near real-time traffic information. If you take a look at the comments for the app, you’ll note what appears to be a lot of irate users because of what appears to be a battery drain caused by using the app.
INRIX’s PR firm sent out this email to explain the situation:
INRIX Traffic app for iOS 5 update 3.5 caused many users to alert INRIX that the new feature based on location based push traffic information would experience increased battery drain. With this new feature enabled, it appears this would be the result of persistent use of the GPS in order to provide the personalized traffic alerts based on location. However, the battery drain is not attributed to this INRIX feature which when enabled the new Apple Location Services icon appears in the status bar which could cause the user to attribute the traffic feature as the source of battery drain. In development INRIX anticipated there could be issues with battery drain from this new iOS capability, and therefore developed this new feature to use the iPhone’s cell-tower triangulation technology instead of the GPS.
The cause of the excessive battery drain problem is actually an iOS 5 issue some users are experiencing following their upgrade to the new operating system. On November 2, Apple issued the following statement acknowledging the problem, “A small number of customers have reported lower than expected battery life on iOS 5 devices. We have found a few bugs that are affecting battery life and we will release a software update to address those in a few weeks.”
INRIX is in contact with Apple to get more information on an expected iOS 5 software update, and in the meantime have issued INRIX Traffic 3.5.1 which contains interim help for users before the Apple iOS update launches. Until then, more information on how to address the battery drain issues experienced with iOS 5 on Apple’s official support forums.
I asked for clarification about the situation since it was not clear to me if the 3.5.1 app update fixed the problem. Here’s my understanding of the situation based on a follow-up response from INRIX’s PR firm.
- The 3.5 the new location based push notifications when enabled caused the Location Based Icon to appear and be persistent on screen even though the new feature doesn’t use GPS it relies on cell phone triangulation.
- An attempt to preserve battery life by using cell tower triangulation was a affected by a bug of some kind
- This bug cause the location icon to be displayed and stay on even though GPS is not in use
- The 3.5.1 update provides an option to turn off the new feature that is affected by the bug Apple noted earlier and noted in INRIX’s initial email to press about the problem.
Bottom line? Update to INRIX Traffic 3.5.1 to be able to turn off the new feature.
If you would like to learn more about INRIX traffic information and forecast capabilities, you can listen to a podcast discussion I had with its CEO & President Bryan Mistele in September 2009 using the embedded player below.
MobileViews Podcast 32