Although the iPhone 4S’ debut weekend smashed sales records and the phone continues to do very well, that doesn’t mean that everything is perfect in iPhone land. One of the biggest issues plaguing the new device is the battery suck that is affecting a large number of users.

The Apple forums and social media channels have been flooded with complaints regarding the battery life of the 4S, with reports varying as to the degree of the problem. Some users have reported small battery issues while others have reported 15 – even 20 percent loss in less than an hour of non-strenuous use.

When the iPhone 4S launched, Apple touted up to 8 hours of talk time or 6 hours of internet browsing with 3G. It was clear pretty early on that this was not happening for many users.

On Wednesday evening, Apple finally confirmed the battery problem and said that they were working on a fix in an upcoming iOS update. Here’s what an Apple spokesperson told All Things D:

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.

We might see that software update a little sooner than expected, as iOS 5.0.1 beta has been seeded to developers. The update promises to fix the battery life issues that have incensed users since the release of the iPhone 4S.

The beta update also adds multitasking gestures for the iPad and addresses a security issue regarding the iPad 2 and smart covers.

It was discovered that there was one specific thing negatively affecting the 4S battery life that users could easily fix: a time-zone bug. According to TechCrunch, iOS 5 most likely has a bug that constantly pings servers to update location – including updating time zones. All you need to do is go to settings>location services>system services and turn off the location services for setting time zone.

Hopefully, iOS 5.0.1 solves this battery issue once and for all, as there is nothing more frustrating to a smartphone owner than a rapidly depleting battery.