Facebook has been draining your iPhone battery

Facebook has confirmed that its iOS app has been draining iPhone batteries faster than usual, but said an update was on the way.

Over the past few weeks there have been numerous reports and complaints that the Facebook app was consuming larger amounts of battery charge than usual -- even when not in use. 

Facebook's engineering manager Ari Grant explained that there had been two significant problems with the app and the team was working to rectify them. 

Grant explained that the first problem was down to an issue known as 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 to do with audio. According to Grant, if you watch a video or listen to music within the Facebook app and then shut it down, the audio session sometimes remains open. Even though it doesn't sound like any music is playing, the app is acting like it is and draining battery

Grant also denied rumours that the battery issues were due to additional location-tracking features being switched on -- an answer that some developers offered up earlier this week.

The latest version of the Facebook app -- which is available today -- should iron out many of the battery drainage issues. But, as Grant explained, many of the issues will take longer to fix.