Good news if you’re one of the iOS 5 users who suffers from crippled battery life: Most early reports are showing that iOS 5.0.1 fixes the problem completely.

“Frankly the difference is nothing short of amazing,” said Wired reader Donald Kuntzman, who downloaded the update on his Verizon iPhone 4. “To go almost an entire day without a change in the meter reading seems unbelievable. Where before I could almost watch the battery drain, now it doesn’t move at all.”

Kuntzman noticed that the battery life on his iPhone degraded after the iOS 5 upgrade. He needed to charge his phone once a day, and always worried it would die before he had a chance to recharge it. He could practically “watch the battery drain,” but since the update, his battery level doesn’t seem to drop at all.

Sam Bertolet tweeted to @GadgetLab that his previous 15 percent battery loss per hour has been reduced to 4 to 5 percent with the update. Another reader tweeted that he only needs to charge every other day, as opposed to every day. Others like Khoi Pham “definitely noticed the battery life improvement” in the Beta 2 update.

Yesterday, reports surfaced that select iOS users were getting an early upgrade to iOS 5.0.1 to fix a number of iOS 5-related issues such as battery problems, Siri issues (for Australian 4S owners), and buggy iCloud documents. On Nov. 2, Apple confirmed that it had identified some bugs related to iOS 5, and said it would be delivering a fix in coming weeks.

But it looks like the fix isn’t working for everyone. A few users have not seen any improvement with iOS 5.0.1 at this time. Gareth Evans tweeted that he saw no difference; he’s still getting six hours of usage on standby and four and a half when it’s being used. One user even reported worse battery life with the update, but that unlucky individual seems to be an outlier.

Wired has reached out to Apple to find out specifics of the 5.0.1 update, and will keep you updated as we find out more information. In the meantime, if you have a iOS 5.0.1 update story to share, please hit my e-mail link at the top of this article and describe what you’re experiencing.

Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired