iOS 7.1.1 was released earlier this week to cries of joy among the Apple faithful. It may have been an incremental update, but it was an incremental update with plenty of fixes that owners wanted. One of the less talked about fixes is perhaps the most important though – battery life.

Over at ZDNet, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes says he has been keeping track of battery performance on the iPhone with every new iOS update. He notes that before iOS 7, his iPhone 5’s battery would drop to 74 percent after six hours of use. The rate at which the battery declined got faster after the introduction of iOS 7 and its updates. With iOS 7.1, he says the battery would drop to 48 percent after only six hours of use.

So, what’s it like with iOS 7.1.1? It would appear that Apple has brought the device back up to its pre-iOS 7 battery use days. Kingsley-Hughes says that his iPhone 5 battery falls to about 76 percent charge after six hours of use. That’s a stellar improvement over the previous iteration of iOS 7 and one update that any iOS should be happy about.

Alongside the improvements to battery life, iOS 7.1.1 brought updates to the following:

There’s surely more than that, but that’s all Apple was willing to divulge in its announcement. New fixes, such as the aforementioned improved battery life, will have to be uncovered by developers and users over the coming days and weeks. The important thing is that iOS 7.1.1 fixes a lot of stuff and even makes iPhone users safer.

iOS 7.1.1 is available on the iPhone 5S, iPhone, iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPad Air, iPad Mini and the latest iPod Touch devices. Users should see significant battery improvements across all those devices, but it should be noted that one’s battery life is dependent upon a number of factors. If you have a lot of apps running in the background, you’re not going to see better battery life no matter what.

Image via Apple