Right after the statement from Apple regarding the iOS 5 battery life issues and the promised software update “in a few weeks”, the company just posted a beta of iOS 5.0.1 to developers. It’s unclear what’s new in this beta, but it’s very likely testing will focus on battery life before the update is released publicly.
Update: According to the first reports surfacing on Twitter, it appears iOS 5.0.1 beta restores multitasking gestures on the iPad 1 (a feature that wasn’t available in the public release of iOS 5), resolves various bugs with iCloud and, as mentioned above, fixes battery life issues. Pre-release software is only available to registered developers, and users will be able to upgrade wirelessly to iOS 5.0.1 once it comes out “in a few weeks”.
iOS 5.0.1 is available now in the iOS Dev Center.