AT&T raises prices on the iPhone 3GS to 99 cents after the device was offered for free with contract during October as the iPhone 4S started arriving in stores.

What a bunch of tyrants they are over at AT&T. The company so kindly knocked the price of an iPhone 3GS down to nothing last month — with a new contract, of course — as the iPhone 4S hit stores. It turns out, that was just a temporary price drop on the years-old phone. AT&T has now gone and raised 3GS prices again… to 99 cents (with contract).
Having initially pointed out customer complaints about subpar battery life in the iPhone 4S, the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper has followed up with a report about a possible culprit and a possible temporary fix.
The Guardian said yesterday that some 4S users who had griped on Apple’s support Web site about the power drain were being contacted by the company and sent diagnostic files that could be sent back to Apple for analysis. Numerous users have been saying their phones are lasting just a few hours, even with minimal use, the Guardian said.
Now the paper reports that a location-based feature in the phone that detects when you’ve physically moved to a different time zone and then resets the phone’s clock accordingly may be the problem.
Apparently, the “Setting Time Zone” feature is polling cell phone towers constantly to determine the phone’s location rather than doing so only on occasion. The phone’s location-tracking setup triangulates information on the power of cell tower signals in order to situate the device.