Apple engineers working to solve problems with the battery life on the new iPhone 4S device, after some people have seen dramatic drops in longevity compared to previous models. The Guardian reported today that Apple has already contacted owners of iPhone 4S devices and asked them to install a monitoring program on the phone to try to diagnose the problem.

According to the spec sheet for the iPhone 4S, the standby time for the new phone would only be 200 hours.

The short life has been blamed on corrupted contacts imported from Apple's MobileMe or iCloud services, from Google's Contacts list or the the voice-driven "assistant" Siri, although Apple has not confirmed any of these reasons. A flaw in Apple's location services system could be suspected of being the cause of rapid battery drain.

Apple has not commecnted on the reports.