Apple just dropped iOS 5.1 beta 1 to developers. At a first glance the only new feature is dictation support in text input views. Other than that, they have probably fixed the battery issue but we can not confirm that at the moment. In the iTunes Match settings there is now a “Use Cellular Data” option to sync iTunes Match music. And in the screenshot below, there is a new “geofencing” setting to reportedly stop battery drain in the Reminders app when not in use.

Dictation Support in Text Input Views

On supported devices, iOS automatically inserts recognized phrases into the current text view when the user has chosen dictation input. The new UIDictationPhrase class (declared in UITextInput.h) provides you with a string representing a phrase that a user has dictated. In the case of ambiguous dictation results, the new class provides an array containing alternative strings. New methods in the UITextInput protocol allow your app to respond to the completion of dictation.

Source [FSM & 9To5Mac]