A source within Apple have told me that the decision to ship the iPhone 4s was “rushed” in the wake of the death of Steve Jobs, in spite of issues discovered during testing that were not yet resolved.

“They really wanted to get this phone out “4 Steve”, but it wasn’t ready for release.”

They told me that in testing the iPhone 4s showed some of the same issues now being revealed on the Apple Support boards and tech news sites. Primarily battery life issues and assorted issues with iOS 5. Apple acknowledged the issue with the battery life a week ago and quickly turned out a fix which according to users made the existing issue worst and for others better. Apple is again promising a fix, but at this point it may be doubtful that a real fix can come about.

He continued, “You put the guts of the iPad 2 in the body of an iPhone 4 with only a slightly larger battery and you find that the batter life is severely compromised” They way they turned around this fix so quickly tells you they had it already together before the launch, but possibly held off to see how far reaching the problem was”.

In fact my source tells me that it’s likely they wouldn’t have released it so fast if not for a serious security flaw noticed soon after the launch.

UPDATE: Forgot this point. Last year it was discovered that Apple knew of antenna issues with the iPhone 4 before it’s launch as well.