Ways to improve your iPhone’s battery life..
While the iPhone is booming in popularity, its battery still isn’t that good. But by applying a few system tweaks, you can improve your iPhone’s battery life considerably.
Enterprises and business users love the iPhone because of its back-end management and security features that allow employees to bring their own from home (BYOD) and use it in the workplace. The one thing that lets the device down from full marks is its battery life. Compared to the old business favorite BlackBerry, the iPhone’s battery life is far from comparable.
Here are 15 simple things you can do to make your iPhone run that little bit longer.
1. Turn off auto-brightness: The best practice seems to point to disabling the auto-brightness. Go to Settings > Brightness & Wallpaper > then reduce the brightness to 10-25 percent, or whatever feels comfortable. It may not be easy to read your iPhone’s screen in direct sunlight, and you may not get the most out of your high-resolution display, but this is about conserving your battery rather than anything else.
2. Disable system Location services: Go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services. When On, scroll down to System Services, then uncheck all of these items. When you’re not using Location Services, such as GPS, then simply turn it Off. Location services use GPS for location-aware apps and services. While it’s useful knowing where you are on Google Maps, what you don’t see is what is going on behind the scenes.
Ads are being displayed based on your location, traffic data is being downloaded, and your iPhone is always pinging out to see where you are to keep an eye on which time zone you’re in. All of these things are unnecessary and churn up your battery life.
3. Disable push email: Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendar > under Fetch New Data set Push to Off — then scroll down and set the ‘fetch’ schedule to Every 15 minutes so that it runs the ‘send and receive’ schedule every quarter-hour. Push email is very useful for when you’re running against the clock. Emails are downloaded automatically and instantly from the server when they arrive, rather than waiting for you to ‘send and receive.’
If you need certain email accounts to push email to your device, select Advanced and confirm the setting for each separate account.
4. Disable Wi-Fi, Bluetooth when you’re out and about: Go to Settings > Wi-Fi > set to Off. Also, go to Settings > Bluetooth > set this to Off.
Wi-Fi and other wireless radios should be disabled when they’re not being used as they use a significant amount of battery life. If you are not near or not using a Wi-Fi hotspot, or sending items to other devices using Bluetooth, these can and should be turned off.
5. Enable Wi-Fi while you’re at work: Go to Settings > Wi-Fi > and set to On. Also, set Ask to Join Networks to Off to keep that Wi-Fi hotspot connected.
However, if you are at work or at home, and you’re in a building where cellular signal is weak — such as a thick-walled house or a city apartment — you might find it helps your iPhone’s battery life by actually leaving Wi-Fi turned on. Anecdotal reports suggest that when your iPhone has good cellular signal, the device’s battery will remain at a relatively stable discharge rate.
6. Disable unnecessary push notifications: Go to Settings > Notifications. Applications use notifications to inform you of what’s going on in the world, such as new email, text messages, reminders and who is responding to you on social networks. But these notifications turn the iPhone’s display on, and often include audio and vibrations.
But these can still be included in the Notification Center so these can be checked when you periodically check your phone.
7. Reduce auto-lock period: Go to Settings > General > Auto-Lock > set this to 1 Minute or 2 Minutes. Reducing how long it takes for your iPhone to turn its display off helps conserve the battery life. This means the display can quietly chip away at the device’s battery life while it’s not actively being used.
8. Disable vibrations: Go to Settings > Sounds and select whether or not you want to enable vibration when your phone rings, or if you want it enabled while it is set to silent.
Vibrations are useful to enable, particularly when you’re working in loud environments or even very quiet ones, so you can leave your iPhone on silent and receive a buzz in your pocket when a new message or notification has come through. A physical motor spinning in your device causes these vibrations, but this uses precious battery life. These can be limited or disabled altogether.
9. Disable 4G (and LTE) connectivity: Go to Settings > General > Cellular > Set Enable 4G (or Enable LTE) to Off. While 4G is much faster than 3G cellular connectivity, it uses a lot more battery power.
10. Close unused or dormant apps regularly: On your iPhone in an unlocked state, double-press the Home button > touch and hold any open app until it enters a ‘wiggly’ state > then tap the red close button on each app that you no longer need. You can then return to your device by pressing the Home button again. When using memory or battery intensive applications, these are still churning up power in the background.
11. Install a battery-monitoring app: There are plenty of applications in the App Store that monitor battery usage, but install only one. iPhones do not contain this feature, leading many to third-party apps to monitor device usage in order to extend the battery life.
12. Be aware of where you put your iPhone: An iPhone will generate heat depending on what it is being used for, so keeping it at a level temperature is important. The warmer your iPhone gets, the faster the battery will deplete. Sometimes it’s better to keep your iPhone out of your pocket and carry it in your bag — carefully to ensure the screen or case doesn’t get knocked about or damaged — or even clipped to your belt.
13. Check for iOS updates regularly for unfixable bugs: In some cases, software bugs have led to complaints that battery life decreases quicker than normal.
14. Pick up your phone less: While it is often tempting to pick up your phone and check to see if there are any messages, notifications, or missed calls, one of the easiest ways of keeping your battery ticking over is to stop picking it up every few minutes. Putting your phone to ‘sleep’ and ‘waking’ it up will drain battery life.
15. Cheat, and buy an external battery: If all else fails and battery life continues to be a problem, consider an external battery pack. Some external batteries will extend the battery life of your iPhone for twice the ordinary length, if not longer.
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Source: Associated Press
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