TechGreatest
10 Ways To Make Your iPhone Battery Last Longer
We have the technology, we CAN make it go longer – you’re just gonna have to turn some of it off!
What is the most critical technology to any mobile device? It’s not the screen quality or size. It’s not the storage space or cloud services. It’s the battery. Because without the battery it doesn’t matter how advanced your phone is, because if you can’t turn it on it’s less useful than a pen and pad of paper.
That’s why my iPhone is the most brilliant device in the world for the first half of the day, and a HUGE pain in the ass for the latter. But I’ve started using a number of tricks to make my battery life last longer.
Here are the ten tricks I’ve found to be most useful
Stop Those Motion Effects
The parallax effect is the name given to the slightly moving icons and notifications in iOS 7 when you move your iPhone. Apple created the parallax effect to give the flat icons some depth. However, as with any process that requires movement, the graphic capabilities needed to do this eats up battery life. To disable this effect go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Reduce Motion > and toggle the switch to ON (green).
Disable Dynamic Backgrounds
Another motion feature in iOS 7 is the dynamic backgrounds. These are the wallpapers that have subtle movement in them. They look cool, but that movement is eating into your precious battery life. It’s best to use a still image for your wallpaper. To get rid of the dynamic images go to Settings > Wallpapers & Brightness > Choose a New Wallpaper and select a wallpaper from the “Stills” selection.
Turn on Auto-Brightness
Increased screen brightness takes up a TON of battery power. This is because the extra light required to illuminate your screen requires a lot of energy, draining your battery faster. Screens generally require less light in darkness and more when it’s bright outside. To have your iPhone adjust to external brightness levels automatically go to Settings > Wallpapers & Brightness > and toggle the Auto-Brightness switch to ON (green).
Reduce Screen Brightness Manually
If Auto-Brightness isn’t doing it for you, you can always set the brightness levels automatically. Go to Settings > Wallpapers & Brightness > and reduce the brightness level by adjusting the slider. This will set the maximum value of screen brightness and can do a lot for the longevity of your iPhone.
Turn Bluetooth Off
The latest iPhones have Bluetooth 4.0, otherwise known as Bluetooth Low Energy, or BLE. And while BLE uses a lot less power than earlier versions of Bluetooth it still takes up power needlessly when you leave it on and don’t intent on connecting to any Bluetooth devices. To quickly switch Bluetooth off simply swipe up from the bottom of any screen in iOS 7. This will bring up the Control Center. Tap the Bluetooth button so it turns black. This disables Bluetooth.
Turn Off 4G
4G is another blessing of modern mobile networks, but it uses a lot more power than traditional 3G networks. Thankfully any iPhone that can connect to a 4G network can also still connect to a 3G network – and anywhere you can get a 4G signal you can almost certainly get a 3G signal. So if you’re running low on power and the fastest Internet speeds aren’t a priority disable 4G on your iPhone.
To do this go to Settings > Cellular > and toggle the “Enable 4G” switch to OFF (white). Again, with this turned off you can still access mobile data and make and receive calls.
Turn Off Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi is another connection technology we generally don’t need when out and about. It’s more important when we are in our home or office, as using Wi-Fi doesn’t eat into our data plans. But having it enabled all the time means our phones are constantly looking to join Wi-Fi networks as we traps across the city or take a ride on the train. The result is battery drain. To quickly switch Wi-Fi off simply swipe up from the bottom of any screen in iOS 7. This will bring up the Control Center. Tap the Wi-Fi button so it turns black. This disables Wi-Fi.
Prevent Background App Refresh
Background App Refresh is a feature in iOS 7 that enable apps to learn when you frequently check them. This allows the apps to predict when you’ll next check them and sees them pining their servers right before you do so they can pull the latest data and have it ready and waiting for you when you open the app. It’s a really handy feature except in that it leads to battery drain since these apps are running in the background.
To disable Background App Refresh go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh > and toggle the switch to OFF (white) or toggle individual apps ON or OFF.
Turn Off App Location Services
Location Services allows apps to know where you using GPS coordinates or Wi-Fi triangulation. This is handy for a number of apps, but it drains battery power. Also, some apps request your Location Information yet it does you little good (these apps use it for targeted ads, for example).
To save battery go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services > and toggle the switch to OFF (white) to turn off all Location Services (not recommended) or toggle individual apps access ON or OFF.
Turn Off System Location Services
Just because you’ve tweaked individual app access to Location Services doesn’t mean you can’t get some further battery savings from disabling the feature in other places. The core of iOS uses Location Services for many other functions – and some of them are utterly pointless. You don’t need them! So turn them off.
Settings > Privacy > Location Services > and scroll down until you see System Services. Tap that and toggle the switches to OFF (white) to disable individual system Location Services. I recommend disabling Diagnostics & Usage and Location-Based iAds.