Apple’s iOS devices typically have very good battery life, especially compared to competing products. But sometimes people experience problems, like the battery drain issues in iOS 5, or just want to squeeze every last bit of life from their batteries. This guide provides a number of practical tips to help you make the most of your battery life.
Not only can reducing the brightness of your screen be much easier on the eyes, it can also help significantly increase your battery life, as the display uses more power than almost any other part of your device. You can adjust the brightness by double-tapping the home button and swiping to the left.
If you aren’t actively using a Bluetooth headset or other Bluetooth device, turn off Bluetooth. When Bluetooth is enabled, it is constantly looking for devices to connect to, which drains precious battery life. Tu turn off Bluetooth, go into Settings, then tap General > Bluetooth, and flip the toggle switch to the off position.
Notifications can be important. But many apps use notifications when the really aren’t necessary – games can be really bad about this. Turning off notifications for apps (find this in Settings > Notifications) that you don’t use them with can help you save some battery life, as well as prevent apps from annoying you unnecessarily.
It’s no secret that ultra-fast LTE mobile data uses a lot more battery power than traditional 3G or 4G data – and fortunately, there’s a simply way to disable LTE in favor of somewhat slower data to save battery life. Simple launch Settings, then navigate to General > Network, and flip the “Enable LTE” switch to the off position.
Likewise, many people with their carrier’s WiFi hotspot feature may find that their iPhone’s WiFi network is enabled, despite the fact that they may not be using it at any given moment. Disabling the “personal hotspot” can greatly improve your battery life – just open Settings, tap the “personal hotspot” pane, and turn the toggle to the off position.
This applies mainly to the iPod touch and the iPad. When you aren’t doing something that needs internet access, setting your device on airplane mode can save battery life by preventing your device from searching for wireless signals. Airplane mode can be enabled by entering Settings, and tapping on Airplane Mode.
Many apps, including Apple’s standard camera app, can retrieve location information while you are using your device. Determining your location takes battery power, so if you don’t need your apps to have access to this data, you can turn location services off. You can also disable location services for each app you have installed by entering Settings, and tapping on Location Services.
Depending on which email service or services you use, different default settings can apply to your mail. Some services, such as iCloud, use push, which delivers messages to your phone the instant they are received in your inbox. Other services, such as Gmail, are set to retrieve email messages less often.
By setting your email preference to “fetch,” which only downloads messages when you enter Mail.app, can save a lot of battery life by preventing Mail from constantly connecting to the internet or downloading mail. This is done through the Mail, Contacts, Calendars pane in Settings (Settings > Mail > Fetch New Data.)
Sending out usage and diagnostic reports can help Apple to improve iOS and make the user experience better. However, this also uses data, and causes some background activity. So to get the very best out of your battery, disabling this might be a good option. You can find this in Settings > General > About > Diagnostic & Usage > Don’t Send.
We hope this will help you squeeze a bit more valuable use time out of your iOS devices! Know of any tips that we missed? Let us know!