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Here are some tips for extending battery life on your iPhone: 1
How to save battery life on your iPhone
Understanding Battery Life
We all love our iPhones, but like all other smartphones, the battery life seems to diminish quickly as we use them. Without understanding the correct ways to use and save it, the battery can be dead before the day ends. But what causes batteries to drain so quickly?
Actually, a variety of factors come into play when it comes to your iPhone's battery drainage. Usage patterns, age of the battery, and even the temperature can all affect how long the battery lasts. The good news is that there are some simple strategies you can adopt to extend your iPhone's battery life.
In this incomparable piece, we’re going to enlighten iPhone users on effective methods and settings adjustments that can help conserve battery power. By implementing these measures, you can actually make your battery last longer till you get to a power source. To set the stage for our discourse, consider an imaginary scenario where Jenny experiences her battery draining way too fast.
Imagine Jenny has had her iPhone 11 for about three years. She uses social media apps frequently, lots of web surfing, and generally a significant amount of screen time. She finds herself having to charge her phone two or three times a day. Following these instructions could significantly improve her situation.
- Switch on Low Power Mode.
- Turn off dynamic backgrounds and motion effects.
- Disable Push Email and fetch new data less frequently.
- Limit background app refresh.
- Adjust your screen brightness and turn on auto-brightness.
- Reduce the auto-lock period.
Tweaking Settings: Most Potent Energy Savers
It’s fascinating what subtle crannies of the settings menu can do for your iPhone’s battery longevity. In here, there are unique options and tweaks designed specifically to ensure you get the most out of your battery time.
For instance, did you know that less obvious features such as dynamic backgrounds and motion effects can zap your power? Or that by merely reducing the auto-lock period and enabling some specific power-saving modes, you can significantly extend your battery life per charge? In this part, we shall expand on each tweak and walk you through how to activate them.
Let's assume Jenny decides to delve into her settings options. She switches off those colourful dynamic backgrounds and opts for still images rather, turns off push email, limits background app refresh, and reduces her auto-lock period. These changes alone could add hours to her iPhone 11's battery life.
- Go to Settings > Wallpaper > Choose a New Wallpaper and select a Still image.
- Turn off push email in Settings > Mail > Accounts > Fetch New Data.
- To limit background app refresh, go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh.
- You can reduce the auto-lock period in Settings > Display & Brightness > Auto-Lock.
- Switch on Low Power Mode in Settings > Battery.
- Turn off unnecessary motion effects in Settings > Accessibility > Motion > Reduce Motion.
Unveiling the Magic: The Ultimate Power Saver
The iPhone comes with an excellent built-in feature specifically designed to help you preserve battery life: the Low Power Mode. When activated, this mode automatically pauses activities or features that may be draining your power.
As soon as the battery drops below 20%, your iPhone will suggest that you turn on Low Power Mode. But did you know that you can manually switch it on at any time and save your battery strength way before it hits critical levels? Let's reveal more details about this 'magical' function.
Jenny has always ignored the suggestions to turn on Low Power Mode, thinking it would interfere with her phone's proper functioning. But when she decides to turn it on at 60% battery level, she realizes she can have her battery last much longer and still keep the majority of her functions running.
- Open Settings > Battery > Low Power Mode.
- You can choose to toggle Low Power Mode on once your battery hits 80% or even 90%.
- Remember to switch off when your iPhone is fully charged for optimal device performance.
- This mode temporarily reduces some background processes like downloads and mail fetching.
- Siri also takes a break when your iPhone is in Low Power Mode.
- Scheduled activities may resume once the device is connected to power.
Taking Control: Limiting Background App Refresh
Surprisingly, some apps keep running even after you’ve hit the home button. This is because they need to fetch new data or update content, which inevitably leads to substantial battery drainage. Thankfully, Apple offers an option for you to take control.
You can limit how often these apps refresh and update themselves, thereby saving a decent amount of battery life. Alternatively, you can completely disable this function for specific apps that you hardly use but are battery intensive. Here's how.
In Jenny's case, she notices certain apps she rarely uses are draining her battery significantly by refreshing data. Following our advice, she limits their background app refresh capabilities. The rest of her day sees an improved battery lifespan as her iPhone now reaches nightly charging with about 20% left.
- To control this, go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh.
- You can totally disable this function, although that might affect the real-time functionality of some apps.
- The smart alternative is to select 'Wi-Fi' so that the apps only update when you’re connected to Wi-Fi.
- You can also select individual apps that you want to stop from refreshing.
- This change allows the iPhone to use less battery as fewer processes are running in the background.
- Jenny's battery lasts longer because less power is used on unwanted background activity.
Expert Tip: Regulating Screen Brightness and Auto-Lock Period
Your iPhone's screen is one of the most energy-consuming features, especially when set at high brightness levels. An easy trick to extend battery life is to adapt this brightness to your needs continually and not leave it at the maximum level.
Also, reducing your auto-lock period implies that your screen spends less time on when you're not using your phone. This simple tweak surprisingly contributes to huge energy savings. Here’s how you can implement these changes.
Jenny realizes she doesn't need her screen so bright inside her house or office, so she reduces it considerably. She also reduces her auto-lock period to 1 minute, meaning fewer moments of her screen staying on without being in use. Her battery appreciates these adjustments.
- To adjust your brightness, go to Settings > Display & Brightness.
- Slide to lower the brightness level.
- You can check 'Auto-Brightness,' and your iPhone will adjust brightness based on the current lighting conditions.
- To tweak your auto-lock period, go to Settings > Display & Brightness > Auto-Lock.
- Select a shorter time frame.
- Your phone will now go into sleep mode faster, thus preserving more battery life.
Refreshing Emails: Push or Fetch?
Emails have become part of our daily lives; we want to get them on the go. However, there's a small issue regarding how you receive your emails that might interfere with your iPhone's battery life.
More specifically, if you have 'Push' enabled for your email accounts, your phone is constantly on alert, waiting for new mail. This way of receiving emails can drain your battery faster than you expect. The solution lies in fetching.
As an occasional email user, Jenny realizes she doesn't need her phone to be always alert for incoming emails. She changes her email settings from 'push' to 'fetch' and even extends the fetch intervals. Her battery lifespan sees a significant increase due to these simple changes.
- To access this feature, go to Settings > Mail > Accounts > Fetch New Data.
- Turn off 'Push'.
- Select a preferred fetch interval, e.g., every 15 minutes, every hour, etc.
- You may select 'Manually' so that your emails only update when you open the Mail app.
- Fetching emails less frequently means your battery isn't put under constant strain.
- This small change can contribute significantly to preserving your iPhone's battery life.
Creating Contrast: Static vs. Dynamic Backgrounds
iPhones come with stunning dynamic wallpapers (Live or Perspective) that extravagantly move or animate as you tilt your device. While these wallpapers are aesthetically attractive, they consume comparatively more power than static ones.
Exchanging fancy dynamic backgrounds for static wallpapers is a smart way to reduce power-drainage on your iPhone. Plus, there’s no shortage of beautiful static wallpapers that will still pop on your display. Here's how to make the switch.
Seeing as her battery was her priority, Jenny decides to skip on the dynamic backgrounds and opts for simple yet beautiful static ones. This change also contributes to a noticeable boost in her battery lifespan.
- To make the swap, go to Settings > Wallpaper > Choose a New Wallpaper.
- Select from the ‘Stills’ category of wallpapers.
- Static wallpapers do not consume computational power like their dynamic counterparts, thus saving battery life.
- Remember that any form of movement or animation on your iPhone consumes energy.
- Again, disabling 'Perspective Zoom' can help save more battery.
- This easy, visual change serves to preserve more of your iPhone's battery life.
Avoiding Distraction: Dealing with Motion Effects
iOS comes with several motion effects, like parallax, where your wallpaper slightly moves when you tilt your phone. The slight zooming in and out when opening apps and switching between screens is another visual effect that needs rendering power.
Although these features make your iPhone look cooler and more sophisticated, they subtly eat into your battery every time they occur. This section suggests how to reduce such power-draining distractions.
With our knowledge, Jenny decides to experiment by turning off unnecessary motions, including those cool but power-consuming parallax effects. She finds out that she doesn't miss them after all, and her improved battery life was well worth the trade-off.
- To find this setting, go to Settings > Accessibility > Motion > Reduce Motion.
- Turning this on reduces the motion of the user interface, including the parallax effect.
- This reduction means less graphic processing and consequently less power usage.
- Also consider disabling 'Auto-Play Message Effects' and 'Auto-Play Video Previews' in the same menu.
- These actions result in fewer visuals for your iPhone to render, leading to better battery performance.
- Once again, limiting these interactive elements will add extra valuable minutes to your battery life.
Battery Saver Summary
Tweak | Benefit |
---|---|
Switch on Low Power Mode | Prolongs battery life by limiting certain functions. |
Turn off dynamic backgrounds and motion effects | Reduces graphic processing, thus saving battery life. |
Disable Push Email and fetch new data less frequently | Prevents frequent email update checks which drain the battery. |
Limit background app refresh | Saves energy that would have otherwise been used in updating unused apps. |
Adjust your screen brightness and enable auto-brightness | Lowers the power demanded by display backlight. |
Reduce the auto-lock period | Switches off the display when idle to save battery life. |
Embarking on the aforementioned beneficial tweaks can exponentially extend the longevity of your iPhone's battery lifespan. With this guide at hand, Jenny and similar users will hopefully never get caught with a drained iPhone midway through the day again!