Best Ways to Prolong Battery Life
iPads are so technologically advanced today, it’s almost impossible to put them down. But the more they’re used, the faster the battery drains. Here’s how to keep it ticking as long as possible.
Auto Brightness
The iPhone has an ambient sensor that detects how bright its environment is and can adjust the backlit screen brightness level automatically. The brighter the external environment, the brighter the display—and the more battery is used. For dark places, the brightness makes it hard to look at the screen and drains the battery unnecessarily.
Where to find it: Settings - > Brightness &Wallpaper - > Auto Brightness On
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Bluetooth
Unless you’re using your phone with a wireless headset or earpiece or you’re playing a game like Scrabble with someone two feet away, you don’t need Bluetooth on.
Where to find it: Settings - > Bluetooth - > Move slider to off
3G/4G
For things like texting, making calls or playing games, you don’t really need 3G/4G. The higher data speeds to download website information faster and improve the quality of calls, but there are other (battery-saving) ways around that.
Where to find it: Settings - > General - > Cellular - > Slide Enable 3G to off/Enable LTE to off
WiFi
It’s true that using Wifi is faster than 3G, but keeping your phone always actively looking for a hotspot is a big battery drain. Turn Wifi off, and then back on when you know you’ll be a place with Wifi, like Starbucks.
Where to find it: Settings - > WiFi - > Move slider to off
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Airplane Mode
Anytime you go in a place with no reception, like underground or on the subway, switch your phone to Airplane Mode to stop it from sending out reception pings and using up battery.
Where to find it: Settings - > Airplane Mode on
Location Services
It’s tempting to use Google Maps to plan every route, but there are far more times when you don’t need to use Location Services.
Where to find it: Settings - > Privacy - > Location Services
Push Notifications
Do you really need your iPhone to notify you when every app you have has done something new? Push Notifications are useful for things like breaking news, product sales and social media, but not every app has something important to say.
Where to find it: Settings - > Notifications - > Change alert style to none - > Turn badge app icon off - > Turn sounds off
There are some occupations that make it handy to receive email updates often, but most people don’t need that. By having your phone fetch emails often, the battery gets used up more. And it’s pretty simple to just tap on the mail icon and see if anything’s waiting.
Where to find it: Settings - > Mail, Contacts, Calendar - > Fetch New Data - > Select preference
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Motion
The new iOS included a cool feature where the background would move when you tilted the phone, but this doesn’t come battery-free.
Where to find it: Settings - > General - > Accessibility - > Reduce Motion - > Flick switch to off
Siri
Siri can be a useful tool, but there are plenty of other ways around it. Some alternatives, like the Google voice function on the search, operate much better than Siri and don’t use as much battery.
