Connect with us

Apple

How to Improve iPhone Battery Life: A Genius Speaks

Published

on

Battery life, battery life, battery life. It’s the subject talked about the most with mobile devices. Without decent battery life mobile devices become something you have to monitor your habits while using. That sort of defeats the point. By and large battery life has improved on most mobile devices that many users can easily get through a normal day without having to find a plug to charge up. But there are heavy users who need to juice up more often, and sadly there are Apps and processes that can do things they aren’t supposed to and cause your battery life to drain too quickly.

iphone-battery

The pages of GBM and most other tech blogs are filled with “How to Improve iPhone Battery Life” posts. Most of those posts tell you a number of things to do to keep yourself up and running. Ironically they tell you that shutting off a number of key services geared for a mobile life will help. That’s not just ironic coming from tech bloggers, but even Apple has advised shutting down the services it hypes at times.

For those who might suffer from poor battery life on an iPhone, there has to be a better way right? There might not be a better way, but it looks like there is at least some newer more specific and knowledgeable advice out on the subject. It comes from a former Apple Genius named Scotty Loveless.

I made it my mission to discover the specific reasons for iOS battery drainage. This article is a product of my years of research and anecdotal evidence I gathered in the hundreds of Genius Bar appointments I took during my time as a Genius and iOS technician, as well as testing on my personal devices and the devices of my friends.

Loveless spent hours trying to solve battery life woes for iPhone customers and has compiled a list of ideas based off of a test that is easy for any user to run that should tell you if you’ve got a significant problem or not. The post appears on his blog, Overthought.org and is called The Ultimate Guide to Solving iOS Battery Drain.

In addition to the test Loveless lays out 8 steps to improve your battery life. They include:

  1. Disable Location and Background App Refresh for Facebook
  2. Disable Background App Refresh for other Apps you don’t care about.
  3. Stop quitting Apps in Multitasking
  4. Disable Push Email Temporarily.
  5. Disable Push Notifications for Apps that Annoy You
  6. Turn Off Battery Percentage
  7. Go to an Apple Retail Store
  8. Enable Airplane Mode in Areas of Poor Cellular Service

Those are the steps, but you really should go to the post and read the detail for each one. You should also read the instructions for the test to see if your iPhone needs attention. I won’t go into detail here on any of the steps but there are two facts, among many, that are worth noting.

  1. Facebook needs to get its act together and improve how its Apps work on iOS devices.
  2. The Apple retail stores now have a new test that can be performed by a Genius that is probably worth scheduling an appointment for if you’re experiencing problems.

I tried the test laid out in Loveless’s post and yes, I seem to have a battery drain issue. I also tired some of the tips mentioned and while I’m not an expert, my testing agrees with much of what Loveless is reporting. Turning off Background App Refresh and Location services for Facebook made an immediate improvement in how the iPhone reports usage and battery life. Guess I will be scheduling a Genius Bar appointment.

3 Comments

3 Comments

  1. Chandra

    04/10/2014 at 3:32 am

    How does not quitting apps help in improving battery life?

    • Devin Johns

      05/13/2014 at 1:53 pm

      Yeah that’s the only one I’m not sure about; obviously having apps NOT run in the background would be better for your battery life. That’s like saying, “Leave your car idling while you run into McDonald’s so you don’t have to start the car again.”

  2. Thomas W Thomsen

    10/03/2014 at 4:48 pm

    But it is still true. Don’t close apps. Because the phone use more power to start the app all up from start. instead off only pause the program and unpause it. That’s why. Try google

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.