How is your iPhone’s battery life? If you’re toting around an iPhone 5s or iPhone 6, probably not so good. The good news is this. Some iPhone users with older devices can get a batter replacement for a mere $29. Scoop it up while supplies last. That’s a good deal.
The problem with battery life is a strange combination of how we use our iPhones these days, mixed up with chemistry and physics. There is only so much energy that can be pumped out of those iPhone batteries, despite advancements in every other portion of iPhone technology. What can you do?
Little Tips, Big Tip
What I’ve done is compile a list of the basics– little tips that help preserve battery life, but combined with the absolute best big time battery tip of all. Interestingly, they start and end at the same place. First, the little tips.
Battery Shaming – Open Settings on your iPhone, scroll down and tap Battery. Wait a minute. What you’ll see is a list of the applications on your iPhone which use the most juice– for the last 24 hours and last 7 days. Tap the little clock icon and you’ll see minute usage. That’s where you’ll see which apps use the most battery, foreground screen usage, or in the background. Some apps are battery hogs.
Screen – iPhone screens are a marvel of technology and they all love the battery. Even iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 displays are considered near perfect for LCDs, and the OLED display for iPhone X ranks as the best ever. When running nice and bright, the display sucks up battery power as if it was a smoothie. Turn it down a bit to save power.
Various And Sundry – From here on out the gains are nominal but the effort is high. You can limit background app refreshes, set automatic downloads, turn of “Hey Siri…” from always listening, set email and other apps to Fetch vs. Push, or even set the flashlight app’s light down lower. iOS also has options to disable motion and other visual effects which also use power. Instead of setting iPhone’s auto-lock screen to 2-minutes or more, set it to 30-seconds. That saves power.
It gets worse. Many applications track your location and they don’t need to. Open Location Services and walk through the applications. Far too many are set to track your location all the time by default. Most don’t need your location anyway. Reducing those apps that suck up power saves power. And the same thing holds true for notifications, alerts, and any other noise. They all have the same thing in common. They use power.
The problem with the list above is that it crimps your iPhone style and imposes a bunch of dutiful restrictions just to save a few hours of battery life every day.
Is there not an easier way? Yes.
Low Power Mode – This is the big secret for getting an iPhone battery to last longer. Open Settings, scroll down to Battery, turn on Low Power Mode. Honestly, I don’t bother with Little Tips above because this one Big Tip is so much better.
Low Power Mode means you have to Fetch email. Always on ‘Hey Siri…’ doesn’t work but press Siri’s button and all is normal. There won’t be any background app refreshes, no automatic app downloads, some visual effects are restricted, and auto-lock defaults to the low setting at 30-seconds. iPhone may run somewhat slower but I’ve never noticed it and certainly not the way Apple does it with older phones.
My iPhone X will make it through the day on normal power and still have 30-percent remaining, but with Low Power Mode I can get two full days of usage with ease. Phone calls still come it, text messages, too, and I cannot see any other effect– other than great battery life.
