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10 Tips To Boost Your iPhone's Battery Life

 

Any iPhone user knows that although the phones are smart, powerful, fun and easy to use; the battery life can be poor. Here are 10 tips to help boost and conserve your battery’s performance, most of which will work on anything iOS 7 or above.


1. Turn On Low Power Mode (iOS 9)
Apple claims that the new Low Power Mode will allow you to gain 3 extra hours of battery life from your iPhone. When it’s on, it will reduce power consumption, meaning that mail fetch, background app refresh, automatic downloads and some visual effects are reduced or turned off. You’ll be prompted to activate it each time your iPhone hits 20% and 10% battery, but if you’re looking to conserve and stretch your battery for longer, it’s worth turning it on before those points. Here’s how to turn it on manually:

Settings > Battery > Turn on Low Power Mode



2. Turn Down the Brightness (Or Turn On Auto-Brightness)
You can control the brightness of your iPhone’s screen with a slider (see screenshot). Obviously, the brighter you make the setting for the screen, the more power it uses up. The iPhone uses a sensor to detect ambient light in your environment, therefore dimming the screen in in a dark environment and brightening it when there’s more ambient light. When Auto-Brightness is turned on, it ensures that you’re never using more battery than you need by altering the brightness to your environment. Here’s how to get to these settings:

Settings > Display & Brightness > Turn on Auto-Brightness



3. Turn On Auto-Lock 
With Auto-Lock, you have the ability to automatically set your phone to go to sleep after a certain amount of time of user inactivity. The sooner the screen sleeps, the less power is used to run the screen and other services. It’s best to set Auto-Lock for 1 or 2 minutes. Here’s how:

Settings > General > Auto-Lock > Choose 1 or 2 Minutes



4. Disable Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi is faster than 3G & 4G, but it’s only available when there’s a hotspot or router to connect to. For most people, a lot of places they go to during their day won’t have this kind of connection available, so it’s not really worth keeping it on all the time and draining your battery by doing so. The best thing to do is disable the Wi-Fi when you don’t need it, and just tap it back on again when you do (possibly at home/work). To do this:

Settings > Wi-Fi > Turn off Wi-Fi



5. Turn Airplane Mode On in Poor Service Areas
Your iPhone uses more energy trying to stay connected to a network or finding one to connect to when cellular coverage is poor. Therefore, it’s a good idea when you’re in a bad service area (such as underground on the tube) to turn on Airplane Mode, as this stops cellular transmissions being broadcasted or received from your iPhone. Just make sure you switch Airplane back off again when you need to use your phone. Here’s how to turn it on:

Settings > Airplane Mode (right at the top) > Turn On



6. Disable Cellular / Mobile Data
If you’re able to go without data but still need to be contactable, it’s a good idea to turn off 3G or 4G sometimes in order to keep your battery lasting longer. The benefit when compared to turning on Airplane Mode is that you will only disable the cellular data part of your signal, so you’ll still be able to make/receive calls, and send/receive text messages. The only thing you can’t do is access anything that requires internet connection, unless you’re connected to a Wi-Fi network. Here’s how to turn it off:

Settings > Mobile Data > Turn off Mobile Data 



7. Reduce Background App Refreshing
The Background App Refresh looks at the apps you use most often and the time of day that you use them, and then automatically refreshes the content for you when connected to Wi-Fi or cellular data, so that the next time you open the app, the latest update/information is there for you. Despite it’s obvious usefulness, it’s wise to reduce the amount of apps this feature is being used on, or, if you’re really not fussed, switch it off all together. To reduce it / turn it off:

Settings > General > Background App Refresh



8. Don’t Automatically Update Apps
If your iPhone is on iOS 7 or later, you don’t have to manually update your apps. There is a feature that automatically updates them for you whenever a new version is available, which is great, but can be majorly battery draining. To reduce the loss of battery on this, it’s advisable to turn the feature off. Here’s how to do it:

Settings > iTunes & App Store > Switch off “Updates” in the Automatic Download Section



9. Reduce Motion and Animations
The 3D / parallax effects first introduced in iOS 7, and available on all later updates, that make your icons and notifications seem to float over the wallpaper might appeal to the eye, but when switched on are constantly using your iPhone’s graphics processor and are therefore draining the battery. You could most definitely live without these effects if you were trying to get the last hour of use out of your iPhone on a boring journey home. Here’s how to reduce the motion:

Settings > General > Accessibility > Reduce Motion > Switch On



10. Find The Apps That Are Killing Your Battery
This one involves getting more to the root of the “battery draining problem”, rather than just not doing certain things and switching features off. In iOS upwards, there’s a feature available called Battery Usage, which shows the apps that have been using up the most power over the last 24 hours and the last 7 days and the amount of time they’ve been on the screen. If you keep monitoring it, you’ll be able to see if any apps are showing up at the top consistently, and therefore costing you precious battery life. From this, you can decide if it’s worth getting rid of some high usage apps – that’s the hard part! To do this:

Settings > Battery > Battery Usage



*The information in this blog is designed to provide helpful information on the subjects discussed. Please seek a professional for expert advice as we can not be held responsible for any damages or negative consequences upon following this information.

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iPhone Tips & Tricks That You Might Not Know About

Row.co.uk Blog

 

Reply with a Message When You Can’t Answer the Phone
It happens to all of us at some point or another; we’re unable to answer the phone because we’re busy, or perhaps we just don’t want to speak to a certain someone. If you don’t want them to leave a voicemail, the iPhone offers a handy alternative; responding to the call with a text message. To do this, just tap on the ‘Message’ icon that appears above the ‘Slide to Answer’ slider, and then choose either one of the default replies, or customise your own. You can also permanently create a custom reply that will pop up as a default one in the future by going on Settings > Phone > Respond with Text. 



Create Custom Vibrations
Most people know that you can give your contacts custom ringtones in order to recognise quickly who’s calling, but what about custom vibrations when you need to be slightly more discreet. It’s a very handy tool when you’re in a situation that needs you to be quiet, as you can tell who is calling you without disturbing anyone, or even taking it out of your pocket. To do this, open ‘Phone’ or ‘Contacts’, select a contact and tap on the ‘Edit’ in the top right-hand corner. Scroll down to find the ‘Ringtone’ and ‘Vibration’ fields; tap the ‘Vibration’ field and you’ll see some standard, pre-made vibration patterns to choose from. Below this is the option to ‘Create New Vibration’; click on this and you can make a unique pattern.



Do Not Disturb Mode
This feature is very useful, especially if you’re getting to sleep or trying to do some work, and don’t want to be distracted by your phone. To activate ‘Do Not Disturb’ mode, go to Settings > Do Not Disturb > Switch ‘Manual’ on. When this is switched on, calls and alerts will be silenced and a moon icon will appear in the status bar. If you’re worried about missing calls from certain people, you can set up various exceptions. Firstly, make sure ‘Repeated Calls’ is switched on, so that a second call from the same person within three minutes will not be silenced. You can then tap ‘Allow Calls From’ and choose your Favourites, so that you will always receive calls from anyone in this group.



Calculator Quick-Delete
Many people who have an iPhone often make use of the calculator, so this time-saving trick might just help you next time you’re on the app. The calculator app doesn’t have a delete button, which can be extremely frustrating when you’re doing a sum and make a mistake on one of the numbers. You don’t want to start all over again, of course, so what can you do? Well, just swipe (either left or right) across the number in the black area at the top, and for every swipe, you’ll get rid of a digit off the end. 



Stop Music with a Timer
It’s always nice to fall asleep to some peaceful music, but the downside is you either have to turn it off yourself before you actually go to sleep (which makes the whole idea of it a bit pointless), or let it play all night. If you use the hidden ‘Stop Playing’ timer, you can choose an amount of time for the music to play for as you fall into dreamland. To create a timer, go to the ‘Clock’ app, click on ‘Timer’ in the bottom right-hand corner, and choose how long you want the timer to last for. Then, tap on ‘When Timer Ends’, scroll down to the bottom, and select ‘Stop Playing’. Start the timer and then play your music from the ‘Music’ app; when the timer ends, the music will automatically stop. 



*The information in this blog is designed to provide helpful information on the subjects discussed. Please seek a professional for expert advice as we can not be held responsible for any damages or negative consequences upon following this information.

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