There was a lot of buzz yesterday when Apple’s Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi, seemingly debunked the popular practice of quitting background apps on your iPhone to conserve battery power. While double-clicking and swiping to close apps is second nature to a lot of iOS users, when you shut down frequently used apps, it actually uses more power. Imagine if you had to shut down your car at every stoplight. Not only would you lose time starting up your car over and over, you would use more fuel, since cars need a little extra gas to get the engine running (yes, I know that’s not quite the case with modern cars; but I’m making a metaphor here). The same goes for iOS – an app needs to restore connections, launch processes, and get everything up and running. That takes more energy than if it was sitting idle in the background.
So if quitting apps doesn’t make your iPhone last longer on a charge, what will? I’ve got a couple of proven tips.
1. Turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
When you’re not using Wi-Fi, or you’re in an area where you won’t have access to a Wi-Fi network, you can save some juice by turning off Wi-Fi altogether. And unless you’re using a Bluetooth device, like a Pebble, there’s no need to waste power broadcasting a Bluetooth signal. Shut them both down easily from the Control Center (swipe up from the bottom of the Lock Screen).
2. Turn off Location Services
3. Turn off Push
Having your email refreshed constantly and your Calendar updated in real time is nice; but it can also chew into your iPhone’s uptime. If you don’t care about up-to-the-minute updates, adjust your Fetch New Data settings under Mail, Contacts, and Calendars. Turn off Push for your main Mail account, then set your Fetch settings toHourly (or Manually if you only want those apps updated when you launch them).
4. Say “Goodbye Siri”
The “Hey Siri” feature is one of the things I love the most about my iPhone. I use it multiple times every day. If you don’t, it’s time to switch back to summoning Siri with a press of the home button. Deselect Allow “Hey Siri” from General > Siri.
5. Enable Airplane Mode
What if you’re stuck with barely any battery, no access to power, and you just need to make sure you iPhone is ready for one more call to summon your ride or send one last text when you need it. Switch over to Airplane Mode from the Control Center. This will shut down all the pinging and searching and requesting that your iPhone does and turn it into a fancy iPod touch, essentially. You can still wear down the rest of the battery if you continue to play games or listen to downloaded music on it, but it should last longer.
6. Low Power Mode
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