13 Ways to Save Your Battery with iOS7
Published on October 3, 2013
iPhone users everywhere are excited about the new iOS7... that is, until it starts rapidly depleting battery supply. Users on older model phones in particular (iPhone 4s, iPhone 5, we're looking at you):
Are you able to get your phone through the whole day without a charge? Carry on my wayward son! These tips may not be necessary for you.
Depending on how dire your straits actually are (dead battery by lunchtime? Out of juice by the evening commute?), you should consider one or more of these 13 simple strategies to get your battery to last through the day.
1. Auto-brightness is a no-no
Sure, auto-brightness is good at keeping your screen viewable whether you're in the dark or direct sunlight. However, if you're wanting to conserve some battery power, turn it off and set a low-brightness screen yourself.
Auto brightness uses more battery power by having the sensor enabled, both because the act of changing screen brightness takes power, and because auto-brightness often corrects to a slightly brighter screen than you usually need. Go ahead and disable it to conserve some battery power.
How?
Go to Settings, Wallpapers & Brightness
2. Fetch it, don't Push it (Fetch it real good!)
Your e-mail could be doing a lot more work than it needs to. Fetch and Push refer to the two different ways your iPhone collects e-mail. If it is set to "Fetch", it means your e-mail service routinely checks to see whether or not you've gotten any new e-mail at specified intervals - every 15 minutes, 30 minutes, etc. If it is set to "Push", your iPhone will constantly try to collect data whenever possible.
In short, Push makes your phone work harder than Fetch.
Save some battery life by switching off "Push" and using "Fetch" instead.
How?
Go to Settings, Mail, Contacts and Calendars
Fetch New data, Turn off Push
Bonus Points: To further save battery life, you can individually manage each e-mail account. If there is an e-mail account you only need to check every once in awhile, go ahead and change it from "Fetch" to "Manual", meaning it will only look for new data when the app is running.
3. Turn off Location Services
Ok, sure. Apps like Google Maps are going to need the GPS tracking that "Location Services" provides. Twitter, however, probably doesn't. Turn off Location Services for select apps and you will really cut down on your battery usage.
How?
Go to Settings, Privacy, then Location Services
Scoll down the list and switch off apps that don't need GPS tracking
4. Turn off Dynamic Backgrounds
Dynamic Backgrounds, courtesy of "Parallax", is a cool feature - except for the part that it hogs battery power. Go ahead and turn it off.
How?
Go to Settings, General, Accessibility, Reduce Motion On
5. Turn off background refreshing
We all enjoy being able to have a few apps open at the same time. However, if you keep too many running in the background, they'll start to hog your battery.
First of all, remember to close out apps your not using. (Double click on the home button, swipe up apps that you don't want open anymore).
Then, disable background refreshing to save yourself some unnecessary battery usage.
How?
Go to Settings, General, Background App Refresh
6. Turn off push notifications
Do you really need to have updates about EVERYTHING? Yeah, I know it can be nice to know when you have some Candy Crush lives back or to get every Tweet from StinsonSays, but that kind of stuff can start taking a toll on your battery life.
Switch off push notifications for the apps you don't really need updates from.
How?
Go to Settings, Notification Center
Scroll down to the "Include" section
Be ruthless. Switch those puppies off.
7. Turn off all forms of ad-based tracking
Do you want your phone activities to be unknowingly tracked by advertisers, among others?
...we didn't think so.
Not only could these features be considered an invasion of privacy, they also cost you some battery life. Switch 'em off.
How?
Click here to read the 5 steps you need to take in order to ensure your privacy, AND to eliminate on their battery draining activities.
8. Disable automatic app updates
Do your apps really need to be updated automatically, without your intervention?
Probably not.
Go ahead and turn off automatic updates for your apps, and wait to update them when you're phone isn't relying on its sole battery power.
How?
Go to Updates, iTunes & App Store, Updates, Automatic Downloads
9. Turn off AirDrop, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth
These are all great features which you definitely want to take advantage of, but perhaps not all the time.
Forcing your phone to search for Wi-Fi while you're underground waiting for a train, for example, can be very taxing on the battery life of your phone. Temporarily turn these features off when you're not using them to greatly conserve your battery.
How?
Swipe up the bottom of your screen to access your control center
Turn off the features you're not using
10. Be quiet, Siri
Oh Siri. You have all the qualities we want, but unfortunately it's not going to work out. Maybe we can talk somewhere down the line?
...but really, Siri is little miss battery hog. Unless you really love using her, its probably best to silence her for a while to save your battery.
How?
Go to Settings, General, Siri, and turn off Raise to Speak
11. Delete an app or two
Ok, I'll admit it - even I enjoyed The Simpsons Tapped Out. But only for a week. Or two.
At any rate, I certainly don't play it any more. And did you know that keeping old apps in your system can cause you to lose some battery life? Especially with unnecessary push notifications and app updates. So go ahead and delete those old apps you don't use anymore.
How?
Hold down the app icon on your home screen until it hovers, and shows an "x" in the upper left hand corner. Click the "x" and delete the app.
12. Lock your device every time
If you swipe open your phone to check the weather or the time, but then leave it sitting open (even on the lock screen), you're using battery. Click your top button every time to black out the screen and conserve your battery life.
13. Feeling desperate? Turn off 4G (for a bit)
It's not going to feel like your phone is running up to full capacity, but if you're really desperate to conserve some battery life (as you're waiting for that oh-so-important phone call), go ahead and turn of the 4G. (Just don't forget to turn it back on again later)
How?
Go to Settings, Cellular, Enable LTE/Enable 4G