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iPhone Battery Improvement Tip: Your iPhone is Getting Very Sleepy

Have you ever noticed that if you leave your iPhone alone, it will simply go to sleep? This is by design--setting the device to go to sleep automatically will obviously reduce battery consumption on all models of the iPhone and the iPad as well. This feature is called auto-lock, by the way. The better news is that you can set it for a sooner time than 5 minutes and really get some battery life back. Here's how:

Settings --> General --> Auto-Lock -> Set it for 2 minutes or less for best results.

This change of the auto-lock, or auto-sleep should give you some much needed battery boost throughout the day!

iOS Battery Life Tip: Fade To The Background

Did you ever notice on your computer how you can run multiple applications at once? Like, if you launch Google Chrome and then go launch Microsoft Word, everything just seems to work together? Did you further realize that your iPhone can run multiple applications at the same time? If you don't believe us, then double-click on your home button. You should see the screen gently rise up and show you a few icons along the bottom of the screen. These icons are currently running applications that you have not quit yet. Wait, though, it gets even better--slide that bottom row of icons to the left. Now you should see page after page of running applications--sometimes, it seems that it never will end!

So, the problem is that the iPhone has to use precious battery life to keep those applications all running for you in the background. Probably not worth it, right? Even worse, if you restart your iPhone, those apps will STILL be running in the background! Let's learn how to quit them all and save some battery life.

When you double-click the home button and the screen rises up, simply hold your finger over any of those apps along the bottom. They should start to "shake" and you should see a small red circle appear over each application. Simply hit all those red circles until all the apps disappear--this tells the system that you don't want these applications running all the time in the background.

Do this a few times a day and watch your battery life again rocket back up to where it should be!

iOS Battery Life Tip: Why Are Your Teeth Blue?

Do you own any Bluetooth devices? Do you know what Bluetooth even is? Chances are pretty good that you may be in the crowd that uses Bluetooth headsets, headphones or connect your iPhone to your car entertainment system via this short-range wireless standard. However, if you do not use Bluetooth, make sure your iPhone's Bluetooth is turned off for obvious battery life savings.


Settings --> General --> Bluetooth --> Turn off


Of course, if you happen to need Bluetooth for your headset or car, get into the habit of turning it off while not in use. This could add up to tremendous battery savings over the long haul.

iPhone Battery Improvement Tip: All Things Are Not Equal

Do you listen to your music on your iPhone? Of course, we pretty much all do. Are you an audiophile that can hear the distinct differences in bass, treble and midrange notes? Probably not. Your iPhone does offer a nice equalizer that can help you tweak the sound range of the music being played from the music application (formerly iPod application). If you don't care about any of the above, simply turn off the built-in EQ for better battery life over the long haul.

Settings --> Music --> EQ --> Turn off

This small trick in the iPhone music app should help you steal back a bit of battery life on your iOS device. If you happen to hear the difference in the various EQ settings and that means something to you, then turn it back on at a decrease in overall iPhone battery life.

iOS Battery Life Tip: Don't Push Me Around

Do you happen to know what "push" means in the world of iOS? It simply means that data will be instantly pushed to you. So, for example, let's say the office sends you an eMail at 10:30AM. If you have push turned on, that email should get to you at about 10:31 or 10:32AM at the latest--in other words, that eMail gets to you just about the moment it is sent. Let's now pretend that you get about 200-300 eMails a day, every day. Some of those are important, some are simply spam or not relevant enough to have gotten that eMail the very second it was sent. In order for this to work, the iPhone has to have its listening ears on every second of the day to keep up with the demand for instant eMail. Consider your battery life in this situation--if we simply turned off push mail and brought it back to check every 15 or 30 minutes, imagine the battery life you would save over the long haul. Unless you are a government official or CEO, you probably can wait every 15 minutes for eMail, no?

Settings --> Mail, Contacts, Calendars --> Fetch New Data --> Turn off Push and check "Every 15 Minutes" below

Bonus Battery Life: If you choose "Manually," this will only check your eMail when you launch the Mail application. And on top of that, the eMail will be checked at the very second you launch the eMail application, no matter what time setting you choose above.

iPhone Battery Improvement Tip: What's Ping?

Ping was Apple's attempt at a social music discovery service that most people may not find useful. If you don't use Ping, simply shut it off to get back some beloved battery life.

Settings > Restrictions > Enable Restrictions > Set your passcode > Turn off Ping


This is one more easy tip that may get you back in the black when it comes to enhancing your iPhone battery life.

iOS Battery Life Tip: Charge Here, Charge There, Charge Everywhere

The one thing that seasoned iPhone users know and understand is that charging the iPhone a few times a day becomes the norm. Love it or hate it, that processor in the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S demand charging more than any phone you have ever owned before. The general rules on iPhone charging are as follows:

• Charge the unit before you go to bed at night--just leave it charging until morning.
• Charge the unit if you do a lot of driving with a cheap car charger.
• If you don't have to travel all day, charge the unit while it sits on your desk at work.
• If you have to play music with it, invest in a docking station that charges.
• Get an external battery pack, such as the Mophie Juice Pack.

Once you get over the hangup of having the charge the iPhone a few times a day for best battery life (unlike other phones you have have owned in the past), guess what will happen? You will have the best battery life...

iOS Battery Life Tip: WiFi Beats 3G

One of the biggest battery drains on the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and the iPhone 3 series is the fast 3G internet access. Obviously, when you are out and about, you don't have much of a choice if you want fast internet access--but--if you are near a WiFi connection, use it! You will see a remarkable battery increase from using WiFi over 3G and it will remember every network you have joined in the past automatically!

Settings --> Wi-Fi --> Choose a network from the list

We prefer to turn off "Ask to Join Networks," since this just means there is one more thing on the phone that will just check indefinitely for new networks. If you are in a strange place, turn this on to see what types of networks are available, but, if you are in the same places you always go, turn it off.

Even better, on some of the iPhones, you can turn off 3G access in favor of Edge (slower network speed). This is also a big battery booster, but, you will be surfing and accessing the network much slower than true 3G:

Settings --> Network --> Enable 3g (turn this slider off if your phone supports this feature)

iOS Battery Life Tip: Brighter is Not Better

For some reason, folks that use the iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S seem to believe that they cannot see the screen if the brightness is cranked all the way up to the highest setting. Think of a dimmer switch hooked up to a light in your home--if you turn the dimmer switch all the way up to the highest setting, what do you think will happen to your electric bill? Chances are that it will rise due to this behavior. If you turned that light down about 1/2 way, could you still see around in that room? Chances are pretty good that you could see just fine and your electric bill would show the result. So, let's turn the iPhone brightness down and save some battery life, shall we?

Settings --> Brightness --> Adjust the slider down to the halfway point

Leave the auto-brightness setting turned on, since this will help accomodate the brightness for lower light conditions whenever possible.

Reminder: The iPhone is not your old cellphone!

The biggest thing we see with new iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S users is the fact that they think the iPhone is simply a replacement for their 5-year old Verizon free flip-phone that was gladly given to them as bait to sign up for 2 years of cellular phone service. What they have gotten used to on those old flip phones were days upon days of constant use, never having to charge those flip-phones for days on end. The first rule of owning an iPhone is the following:

• The iPhone is NOT your old flip-phone and will never behave like it!

Once you get this through your head, owning an iPhone will become easier and easier. When you realize that you have basically an entire computer in the palm of your hand, you will understand that having that much power requires much more battery power. Unfortunately, the batteries in these smartphones are not getting any larger--they are either getting smaller or staying the same size while the rest of the phone gets faster and requires more and more battery power to run the functions.

Another thing we see with new iPhone users are complaints of crashing applications. People cannot understand why their old phone never crashed or shut off. What they don't understand is that those old flip-phones didn't run an entire operating system like the iPhone does (and no applications, either!). Just like your computer crashes at times, the iPhone will do the same thing when it's asked to do too much or runs into a badly-behaving application. This is normal behavior at times and simply cannot be avoided! While it's true that Apple does allow application publishers to publish their applications on the "app store," they simply cannot put those applications through every possible scenario on every possible phone, so, applications simply can crash at times. It's usually up to the author of that app to solicit feedback and correct the malfunctioning parts of the app to stop those crashes.

So, the moral of this story is that you have an extremely sophisticated device in your pocket--a device 360 degrees different from any other cellular phone you have used in the past and it simply plays by an entirely set of different rules. Believing the statement that "I paid $200 for this device and it needs to work perfectly..." is a fool's game and you will simply lose if you think that way. What you have to understand instead is that you have a device that will work pretty much all of the time, provided you follow the proper care and feeding of the device. That's the point of this blog--to help you get the very best out of your iPhone or other iDevice, and show you that by altering your current thinking just a small amount, you will be more than happy about your purchase. Trust the words here and at least give what they say an honest try!

iOS Battery Life Tip: Turn off the Stocks

Do you care about the stock market? If the answer is no, then you can save some precious battery life by simply turning off the scrolling stock ticker that appears in the new iOS 5 notification center. This is done by doing the following:

Settings --> Notifications --> Stock Widget --> Notification Center (turn it off)

This will eliminate the need to have the device check for updated stock information every few minutes, thus, saving even more critical iPhone and iPad battery life. If you really need to see the stock market news, simply choose your iPhone stock market application.

iOS Battery Life Tip: Turn off Traffic Reporting

Knowing the local traffic on your town or city network of roads can be great--however, if you live in a small town without major roadways, or, just want to save some iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 battery life, we suggest you turn off this somewhat-useful feature. The way this feature is supposed to work is that it broadcasts your current speed information to the map database, so, if you turn on traffic reporting in your map application, it will currently show where those dreaded traffic slowdowns are. If you don't care about this information, then simply turn off this setting as follows:

iPhone Settings --> Location Services --> Traffic

This should squeeze even more power out of that battery-sucking iPhone 3, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and iPhone 4S. Again, with the larger battery of the iPad, this setting may or may not help. If you never leave home with the iPad, simply turn off this feature since it is doing nothing to help your user experience.

iPhone Battery Tip: Turn off the Time Zone

For some reason, the iPhone 4 and 4S seem to want to know what time zone you are in. This is perfectly acceptable, however, it seems to check this setting way too often, which is another battery-drainer. Unless you are moving from time-zone to time-zone, turning off this setting may save you some precious iPhone battery life. This is an easy thing to turn off in your iOS settings:

Go to the iPhone settings area --> Location Services --> System Services (at the bottom)

Turn off the checkbox that says "Setting Time Zone." This one simple step has increased battery life for a lot of users, at a relatively very low cost. If you decide to go to a different time zone, feel free to enable this temporarily. This may not be a deal-breaker on the iPad, due to the increased battery size, but, turning it off on that device is also helpful for increased iOS battery life.