It’s the ultimate nightmare. You’ve had a little too much to drink on a night out and you’ve nodded off on the bus home; now you are stranded in the middle of God-knows-where without any means to get home. You have no money for a taxi, but you reckon that you could walk home, if only you knew the way. You check your iPhone and turn on Google Maps to guide you on your way and then ZAP! Your battery dies and all that’s left on your screen is that circling timeout clock, subtly chastising you for not charging your iPhone before you left. This is not only an inconvenience but it can also be dangerous, as being stranded without means of contacting anyone is not a desirable situation to be in. However, most tips and advice always seem to involve turning off all of the features that make your iPhone so fantastic in the first place, which would sort of render it redundant in place of a walkie-talkie! So, seeing as prevention is always better than the cure, let’s look at 5 top tips to help you increase your iPhone’s battery life whilst still making the most of your iPhone.
How To: Turn down your iPhone’s screen brightness
This is the number one tip on how to save your iPhone’s battery life, simply because having a really bright screen is so unnecessary in comparison with what you actually get out of it. You should keep your screen brightness between 25% – 35% which is an acceptable brightness for anyone under the age of 75 and will save you a hell of a lot of battery life. Simply go to ‘Settings’, ‘Brightness’ and move the dial down to the appropriate fixture; also, avoid using ‘Auto-Brightness’ as this will also drain your battery. (On this subject, you should also turn Auto-Lock to just 1 minute by clicking ‘Settings’, ‘General’, ‘Auto-Lock’ then ‘1 minute’.)
How To: Turn off your iPhone’s music equalizer
Sure, one of the great things about iPhones is that you can pump out your tunes in between making calls and have a constant stream of entertainment flooding your ears; however, the music equalizer that is built in to your iPhone is a little unnecessary, unless you are plugging your iPhone into a club’s speakers and entertaining a 300-strong crowd. To save a lot of battery life, click on ‘Settings’, ‘iPod’, ‘EQ’ and select ‘Flat’ to turn off the EQ and the constant processing that it requires…unless, of course, you are playing at being a DJ!
How To: Charge your iPhone when travelling and sleeping
Now this piece of advice is less of a nifty keyboard trick and more of a good dose of common sense, however, you would be surprised at how many people do not think to do this. Every time that you go to sleep, plug your iPhone in by your bed, (so that you can still hear your alarm!) and you will wake up to a fully charged battery. Concurrently, if you travel by car, then an iPod/iPhone dock is an essential purchase for you, not only so that you can listen to your tunes and take hands-free calls, but in order for you to be able to leave your car with a fresh battery. If you are a tub, bus or train commuter, then invest in an external batter pack to give you that extra boost.
How to: Fetch new data manually on your iPhone
Ok, unless you are an uber-important businessman that needs to check his emails every other minute and keep on top of all of the latest downloads and Apple Software notifications, (Steve Jobs – stop reading now), you do not need to be fetching new data every 15 minutes. Either reduce the automatic data fetch to a more realistic time of hourly, or, better still, set the dial to manual data fetch which will leave you in control of searching for fresh data whenever you access the internet and will save your battery from meltdown. To do this, select ‘Settings’, ‘Mail, Contacts, Calendars’, ‘Fetch New Data’ and click ‘Manually’.
How to: Go through a full charge cycle each month on your iPhone
Your iPhone seems capable of looking after your every need, so why not the return the favour and look after its needs every now and again?! All you have to do is pick a day each month and completely drain the battery until it runs out completely, then charge it back up to 100%. This will replenish the battery to full working order and ensure that it is firing on all cylinders for the next month. On this note, while it is very important to protect your iPhone with a case, you should not charge your iPhone when it is in its protective shell or case, seeing as the heat generated by the charger may damage its battery cells and circuits.
And here is another useful tip:
Sometime when you close a program it works in the background and uses energy.
You can kill all programs/apps in memory with a simple trick:
1. double press the big button to see your last user apps
2. tip at one of the apps and hold it – they start to shake like you already know it
3. delete them from memory
Thanks for the tip Marck
I wish there was a way to delete them all in one go as opposed to one by one. or to quite simply have a setting that deletes all open apps after certain time like a day for example.
I wish, I wish… 🙂
There so many things I wish from/for the iPhone…
I wish, there was an app (which exists for Android) with which I could send my phone to the mute mode… and SEE that it is in this mode, every time I unlock my phone.
Nearly every time I use this mode I forget to switch back!
Even your “How To: Create a Silent Ringtone for your iPhone” is no help for me…
I would miss many calls, because I didn’t hear my iPhone 🙂
i’m following your helping instructions. thanks