If you have been an iPhone user since the first introduction back in 2007, you know with each new feature apple introduces, the battery life seems to decrease. Though some of these features play a vital part in our experience with the iPhone, some of them are just not necessary and turning them off can give you extra battery life.
Here is a list of tips I have used to keep my phone lasting a full day or longer. You be the judge of which tips to use and features you can go without.
Tip 1: Disable 3G
Although 3G increases speed in browsing the web, watching YouTube videos, and downloading apps, it can drain your battery significantly. A good time to disable this setting is if you are in an area where there is no 3G coverage.
Tip 2: Turn off Wi-Fi
If you do not have a wireless network at home or work, this feature should be turned off in most cases and only turned on in the rare times you may use it. If you are satisfied with 3G speeds, you may want to consider using it regardless of any Wi-Fi network you may have.
Tip 3: Turn off Bluetooth
Though this is a nice feature to have when driving in your car and talking on your headset, most people rarely use bluetooth and in those cases should be turned off and only enabled when needed.
Tip 4: Turn off Location Services or only use them when plugged into a car charger.
I have found this feature to consume more of the battery than any other feature. Because of this, I have purchased a
car charger to keep plugged any time I use my GPS apps to find my way around. If you do not use any location enabled app, you may want to turn this feature off.
Tip 5: Turn off push notifications.
If you do not heavily rely on your apps to notify you the second a change is made, or someone IM's you, turn push notifications off and consider manually checking your app for updates.
Tip 6: Set Mail to Fetch instead of Push
Also increasing the length of time your mail is Fetched will preserve battery life. The best option for saving battery life is to set it to Manually Fetch.
Tip 7: Set Mail to only show the 25 most recent messages
The longer it takes for Mail to load your messages, the more your battery gets consumed. If you set Mail to only display the 25 most recent pages, you can always scroll down to the bottom of your mailbox and tap the "Load More Messages" button.
Tip 8: Lower the Brightness of your screen
Consider adjusting the brightness to a little less than half way and enabling Auto-Brightness.
Tip 9: Set Auto-Lock to 1 minute
I always find myself slipping my phone in my pocket or on my desk without hitting the sleep button and find it useful to keep the Auto-Lock set to the soonest so my screen isn't always on.
Tip 10: Turn off Vibrate in your apps
Having apps such as games that vibrate frequently can drain your battery fast. If your app allows you to turn vibrating off, I recommend you doing so.
Tip 11: Don't use your iPhone to download Apps and Songs
Consider making all of your App and Song purchases through iTunes and syncing them to your iPhone.
Tip 12: Avoid playing 3D games too often
3D games or apps with detailed graphics can drain your battery dramatically. Try to limit the time you use these apps.
Tip 13: Keep up to date with the latest firmware
Apple often improves the performance of battery life through firmware updates so it's best to keep with the latest firmware.
Tip 14: Charge as often as you can
Keep a car charger in your vehicle to give a quick charges during those short drives to work or home, and charge every morning or night. Also if you work near a computer, you may want to leave your phone plugged in while your working.
There are also times when you are camping and have no access to a charger. In this case, you may want to get a portable charger. Here is a list of chargers that will work with the iPhone.
If you have any tip that has worked to increase your battery life, please write a comment about it and let us know!
