A COMMON phone mistake that you think is saving battery life is actually doing the opposite.
Millions of us do it every single day – but even Apple has warned users not to bother.
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Loads of iPhone owners spend time every day quitting their apps.
They’ll swipe them closed, quitting them in order to save a bit of battery life.
But Apple says it doesn’t actually save battery life at all.
“You should only close an app if it’s unresponsive,” Apple said.
The iPhone maker continued: “Typically, there’s no reason to quit an app.
“Quitting it doesn’t save battery power, for example.”
In fact, it could even be making things worse.
After you move to a different app, the old one will be “suspended”.
“After you’ve switched to a different app, some apps will run for a short period of time before they’re set to a suspended state,” Apple explained.
“Apps that are in a suspended state aren’t actively in use, open or taking up system resources.”
They’re kept in a suspended state so that it’s quicker and more power-efficient to relaunch them.
But if you fully force-quit an app, it will need to reboot from scratch, which is slower and takes up more power.
So it’s better to just leave them in a suspended state unless there’s an actual issue with the app – like it keeps freezing or crashing.
HOW TO CHECK WHAT’S REALLY DRAINING YOUR BATTERY
So what are you supposed to do if your iPhone’s battery life isn’t as good as you’d like?
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Well you can very easily check to see which apps and features are draining the most battery.
Just go into Settings > Battery and you can look at a long list of apps order by how much charge they’re using.
If there are any high-drain apps you don’t really care about, consider deleting them.
Or try turning off Background App Refresh for that app if you don’t want it to periodically check for new info (like email notifications). Just note that this might make the app work less well.
BATTERY SWAP
Another option is to check up on the health of your iPhone’s battery.
Over time – as you charge and discharge them – phone batteries get worse. This is just the nature of lithium ion batteries.
That means the more you use your iPhone, the less charge it will hold over time.
So your iPhone will run out of battery more quickly.
IPHONE BATTERY SWAP – HOW MUCH WILL IT COST?
Here’s how much you’ll pay for iPhone battery replacements in the UK and the US..
iPhone 5 Series
iPhone SE Series
- iPhone SE (1st gen) – £N/A / $69
- iPhone SE (2nd gen) – £65 / $69
- iPhone SE (3rd gen) – £65 / $69
iPhone 6 Series
- iPhone 6 – £N/A / $69
- iPhone 6s – £N/A / $69
- iPhone 6s Plus – £N/A / $69
iPhone 7 Series
- iPhone 7 – £65 / $69
- iPhone 7 Plus – £65 / $69
iPhone 8 Series
- iPhone 8 – £65 / $69
- iPhone 8 Plus – £65 / $69
iPhone X Series
iPhone XR/XS Series
- iPhone XR – £85 / $89
- iPhone XS – £85 / $89
- iPhone XS Max – £85 / $89
iPhone 11 Series
- iPhone 11 – £85 / $89
- iPhone 11 Pro – £85 / $89
- iPhone 11 Pro Max – £85 / $89
iPhone 12 Series
- iPhone 12 mini – £85 / $89
- iPhone 12 – £85 / $89
- iPhone 12 Pro – £85 / $89
- iPhone 12 Pro Max – £85 / $89
iPhone 13 Series
- iPhone 13 mini – £85 / $89
- iPhone 13 – £85 / $89
- iPhone 13 Pro – £85 / $89
- iPhone 13 Pro Max – £85 / $89
iPhone 14 Series
- iPhone 14 – £95 / $99
- iPhone 14 Plus – £95 / $99
- iPhone 14 Pro – £95 / $99
- iPhone 14 Pro Max – £95 / $99
iPhone 15 Series
- iPhone 15 – £95 / $99
- iPhone 15 Plus – £95 / $99
- iPhone 15 Pro – £95 / $99
- iPhone 15 Pro Max – £95 / $99
iPhone 16 Series
- iPhone 16 – £95 / $99
- iPhone 16 Plus – £95 / $99
- iPhone 16 Pro – £109 / $119
- iPhone 16 Pro Max – £109 / $119
Picture Credit: Apple
You can get to see how degraded your iPhone’s battery has become by going into Settings > Battery > Battery Health.
Normally you’d expect to be at around 80% capacity versus new after two years – or roughly 500 “charge cycles”, which are full charges and discharges.
That means your phone only holds 80% of the charge it held when it was new.
There’s no way to fix that beyond getting a new battery.
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Apple will replace your iPhone’s battery at the Apple Store. It usually costs somewhere between £60 and £100 / $60 and $100 depending on the model, but it could be more or less than that.
This will give you like-new battery life, and costs far less than buying a new iPhone.
You might even find that your iPhone’s performance improves, as sometimes processor speed can be limited as a protection feature if your battery is severely degraded.
