UPGRADE your iPhone in seconds with a clever tweak – but don’t sabotage yourself by making a common mistake.
If you’re constantly searching for a wall charger because your iPhone is out of battery, there’s still hope for you.
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IPHONE YELLOW MODE
First up is the special mode that instantly boosts your battery life.
It can save you from running out of charge, even on days where you’re using your iPhone very heavily.
There are a few downsides to turning it on, so you might not want to leave it on all the time.
You’ll know it’s active because your iPhone’s battery icon turns yellow when it’s switched on.
The feature is called Low Power Mode, and it’s a standard part of your iPhone’s iOS software.
To find it, go into Settings > Battery and then toggle Low Power Mode on.
There are a couple of other ways to turn it on too.
One option is to open Control Centre (swipe down from the top-right corner of the screen) and then tap the battery icon.
If you’re using an older iPhone with a Home button, Control Centre is accessed by swiping up from the bottom of the screen instead.
And the second way to activate it is to simply ask Siri.
Just say “Hey Siri, turn on Low Power Mode.”
And you can follow the same steps to switch the feature off too.
WHAT DOES IPHONE LOW POWER MODE DO?
When you turn Low Power Mode on, it limits or even shuts down parts of your iPhone to preserve battery.
“Low Power Mode temporarily reduces background activity on iPhones and iPads to extend battery life when the battery level gets low,” Apple explained.
Here’s Apple’s official list of what happens:
- 5G: turned off on most devices, except for video streaming and large downloads on iPhone 12 and 13 models
- Auto-Lock: defaults to 30 seconds
- Display brightness: reduced
- Display refresh rate: limited up to 60 Hz on iPhone and iPad models with ProMotion display
- Visual effects: some effects are turned off
- iCloud Photos: temporarily paused
- Automatic downloads: turned off
- Email fetch: turned off
- Background app refresh: turned off
Once you charge your iPhone back up to 80%, Low Power Mode will switch off automatically.
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IPHONE COMMON BATTERY MISTAKE
You might have noticed that one of the features that is shut off during Low Power Mode is Background App Refresh.
This is the feature that lets content in your apps stay up to do date even if you’re not using them.
So for instance, your Mail app can still update its content even when you’re not using the Mail app at a given moment.
Normally an app won’t be active in the background unless you have Background App Refresh switched on.
And if you have many apps unnecessarily using Background App Refresh, it can put significant strain on your battery.
In fact, if you go into Settings > Battery, you can see exactly how much battery life is being drained by each app, including the proportion that was used in the background.
So you want to look for outliers: apps with high background battery drain that you hardly care about.
For those apps, you can tap on them in your Settings app, and then switch off Background App Refresh.
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This should significantly help with battery life.
IPHONE BATTERY SWAP
If you’ve tried the above methods and you’re still not getting good battery life, it may be time for more drastic measures.
One of the best changes you can make it an official Apple battery swap.
As you charge and discharge your iPhone over the years, the lithium ion battery inside degrades.
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That means it’ll hold less charge compared to when it was new. You can check your iPhone’s current maximum capacity in Settings > Battery > Battery Health.
So a way to get around that is to just get a new battery.
Apple will replace the battery in your iPhone for a fee – usually somewhere between £60 and £100 depending on your model.
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
This will give you like-new battery life, saving you from having to replace your mobile.
Your iPhone might also limit its performance to protect a very degraded battery. So you might find your iPhone performs better after the battery replacement too.
