APPLE has two simple rules it tells all iPhone owners to abide by if they want to extend their battery life.
Tucked away in your iPhone settings are simple changes to can make to instantly reduce the strain on your battery.
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Is your iPhone struggling to make it through the day without a top-up charge?
Well, you may need to adjust how much burden you’re placing on your battery.
Fortunately, Apple has offered smartphones owners “two simple ways you can preserve battery life — no matter how you use your device”.
Put simply, Apple says in a help page: “Adjust your screen brightness and use Wi‑Fi.”
Dimming the screen is an easy way to quickly preserve battery.
But for a better alternative, Apple recommends generally leaving Auto-Brightness on.
This will adjust your screen to ambient lighting conditions automatically.
So it’s more sensible than leaving your iPhone on full brightness all the time.
Just go to Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size and then activate Auto-Brightness.
However, if you need to save battery immediately, overriding this by dimming the screen in Control Center is still the best option.
Wi-Fi is also fairly easy to manage.
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The general rule is that if Wi-Fi is available, it’s significantly better for battery life to have Wi-Fi enabled.
Apple says: “When you use your device to access data, a Wi‑Fi connection uses less power than a cellular network.
“So keep Wi‑Fi on at all times. To turn on Wi‑Fi, go to Settings > Wi‑Fi to access a Wi‑Fi network.”
iPhone tricks to try today
Here are some of the best…
- Typing cursor – When typing, hold down the space bar to turn your keyboard into a trackpad, letting you move around words and sentences more easily
- Close all Safari tabs – To do this in one go, simply hold the overlapped squares in the bottom right-hand corner, and press close all tabs
- Delete lots of photos quickly – Hold down on a photo and then drag your finger diagonally in Photos to select lots of images at once, then hit delete
- Convert currency quickly – Swipe down from the top of your Home screen, then tap in the bar and type a currency (like €200) and it will automatically covert to your local currency
- Check if you’re due a battery upgrade – Batteries inside smartphones degrade over time. Just go to Settings > Battery > Battery Health, and check out the Maximum Capacity reading. Generally a battery is considered worn when you’re down to 80% capacity. If you’re below, you can buy a battery swap from Apple
- Move apps around faster – Hold an app until it starts wiggling, then (while still holding) tap other apps, causing them to stack so you can move them around easier
SUPER SAVER
There is a nuclear option when it comes to saving battery life: Low Power Mode.
This is a special mode that you can activate to really extend your charge.
You can turn it on by going to Settings > Battery and pressing the Low Power Mode toggle.
“Low Power Mode reduces display brightness, optimizes device performance, and minimizes system animations,” Apple explained.
“Apps including Mail will not download content in the background, and features like AirDrop, iCloud sync, and Continuity will be disabled.
“You can still use key functions like making and receiving phone calls, email, and messages, accessing the Internet, and more.”
Once your iPhone is charged up again, Low Power Mode will automatically switch off.
CHECK YOUR IPHONE’S BATTERY USAGE
Here’s what you need to do…
You can see a quick overview of your battery level and activity by going to Settings > Battery.
Tap a time period to see your Activity graph for the last 24 hours, or a set number of days.
You can also see a list of apps that contributed to your battery usage.
And it’ll display the amount of battery that was used by each individual app.
You can see how long each app was in use on the screen, as well as in the background.
Apple explains that you might see the following usage types:
- Background Activity means that most of the app’s battery usage — such as playing music or tracking location — happened while the app was in the background.
- No Cell Coverage and Low Signal means that your device was searching for a signal or being used with a low signal.
- Connected to Charger means the app was used only when your device was charging.
If you’re worried about battery life and can’t get to a charger right away, consider turning Low Power Mode on to preserve it.
You can find this feature in your battery settings.
