iPhone battery life questions still dominate my inbox.
The one thing that people want more of from their iPhone is battery life.
Not bigger screens.
Not faster processors.
Not better cameras.
Most people would give all this up for an extra hour of battery runtime.
But new iPhones already give pretty good battery life (assuming there’s not some kind of battery drain issue going on). Sometimes the problem isn’t the iPhone, but things that the user is doing.
And people do some really dumb things that seriously drain battery life. It’s not that the users are wrong, but they’ve either picked up some bad tips or bad habits.
Time to break those bad habits and unlearn those useless tips!
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#1: Stop closing apps
I see people swiping up on apps to quit them all the time. I think it comes from the days when operating systems had poorer memory management, or perhaps they see messages on their Mac or PC that some app running in the background is using battery power, and think this applies to the iPhone.
At best, closing apps achieves nothing, but if you do this for apps that you open regularly, then you’re actually going to waste more battery when you reload that app.
So, one less thing to worry about.
#2: Stop futzing about in the settings
Yes, you can squeeze a little more battery life out of your iPhone of you change a few settings — a little — but you can also mess things up and cause more problems. One of the worst culprits is turning off auto screen brightness (Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size), and not only can this dramatically reduce battery life, but it can also damage the OLED displays on newer iPhones.
Another setting I see people play with a lot is background refresh (Settings > General > Background App Refresh). Unless you have a reason to go in here (and there can be good reasons), the best and safest setting to use to get better battery life is Low Power Mode.
#3: Don’t keep your phone on charge the whole time
This is one of the best ways to kill your battery. Cycle your battery. Yes, every battery has a finite number of cycles it can go through before it wears it out, but that’s what batteries do. Leaving your phone on charge for long periods causes overheating and forces a battery to maintain full charge for damaging periods of time.
#4: There’s no “hack” to fix a worn battery
If your battery is worn, replace it. There’s no trick or hack or key presses that will magically fix your battery.
You can find out if your iPhone’s battery is worn by going to Settings > Battery > Battery Health, and if the Maximum Capacity is under 80 percent, it might be time to consider getting a fresh battery installed.
Battery replacements are quick and easy, and inexpensive and can add years of life to an iPhone.