Embracing Computers and Technology

Posted on: 20 June 2016

Experts estimate that around 100 million Americans now use an Apple iPhone, and many people upgrade from one model to the next to benefit from improved battery life. Nonetheless, whichever model of iPhone you use, your battery life could suffer for several reasons if you don't adjust your settings. Here are five examples.

You're allowing unnecessary location services

Location services help you make the most of the various apps on your iPhone. GPS location information helps these apps tailor information to your needs, but if you allow every possible application to link to your GPS, your battery life will dwindle rapidly.

Go to your Settings, and tap the Privacy menu. From here, select Location Services, so you can see which apps use your GPS. You can restrict access to Never, While Using or Always. Run through the list and make sure you're only using location services when you need to, and remember that Always is the most energy-hungry option.

You don't close out your apps

Every time you tap an app icon on your home screen, you will start an active session for something new. When you return to the home screen, active apps don't close. The apps will stay in a suspended state, so that when you flip back, it's easier to carry on where you left off.

Active and suspended apps will drain your battery power. Games and other image-intensive apps will drain resources faster than others. As such, at the end of every day, it's a good idea to close apps. You can do this by double-clicking the home button and swiping up each app that you want to close. With newer versions of iOS, you can even do this with several apps at a time.

Your screen is too bright

Increased brightness needs more power, which leads to increased battery usage. As such, if your screen is too bright, your battery power won't last.

You can update the brightness by going into your Settings and choosing Display & Brightness. The scroll bar at the top allows you to manually adjust the brightness to suit your needs. It's a good idea to activate the Auto-Brightness option, too. This automatically detects the ambient light level where you are, cutting the risk of eye strain and saving battery power, too.

You're using Spotlight Search incorrectly

Spotlight Search is part of the Apple operating system that uses information from multiple sources to give you intelligent search results. To make these searches relevant, the application constantly crawls for new data in the background. This process drains battery life.

Go to Settings and choose Spotlight Search. From here, you can choose the apps that you allow the function to crawl through. If you don't use this function much, it's probably a good idea to turn off every linked app. Failing that, you should restrict access to the apps that will give you the most intelligent search results.

You haven't turned AirDrop off

AirDrop is a tool that allows you to share content with other people's devices. For example, provided the other person also has an enabled Apple device, you can select a photo and then AirDrop it to somebody. You can share photos, videos, contacts, websites and locations.

AirDrop is only available on newer iPhone models. To enable the function, you must switch on your Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. In turn, the device will now constantly look for suitable devices to pair with, unless you tell it not to. If you don't, you will lose battery life. To change this setting, swipe up from the home screen and look for AirDrop. Tap the link and change to Off. You can then just switch the feature on when you want to use it.

The way you use your iPhone can influence the time your battery life lasts. Update your settings to make sure your battery life lasts as long as possible.

To help you make sure that your iPhone never runs out of battery life, consider investing in a portable iPhone charging station.