These days we cling to our smartphones like our lives depended on it. Most of our day to day tasks are carried out with the help of our trusty smartphone. That's why battery drain has been the bane of every smartphone user's existence.
Although having a power bank is always an option and/or imperative if you're a heavy smartphone user, there are still a number of ways to prolong your precious iPhone's battery life. Check out the tips below and let us know if we've missed anything.
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Disable auto-brightness
The iPhone's ambient light sensor automatically adjusts the screens brightness depending on how dark or bright your surrounding is. To save battery, keep your screen's brightness dimmer. Manually adjust the brightness on the control center or on the settings menu.
Settings → Wallpapers & Brigthness → Auto-brightness → toggle switch to off
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Reduce Motion
The parallax effect introduced in iOS7 gives you the illusion that your background image and app icons are on different planes. Although it's a cool feature, it can also help drain your battery. Turn off by going to:
Settings → General → Accessibility → Reduce Motion → toggle slider to on (green)
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Choose static over dynamic backgrounds
Seeing moving objects under your app icons might be cool but it also consumes a lot of power. If you want to maximize your phone's battery life, choose static backgrounds over the dynamic ones.
Settings → Wallpapers & Brightness → Choose Wallpaper → select 'stills'
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Turn off bluetooth/3G/LTE when not in use
One of the best things about a smartphone is the ability to always stay connected. However, using bluetooth to transfer files wirelessly or 3G and especially LTE requires more battery power. It's best to turn these off after use or when not in use.
Turn off bluetooth by swiping up the control panel
For 3G/LTE:
Settings → Cellular → toggle slider to off
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Turn off Wi-Fi when there's no available hotspot
Keeping your Wi-Fi on all the time even when there's no connection is a sure way to drain your battery.
Turn off Wi-Fi by swiping up the control panel
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Configure Location Services
Limit the apps with access to your location. Choose only those that need your location in order to function properly (maps, weather app, taxi booking app, Find My iPhone).
Settings → Privacy → Location services → uncheck all the apps that don't really need access to your location
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Turn off Background App Refresh
Another feature introduced with iOS7, the Background App Refresh automatically updates your most-used apps' content during the time when you use it the most. Although useful, this feature is also battery-sucking.
Settings → General → Background App Refresh → toggle slider to off
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Disable automatic app updates
Your phone will lose more battery life when it's constantly looking for app updates. To save power, manually update your apps in one go daily.
Settings → iTunes & App Store → Updates → toggle slider to off
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Turn off unnecessary vibrations
Unless your phone is on silent mode, avoid unnecessary vibrations.
Settings → Sounds → Vibrate on Ring → toggle slider to off
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Choose Wi-Fi over cellular data
As much as possible choose to connect to a Wi-Fi network instead of using your mobile data. 3G and LTE sucks more battery power than Wi-Fi.
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Fetch email less often
Save battery life by setting your phone to check new email less often. Set it to hourly if or if you want to save more battery, pick manually.
Settings → Mails, Contacts, Calendars → Fetch New Data → Pick 'Hourly' or 'Manually'
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Set your phone to quick auto-lock
Put your phone to sleep earlier when not in use.
Settings → General → Auto-Lock → 1 Minute
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Turn off equalizer
The music app on your iPhone has an equalizer feature that automatically increase or decrease the bass or set a specific tone. If you're not a big audiophile, turn this feature off to save more battery power.
Settings → Music → EQ → Off
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Limit use of battery-intensive apps
If you're going to be out all day and you need your phone to stay alive for the rest of day, avoid using battery-sucking vampire apps like Infinity Blade II, Clash of Clans, Candy Crush, as well as watching movies.
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Disable notifications for apps you don't care about
Limit the number of apps that can push notifications. Aside from being battery-sucking, it's also annoying. Who needs to be reminded that your plants are ready for harvest in the middle of a meeting anyway?
Settings → Notification Center → Disable notification for apps you care about less
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Put your phone in airplane mode in areas with poor signal
If you happen to be in an area with a hopelessly bad reception, it would be best if you just put your phone on airplane mode to keep it from searching for signal. Aside from being useless, it also sucks the life out of your phone. You can just turn on the Wi-Fi if there's an available connection.
Swipe up to turn on the airplane mode in the notifications center
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Turn off frequent locations
Your iPhone will remember all the places you frequently visit to provide you with useful location-related information. This isn't really necessary so you can just turn it off to save more power.
Settings → Privacy → Location Services → System Services → Frequent Locations → toggle slider to off
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Turn off AirDrop except when needed
Unless you're sharing files with your fellow iOS users, turn off AirDrop to extend your phone's battery life.
Swipe up control panel → AirDrop → Off
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Disable Siri's 'race to speak' feature
If you seldom use Siri, it's best to turn this feature off.
Settings → General → Siri → Raise to speak → toggle slider to off
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Avoid constantly closing your most frequently-used apps
If you've already disabled background app refresh, then it's okay to let your most frequently-used apps remain open. Closing it every single time will actually just eat up more battery power since your phone will have to load all the information it needs.
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Let your phone complete one charge cycle per month
Make sure that you complete one charge cycle (using and recharging 100% or battery capacity1) per month to keep your iPhone's lithium-ion battery working properly.
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Refrain from constantly checking your phone
Stop waking your phone up from its slumber. If he/she replied to your message, your phone will let you know. Relax.
