Tutorial: Optimize your iPhone to get the most out of its battery

IPhone users know very well that the battery of our smartphone It does not last as long as we would like, we cannot say that they are not good or that iOS consumes excessively since on the contrary, it maintains a dignified autonomy and comparable to Android models that far exceed it in capacity.

This capacity / duration (or performance) ratio is known as efficiency, something in which our iPhones are the best, and this is reflected in the numerous benchmarks such as AnTuTu 6 where the iPhone 6s is categorized as the most powerful smartphone of all and Despite such power and low battery capacity, it follows the trend of the vast majority of smartphones on the US market. reach wear day.

However, we all would like our iPhone to last longer, unless we make it to the end of the day despite making intensive use of it, unfortunately this is not the case, no matter how good the efficiency of our iPhone is, Its battery capacity is limited and below average, Apple has even reduced it in its new iPhone 6s model in reference to the previous 6 models.

A higher battery capacity would imply slightly sacrificing the design of our terminal, making it heavier and thicker, or sacrificing internal components to make more room, since inside our smartphone, space is the only thing that is not left over.

But the users we manage, and our iPhone can give a lot of itself with some slight readjustments in its configuration that will improve our user experience and increase the life of its battery.

These readjustments are in various fields, but basically what we are going to do is free our terminal from so much work so that it can rest more and this lengthens its energy a little more, all without us noticing any difference in daily use.

Let's start now to improve the autonomy of our iPhone, for this we must have it at hand and follow the following steps.

Deactivate components according to their use:

One of the most logical steps that can help the most in this situation is to deactivate certain aspects of our terminal when we are not going to use them, aspects such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and the data connection (3G, 4G) .

In this section we should also include the GPS sensor as one more, however I prefer that it does not enter the list since it directly influences the use of the terminal and can cause various problems, for example, with the GPS disabled Find my iPhone it is practically useless.

Disable Mobile Data:

The dynamics is as follows, if you enter your house and have a Wi-Fi connection, the best thing you can do is deactivate the terminal data, in this way our iPhone makes exclusive use of the Wi-Fi connection and stops trying to maintain contact with the mobile internet antennas of the operators (doing this will not mean stopping receiving calls or SMS, these services will continue to be available).

Following the same line, when leaving home we can reactivate mobile data and deactivate Wi-Fi, or deactivate Bluetooth if we are not going to use it.

Disable Wi-Fi:

Disable Bluetooth:

Background updates

Background updates are part of an iOS function that Apple introduced together with iOS 7, thanks to which installed applications could make limited use of our internet connection and location without having to be opened by the user, iOS learns what we use each application And in this way, for example, our Facebook feed is downloaded when we usually open the app or even when we reach the site where we usually open it, however this function does not work quite as it should and many times it is simply useless (which not always), so it is best to deactivate certain applications on this list to avoid excessive data and battery consumption, and keep others activated so as not to worsen our user experience.

Disable background update of apps:

In this situation, the apps that I recommend deactivating They are such as Facebook (the one that consumes the most battery), Stock market (in case we do not use it) and other apps that do not have any need to consult anything without our permission, this will NOT prevent us from receiving Push notifications from them, both functions use different systems.

The applications that I DO NOT recommend deactivating They are such as Time to be able to continue having the forecast in the notification center, Amazon so that it can check the status of our order, Fintonic to update its data at all times, news apps, etc ...

Manage email accounts

If we have added any email account or even iCloud The same to our iPhone (surely there are some) we will have activated the collection of emails from the native app, which connects to the various services to continuously check if there are emails available.

This function is known as Push, it is exactly the same premise as general notifications, when they send you an email your iPhone is ready to notify you. However, not all of them make such intensive use of the Mail app, or we do not even need to know that an email has arrived just when we receive it (for example, if we have the habit of checking the email at a certain time of day), it is that is why we can enter the account settings and tweak the frequency with which Mail checks the available emails.

How many more accounts we have added, more requests It will make Mail on possible emails received, for that reason and depending on the degree of importance of each account, we can choose whether to receive the emails in real time (push) or every X time (Get).

Configure email checking:

To give you an idea I will briefly explain what each option does and thus configure them to your liking, obviously the longer you put the fewer queries it will make to the servers and the longer the battery will last.

• Push - Get emails in real time.
• Get - Check the emails every X time, established in the list below:

1. Every 15 minutes - Every 15 minutes it will check the server for new emails
2. Every 30 minutes - Every 30 minutes it will check the server for new emails.
3. Hourly - Every hour it will check the server for new emails.
4. Manually - It will check the servers for new emails every time we open the "Mail" application or slide the mailbox screen down.

So you can establish that in your work email account the emails are updated via Push and in your personal account every 30 minutes or every hour, unfortunately if your account is Gmail You can only use the "Get" option, Google disabled the ability to get emails via Push for iPhone users to force them to use their own email client available in the AppStore, a crawling move by the big G, although coming from them does not surprise me at all.

Location services

This is perhaps the section of our device that wastes the most battery without our consent, and if you have come this far you may discover that your iPhone does things you didn't even suspect.

We will deal with two issues, the use of location services by the own system and the use thereof by the applications.

Use of GPS by the system:

iOS uses location services for many things, the vast majority of them are useful aspects for the user, in this group are for example Find my iPhone, the calibration of sensors such as the compass, the geopositioning of Wi-Fi networks to make the search for these something more efficient, the integration of HomeKit devices and even the customization of Spotlight or Siri based on In our location, however, iOS uses our location for more things, and in this group there are a couple of functions that do not provide the user any benefit despite consuming power from the device.

The functions I am referring to are 2 exactly, the so-called «iAds by location" is "Frequent locations«, I will try to explain both.

• iAds by location: Apple has an advertising platform for applications (which by the way, its days are numbered), with this function activated, the iAds platform will use our location to offer us personalized ads about services or nearby stores, of course this does not give us any advantage since we never pay attention to the ads of the applications, however this activates our GPS every time it needs it, consuming our precious energy.

• Frequent locations: The system itself saves a history with the most frequent locations, this can be seen as a double-edged sword, although the original intention is to improve the native Maps application, a third person who gained access to our unlocked device could access this history and compromise our privacy, since iOS traces perimeters in the locations in which we spend the most time and even records the hours we spend in them, seeing this, anyone with a little logic can find out the location of our home and our job post. work, you can even get an idea of ​​where we are and what time each day. This function is activated by default and uses the GPS every X time to check our location, it can be deactivated in a totally safe way and will not affect our user experience at any time.

• BONUS Time zone: As the name itself indicates, this function is responsible for determining in which time zone we are to adjust the internal clock of iOS to this and keep the time updated, keeping this function activated depends on you, if you are people who do not move from your country you can deactivate it without any problem, from the date and time settings you can set your time zone manually and the system will take care of following the time of this, on the other hand, if you travel often, keeping this function activated will avoid you having to reset the clock of your iPhone every time you change the band and your iPhone will always mark the time of the place where you are located.

Use of GPS by applications:

The applications we install many times they ask us for access to our location, either because they need it to find us and show us directions, to attach the location to the metadata of a photo when taking it, to find servers closer to our location, etc ...

There are many uses that applications make of our location, the problem is that not all make a responsible and limited use of thisThat's why (and thanks to the privacy improvements introduced by iOS 7) that we must review the list of applications with access to our location and make a couple of tweaks.

Once inside the "Location" section we will see a list with all the installed applications who have requested access to our location, by clicking on each of them we will enter a list with 3 available options (sometimes there are only 2), these options are:

1. Never: The selected application will never gain access to our location.
2. When using the app: The selected application will only have permission to access our location as long as it is open or loaded in multitasking, never while it is closed.
3. Always: The selected application will be able to consult our location without having to be opened by the user.

Here, then, we must choose the option that best suits each application, for example, the application SpeedTest makes use of our location to find a server near us with which to perform the internet speed test, in this situation I have marked the option "Never" since this way it selects a random server and the results it offers me are more faithful to reality, it even loads before since it does not have to wait to receive my position.

En Facebook however, I have checked the option "When the application is used"This is so because Facebook by default requests access "Always", and especially this social network application is the one that consumes the most battery in many people's iPhones, all because we are constantly requesting our position without being even open, for this reason I have selected that I can only use GPS when I am using it.

In applications like Strava, Human or Feedly, I have on the "Always" option, and is that these applications make use of our location either to trace our route when performing a physical activity or to download content when arriving at a certain location, it should be noted that selecting the "Always" option does not imply that an application goes to be constantly using the GPS, but you give permission to use it whenever it needs to, this however is not Facebook's method, which keeps the GPS on at all hours even without the need to do so.

Automatic blocking

As the last point of this guide, we will deal with the automatic lock time, this option allows our iPhone lock automatically After some time of inactivity on our part, the list goes from 30 seconds to the option in which it never blocks if the user does not do it manually.

In this case and after much experimentation with these times, I have come to the conclusion that the perfect balance is in the time of 1 minute, I say this because many times 30 seconds fall short and my terminal ends up locking only while reading an article, and setting more than 1 minute I have seen my iPhone remain unlocked too long unnecessarily, which also poses a risk to the security by giving a potential thief or intruder more time to access the system without going through a code or secure lock screen.

If the time of 1 minute seems scarce, you must bear in mind that iOS is an intelligent system, I say this because if your activity consists of watching a video (for example) the system prevents the device from locking itself since it recognizes that the activity we are carrying out does not require user interaction.

We also receive a slight warning a few seconds before the terminal locks in the form of a brightness readjustment, our screen it will reduce its brightness for a few seconds Before the terminal locks to warn the user that there is little time left for the automatic lock to be triggered, in this way, just by touching the screen, the system will restore the brightness to the original position and restart the 1 minute stopwatch, understanding that the user is using the device.

Conclusion

So far the tutorial has come, I have tried to explain in detail each point of this process so that you not only deactivate functions on your device but also you know what you are modifying And you can decide on your own to make modifications based on your personal use, since each person uses their smartphone differently and what is perfect for me may not be for others.

Complying with all the readjustments, at least those proposed by me (you may have been more or less blunt when deactivating things), you should notice an increase in the duration of your battery and already feel more control over your smartphone, and is that understanding our device is imperative if we want to get the maximum potential from it, that is why I I highly recommend be up to date with all the news that each new version of iOS brings with it (something you can do by following our blog) and explore the Settings application of your device, you can decide whether to modify something or not modify anything, but a tour of this application it does not harm anyone, and you know that you can always count on us for any questions that may arise about any aspect of said application and we will gladly tell you everything we know about it.

By complying with this final recommendation, you will be able to increase the autonomy of your terminal, improve performance of the same and personalize it park goes to game with the type of use that each one of you is going to make of it.

It has been a pleasure to share my knowledge with all of you, if you have any doubt let us know in the comments!