Aug 04 2008

TIP: 5 Ways To Conserve Your iPhone Battery Power

Published by Colin Smith at 12:49 am under Tech Tips,iPhone


As much as I love the iPhone 2.0 release on both my 1st Generation iPhone and my new iPhone 3G, it has problems. The biggest problem I have with 2.0 is how fast it can chug down a full battery. While some of the new features that consume all this power are absolutely great, to be honest most of the time you don’t really need them running. So why not learn how to quickly turn them on and off to get all that battery time back.

1. Pause Push

The push feature is great, I’ve figured out that I get email on my phone faster than it hits my inbox on my computer. But do you really need to get it instantly, are emails from facebook really that critical? You might think so, but honestly think about how often you look at your email on your phone. If you’re like me you can afford to turn Push off on your personal mail. Here’s how:

  1. Open “Settings”
  2. Select: “Fetch New Data”
  3. Flip the “Push” Switch from “On” to “Off”.

By default, this turns the “Fetch” feature to “Every 15 Minutes”. This is the default for how the previous releases of the iPhone managed it. If you want to conserve even more power consider increasing that to 30 minutes, an Hour, or even manage it Manually. I personally have it set to “Every 15 Minutes.”

2. Wi-Fi, Why?

With Wi-Fi turned on, your iPhone will search for access points at all times. If it finds an access point that it has connected to before in the past, it will automatically connect to it, even if you don’t plan on using internet features in that area. All this searching and constant connecting and disconnecting drains power.

So turn it off when you aren’t using it and then when you take your phone out to really surf the internet, flip it back on. Here’s how to turn it off if you don’t know how:

  1. Open “Settings.”
  2. Select “Wi-Fi.”
  3. Flip the “Wi-Fi” Switch from “On” to “Off”.
If however, you’d prefer to have your Wi-Fi feature turned on, you can still conserve a bit of energy. All you have to do is turn the “Ask to Join Networks” feature off. This way when the phone is not connected to a Wi-Fi access point, it won’t be trying to get you to connect to networks you don’t know. 
  1. Open “Settings.”
  2. Select “Wi-Fi.”
  3. Flip the “Ask to Join Networks” Switch from “On” to “Off”.

This will also prevent those annoying popups that happen when you are driving around and it finds networks.

3. How Bright You Are.

Don’t you love that great, bright screen of the iPhone? Sometimes it’s so bright you should wear sunglasses, right? Well, why not turn the brightness down? It’s saves power and you don’t need to wear sunglasses at night any longer. Here’s How:
  1. Open “Settings.”
  2. Select “Brightness.”
  3. Slide the “Brightness” Slider to the left. Down to something that is still comfortable and usable for you.
            

You can take it one step further and turn the “Auto-Brightness” switch to off. This will power down the light sensor and prevent the device from adjusting the screen brightness depending on the brightness of then environment. Personally I leave this option On.

4. Gee 3G.

This last one is for iPhone 3G users only. Like Wi-Fi, the 3G feature is a constant data connection to the internet. But you aren’t constantly on the internet, so why have it on all the time. Just turn it off when you aren’t using it. Here’s How:
  1. Open “Settings.”
  2. Select “General.”
  3. Select “Network.”
  4. Flip the “Enable 3G” switch from “On” to “Off.”
This feature is such a power drain that Apple even mentions it on the “Network” screen. Something else that I have figured out by having 3G turned off is that my reception goes up and I get fewer dropped calls. Why exactly this is happening I don’t know. My educated guess though is this:
Not every cell tower in an area is 3G enabled in any given area. The iPhone was programmed to first look for a 3G tower and then any tower if a 3G one doesn’t exist in that area. This means that you could literally be standing next to a tower that isn’t 3G enabled and it still won’t connect to it, cause it wants the 3G one first.

5. The Last Resorts

There are two options, that are guaranteed to conserve your battery power when you are in a dire situation and you need to make sure that you can make calls and sends messages.
  • Turn On Airplane Mode.
  • Turn iPhone Off.
The iPhone is a great device. It’s really the new crackberry. The only problem with the release of iPhone software 2.0, it won’t even last till the end of the day on a single charge. Apple clearly has some work to do, to get it back to where it was. In the mean time it, with the 5 tips above, your iPhone will last a lot longer. Try them out and let me know how much longer your iPhone lasts in the comments below. 
BTW: If you know of another tip on how to save power on your iPhone, let us know in the comments below.
Update:
If you found these power saving tips useful, check out the following post:
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3 responses so far

3 Responses to “TIP: 5 Ways To Conserve Your iPhone Battery Power”

  1. # Bitacora de un Asesor » Blog Archive » La batería del Iphone 3G no duraon 25 Oct 2008 at 7:41 pm

    [...] http://www.w3source.com/2008/08/04/tip-5-ways-to-power-your-iphone-longer/ [...]

  2. # mike hunton 03 Nov 2008 at 3:52 pm

    turn off location sevices settings > general > tap the button to turn it off.

  3. # Patsyon 08 Dec 2008 at 12:46 pm

    Hard to conserve the battery when you are in my situation. Anyone got suggestions?

    When I power my phone off, it comes right back on. When it is in the sleep mode, the screens pops back up all on it’s own. Anyone ever heard of this? I have reset the entire thing, but that did not resolve the issue.

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