How to improve your iPhone battery life?

How many times has it happened that your iPhone battery seemed to have given up on you when doing some important tasks like preparing a note of the things to do, or, using maps while travelling, or, talking to someone on a very important topic. In my case, I have even seen my phone dead in the morning, from 20% charge, just before I went to bed the previous night.

Here are some tricks I employed to improve my iPhone battery life. Now my iPhone actually doesn’t loose much of its charge, say about 2-3% overnight, with even wifi being enabled.

Note: These tips were initially written for iOS 8 on my iPhone 5. Having said that, these tips remain pretty much the same on the latest iOS 11 I have currently.

I travel a lot, at times drive 10-12 hours to tourist destinations over weekends, i.e. with maps turned ON. Believe me, with all these tweaks in place, my iPhone hardly gives up on me.

So, how to improve your iPhone battery life?

1. Background App Refreshing

This welcomed feature lets background apps stay active while you multitask. The trouble is that by default all apps are set to refresh, uselessly stealing precious battery life.

To fix that, go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh. Here, you can choose to disable the setting altogether, or just turn it off for the apps that don’t need refreshing.

2. Automatic Updates

A time-saver no doubt, iOS’s automatic update keep your apps up-to-date so that you don’t have to update them manually. According to Apple, it’s designed to be power-conscious, but if you know you’ll be without a charger for a long time, it’s best to disable it.

To do so, head to Settings > iTunes and Apple Store, and disable the Updates option. Just don’t forget to check the App Store for new app versions.

3. Frequent Locations (and other location services)

A huge battery hog for any device is the use of location-based apps and services. Usually, that applies to mapping apps, but hidden in your Settings are a slew of Location Services that could be doing more harm than good.

Head to Settings > Privacy > Location Services. Scroll down and choose System Services. Some of these options are designed to improve your experience, but they come at the cost of your privacy (and battery.) Disable any options you don’t actually need, like iAds. Then, head to the Frequent Locations feature, and disable that, too.

I turned these off:
a. Diagnostics & Usage
b. Location- Based iAds
c. Traffic
d. Frequent locations.

4. Spotlight

Being able to search for almost anything in your device is a big productivity-booster, but that means Spotlight is constantly crawling for new data, then indexing it. You guessed it: it’s a battery drain.

Those who rely heavily on Spotlight should skip this option, but if you can live with only a partially-indexed phone, un-index some items.

Go to Settings > General > Spotlight Search, and uncheck the items you don’t absolutely need indexed.

5. Open Apps

Remove unwanted apps open in the background. Double press the main button to access. Best practice is to clear the tasks seen in this multitasks view.

6. Limit Ad tracking

Go to Privacy > Advertising > Limit Ad tracking. Turn it on.

7. Do Not Track

Got to Settings > safari > do not track. Turn it on.

8. Still Wallpapers

Use still wallpapers. No dynamics.

9. Brightness

Set brightness around 50% with auto brightness checked. Good for battery and your eyes.

10. Reduce Motion

Go to Accessibility > Reduce Motion. Turn it on. This will disable the parallax effect shown on the home/lock screen which gives the 3d effect to icons when tilting the phone.

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