Extend Your iPhone Battery Life

Being an iPhone owner can be an experiment in frustration when it comes to battery life.  As you might guess, I’m a heavy iPhone user, and I constantly fight the battery battle to keep my iPhone alive all day long.  In this battle, there are a number of tools and techniques at my disposal and today I will share some of these with you to help you in your fight for battery life.

The first option for extending your iPhone battery life is to manage the Settings on your device.  By default, there’s a lot of stuff that is turned on in your iPhone Settings and managing these can significantly extend your battery life.

1. Turning on Auto-Brightness will use the ambient light sensor to adjust the screen brightness automatically. In darker places your screen will be darker and brighter when you need it in bright places.  If you are outdoors a lot, this won’t be too significant, but you can also reduce your screen brightness manually.  Dim equals more battery.
2. Turn off your Bluetooth if you aren’t using it.  If you have a car or headphones that can connect via Bluetooth, that’s great, but turn it off if you aren’t using them.  Leaving Bluetooth on means your iPhone is constantly waiting for incoming data and that eats your battery.
3. Not on a Wi-Fi network?  Turn off Wi-Fi; it’s the same principle as with the Bluetooth as your iPhone is constantly waiting for data or looking for networks.
4. If you aren’t using your Internet on the phone or in a location with no 3G or 4G, turn it off.  Your iPhone needs more power to receive these signals and if you know you are only talking or texting, turning it off will increase your battery savings.
5. Your iPhone includes a built-in GPS, which allows your apps to do all kinds of cool stuff.  This also means that your iPhone is constantly sending out location information and this can suck your battery life. Turn off Location Services to conserve it.
6. Using your iPhone for email can be very productive, but having it look for new data constantly can be a big battery drain.  By turning data push off, you are reducing the number of times your iPhone is hitting the network, saving your juice.
7. You can also check your email accounts less often.  By setting Fetch to hourly or even Manually, less connections means less battery used.
8. Putting your phone to sleep and waking it also uses more battery, so try to do it less often.  When your iPhone is running very low and you are expecting a call, don’t do it.  Your iPhone will wake itself when you get that call.
9. Your iPhone automatically puts itself to sleep, otherwise known as Auto-Lock.  Setting your Auto-Lock to 1 minute will help to lessen your battery consumption.
10. Finally, try to use your iPhone less.  Keeping it on for long periods of time playing games, browsing the Internet, or watching movies will eat your battery life up quickly.  Be judicious about your usage depending on where you are and your proximity to a charging source.

Another option for extending your battery life is to purchase an extended life battery.  There are a number of options out there, but I’m currently using a unit from MaxBoost.  The Defender Atomic Air comes in Matte Black and Glossy White and features a 2400mAh extended battery that supposedly doubles the life of an iPhone 5.  The iPhone 5 comes with a non-removable 1440mAh battery, so this Atomic Air should do better than double it.  Of course, any extended life battery adds some bulk to your iPhone, but as with most, the MaxBoost protects it rather well with the battery built into a case that covers the iPhone.

We carry these at Bayou Technologies for $79.99 for the iPhone 5, but if you bring in this article, you’ll save 10%.  Other competing brands have smaller batteries at a higher cost, so I’m confident that this unit will fit your needs for giving your iPhone that much-needed juice.  Owning an iPhone can be a lifesaver, but using these techniques will help you to save your iPhone’s life.