I usually write only about social media and social business, but being an Apple fanatic, I couldn’t resist sharing the following with the readers. As you definitely already know, Apple’s iOS 7 is here and you know what that means, right? Some of you are going to have battery life issues! For some of the people, some of the time, it’s simply the cost of the OS updating process, and iOS 7 is no different! So, if your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad on iOS 7 is draining its battery too fast, or not lasting long enough on stand-by, here are some things you can try to fix the problem!
l Stop using it so much! Seriously, as soon as you get a new version of iOS - or a new iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch! - it’s only natural you won’t be able to put it down. Because, well it’s a new toy! iOS 7, what with it being built on top of a physics and particle engine like a videogame, is especially fun to play around with. And every time you knock the live wallpapers around, stare at the parallax scrolling, fling away multitasking cards or Safari tabs, spin the compass, or do any one of a hundred other fantastic things, the screen will be lit up, the radios will fire, and the battery will drain. Likewise, every app can multitask now, and while iOS is as smart as smart can be about managing how and when they all update, they’re all updating! Give it a break! Before you do anything drastic, put your device down for a minute make sure you’re not the battery drain cause, because that’s the easiest thing to fix!
l Plug it in! Never be ashamed to plug in your device! If you’re using your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad a lot, plug it in to recharge whenever you can. At home, at work, in the car, there are plenty of opportunities to top up your battery. Sure, it’s a bit trickier with a new device since, even a year later, Lightning connector aren’t as common as the old 30-pin Dock connectors, but if you work on the road or in an office, get a few extras. They more than pay for themselves when your device works when you need it! 3. Check for software problems If, in general, your battery life is consistently short and you’re basically just watching the indicator drain down before your eyes, here are some things to try, in order of how easy they are to do.
l Restart/reset your device. If you haven’t rebooted in a while, give it a try. There could be a rogue process or something else doing what it shouldn’t be doing, and a restart can often fix that.
l Power cycle. About once a month, and certainly if you’re having problems, you should completely drain your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad’s battery - drain it until it shuts down on its own - and then charge it back up to full.
l Check your cell signal. If you’re in an area of weak signal, or at the edge of LTE or 3G support, your iPhone’s radio could be screaming away on full power just trying to stay on the network, or switching between connection types, and wasting a lot of power. Good LTE signal is more power efficient than good 3G signal (because the radio can fire up, do its job, and power down much, much quicker), but bad LTE signal is just as bad as bad 3G, which is terrible. If you’re at the edge of LTE, switch to 3G. If you’re almost off the grid, turn off the radio unless and until you need it. Then get back to world as fast as you can!
l Go to an Apple authorized dealer near you. Sometimes you do develop a real problem that only an “expert” - more like technician- can solve by either swapping the battery for another or otherwise figuring out a fix.
l Turn off what you’re not using: Anything running on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad uses up the battery. So if you’ve tried everything else and it turns out you’re just using your device more than the battery will allow for the length of time you need to use it, you’ll need to make some hard choices. You’ll need to stop using some of the features you don’t really need in order to keep using the ones you do. The more you turn off, the longer your battery will last - but of course the less you’ll be able to do. It’s a balancing act but one that can help you squeeze out a little extra juice when you really need it.
l Turn off Background app and content refresh: Don’t waste power downloading things when you don’t explicitly need to. Settings, General, Background App Refresh shows you everything you can turn off. Also go to Settings, App Store and turn of automatic app and content downloads.
l Turn off Siri’s Raise to Speak. Go to Settings, General, Siri. Readers keep telling us this has helped them with battery life due to accelerometer issues.
l Turn off Location Services. Go to Settings, Privacy, Location Services, and turn off any app and system service you really don’t need tracking or using your location. Including the new Frequent Locations tracker!
l Turn off Push Notifications. Likewise, go to Settings, Notifications, and turn off any app you don’t care to be alerted about.
l Turn of Notification Center widgets. Stocks, weather, anything you don’t really need to appear or ping on your Notification Center.
l Quit power hungry apps. Double-click the Home Button to activate the multitasking car view and quit, hold your finger down on power-hungry apps, and then fling them off the screen to close them. This is key for apps like VoIP (like Skype, Viber, Tango), streaming audio, or navigation. Anything running all the time will drain battery. That’s how batteries work.
l Try these old standbys!
The new Control Center makes it really easy to do many of these really quickly now!
• Set Auto-Lock to 1 minute
• Turn off any extra sounds, like keyboard clicks
• Turn off the iPod EQ
• Use headphones instead of the speaker if you have to listen to audio or music
• Turn down the screen brightness
• Turn off Bluetooth when not using it
• Turn off Wifi when not using it
• Set all email, calendar, and contacts accounts to “Fetch” (turn off Push)
l Airplane mode: If you’re really desperate, put your iPhone or iPad in Airplane Mode and save the radios for when you need them. If you’re really desperate, you can also turn your device completely off until you need it (it will still use a tiny amount of power but far, far less than anything else). Be sure to let us know how what you’re seeing with your iOS 7 battery life, and if any of these tips, or any other tips, help you improve it, make sure to tell us!
Bilal Hallab (@bilalhallab) is General Manager & Head Social Business Strategist of The Social Clinic, a social business consultancy based in Jeddah.
