Yesterday I was in London at the British Mummy Bloggers Christmas lunch. I'd planned to go straight back home afterwards but sometimes plans change. An amazing opportunity presented itself to me and off I went to join a truly inspirational group of women at TEDxLondon to share the success of our Blogladesh campaign with them.
One problem.....
I wasn't planning to be out all day / night - so I didn't have my iPhone charger with me. It riles me that I put up with the fact that my battery doesn't last all day. It's like I've been totally and utterly brainwashed by the God of Apple and I'm taken back about eighteen years to mobile phones of old. But this isn't 1992, it's 2010 and your phone battery should last all day. FACT.
So there I was - unable to tweet or text from this amazing event. My phone had been as dead as a Do Do for hours. But on the train on the way home I chanced upon a gentleman with an iphone charger (I'd seriously been asking everyone I spoke to all evening). He gave me my life line but also shared the best tip I've ever heard on how to make your battery last as long as possible. I've had an iPhone since launch - yet I'd never heard this - I guess that's one of the side effects of a product that comes without a user guide....
So here it is.....
Did you know that unless you manually close the apps on your phone they remain open and so draining your battery?
When I say close the app - I don't mean hitting the home button because that doesn't actually close the app. You'll know what I mean when you try it.
Dur... it all makes perfect sense now... this is why my phone pings, dings and vibrates with Facebook messages, ebay notifications and tweets all night long.
Try this and you'll totally get it too...
1. Double click the home button and it brings up a scrolling list of all the apps you have open on your phone.
2. Press one till it jiggles and you'll see a red minus icon appears.
3. Click it to close the app down.
Don't worry - you aren't deleting. Just closing down.
Every single app on my phone was open. This is just a few of them...Angry Birds, email, camera, Smack Talk, Twitter, Facebook, Tube Map, Super Yum Yum, Bejewelled, Camera Bag, hipstamatic, eBay, google and the Cat in the Hat. No wonder my battery life was having a hard time...
Today - my battery lasted till 10pm and I'm so happy I could squeal.
Small things.....
Brilliant. Never knew that although I knew that things were running in the background.
ReplyDeleteLol yes I knew this! Unfortunately, my battery still doesn't last because I spend all day draining it with internet pushes...oops... ;o)
ReplyDeletexx
OMG this is amazing!! I had everything on my phone running!! Such a good tip!!
ReplyDeleteDear Jay,
ReplyDeleteIf you knew this life changing information why didnt you tell me?
xx
This is why I just love the blogosphere - really useful infomration!!!!! Now there will be no more excuses...except teh ones I make up :)
ReplyDeleteThis will make very little difference to battery life. The reason Apple didn't implement multitasking for a couple of years is that they had not figured out a way to stop it draining the battery. Only when they managed to find a way to run multitasking without it killing the battery did they introduce it. A better way to preserve battery life would be to turn off bluetooth or Wifi if you are not using them.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to the above, turning push notifications off will also help. The reason you might have seen a difference is that some of your Aps have push notifications set up by the sounds of things, and that does cause a small drain. It's not the Ap itself, it's the data flowing in to the push notifications. You can turn those off in the Settings if you like. That way you won't have to manually close the Aps to preserve power.
ReplyDeleteMark, But that defeats the point of having an iphone. I don't want to switch everything off - I just want the stupid thing to last all day. I don't think that is too much to ask.
ReplyDeletefantastic tip: thanks! I've had the same thing on my iPod Touch: explains why it's been so snarky wioth me lately :)
ReplyDeleteSian, yeah, that's your choice to make I suppose. Turn on the bells and whistles and it drains the battery.
ReplyDeleteWhilst the battery on iPhone has improved with every generation, it's still not great in my opinion. The better the display, the faster the processor etc, the bigger the drain on the battery so it's a constant problem on big screen high performance phones like iPhone.
I am really hoping this works - managed to drain my battery yesterday afternoon whilst stuck in a particularly dull session at a client's... would be great if we could have a battery that worked for a sensible length of time (do the HTC ones last better?)
ReplyDeleteI'm sadly the only person in the world without an iPhone(yes I'm dramatic, but my husband, MIL, MIL's partner, my Mom and sister all have one) but I will pass on these tips to NotBlondehusband!
ReplyDeleteCan I just add that on Smart Phones/Androids that the same thing happens - there is a free app called "ADVANCED TASK KILLER" that does exactly the same thing - hit it, tick the apps, hit "kill". Saves me LOADS of battery!!
ReplyDeleteI agree with the crappy battery life on these "amazing" phones though - lasts no time at all!
Location services, wifi and push notifications are the big killers. If I know I'm going to be out for an extended period I kill the first two and it survives quite nicely. I am amused though, people expect the phone to last for days like old mobile phones, yet run laptop like applications on them all day. All an old mobile had to do was send/receive text messages and keep reception. I think given what smart phones can achieve, the fact their battery will last 12 hours is quite impressive. Perhaps I'm just easily pleased!
ReplyDeleteMark and Zoe are right. The majority of apps close when you click home. Some apps have the facility to run in the background but most don't. All that happens when you close an app is the iPhone does a snapshot of what you were doing to load up when you open it again.
ReplyDeleteApps that run in the background usually use location services (gps) and push notifications. These are always going to drain the battery as the iPhone is having to use it's satnav hardware and it's Internet connection respectively.
If you want to carry on running a lot of power hungry services whilst out all day, it makes sense to invest in an external battery like this: http://amzn.to/hiBgNQ
ReplyDeleteBest of both worlds.
Thank you thank you THANK YOU! I've been trying to figure out how to close apps since I got this stupid phone!!!
ReplyDeleteGreat tip thanks. X
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy to read this awesome blog post.
ReplyDeleteGreat tip thanks. Thanks for taking time to post this.
ReplyDelete