Posts Tagged ‘conserve’

5 ways to conserve your iPhone battery

When it comes to geek chic, the Apple iPhone — available through Rogers and Fido, and soon, Bell Mobility and Telus, too — still remains the king of the smartphones for its gorgeous touchscreen, Wi-Fi web browsing, iPod integration and support for the awesome App Store and its nearly 100,000 downloads.

But for everything this digital Swiss Army Knife can do there’s an inevitable tradeoff: battery life.

While Apple has added a few gifted battery-saving tricks — such as turning the screen off when you hold it up to your face to make a call — there are still a few things you can do to squeeze more life out of the smartphone (aside from buying a battery pack, of course).

A few suggestions:

* The iPhone’s built-in radios — such as Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth — can be draining on the battery. Therefore, if you don’t need them, turn some of all of these radios off in the Settings options. That being said, if you like to surf the web, do so via Wi-Fi instead of cellular connectivity as it’ll be simpler on the battery (and wallet).

* Dim the brightness on your iPhone using the slider, as the brighter you keep your screen, the quicker it’ll eat away at your battery. Also, make sure the iPhone screen is set to turn off if it detects inactivity for a minute or two — this can be selected in the Auto-Lock area in the General Settings menu.

* Like a BlackBerry, the iPhone is competent of “push mail,” importance your messages are pushed to the phone automatically instead of logging online to pull them down. But push mail can drain the battery quicker in view of the fact that it’s constantly logging into your mail server to send you new messages. If you don’t need it, disable this “push” feature in the Settings area.

* Don’t leave your iPhone in extreme heat or cold, such as in a car for a long period of time, as it could compromise the battery life for your smartphone (and its overall endurance). Also, only charge up the iPhone only when you need it — not when it’s 80 percent charged.

* Finally, everlastingly download the latest software updates for the iPhone via iTunes, as Apple engineers everlastingly try to find new ways to extend battery life. You should be prompted with new software updates automatically, but it doesn’t hurt to click the “Check for Update” tab when in iTunes as a back-up.

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