Apple only produces high-end smartphones. By definition, a modern iPhone holds a charge particularly well. However, it is not uncommon for an iOS user to encounter battery problems. Natural wear of the state of the battery, intensive use or simply forgetting the charger… there are many reasons for falling below the 20% mark. Here is a little tutorial in 5 points to teach you how to best manage your iPhone’s battery!
1. The legend of manually closing apps to save battery on iPhone: stop it!
Let’s start this tutorial by tackling a tough myth: manually closing apps. You necessarily know someone who does this practice, maybe you do it yourself. Please stop this.
If you don’t understand what we’re talking about, here’s a little reminder. When you quit an application by swiping your screen from bottom to top (or by pressing the Home button for older iPhones), you return to the home screen without actually closing the app in question. The latter goes to sleep, in the background, always ready to be reopened.
To actually close an app, you need to swipe up from the bottom of the screen and pause in the middle of the screen. There, you will see the whole list of apps running in the background on your iPhone. All you have to do is navigate to the app of your choice and swipe up for it to be truly closed.
Apple makes this clear on its site: you should close an app ONLY if it is not responding. If you are not stuck or in the middle of a bug, there is no point in performing this manipulation. Worse, it drains your battery.
Yes, there is a counterintuitive side to this assertion. A lot of people think that a background app is a bit of a CPU drain, so it uses battery power. It’s not completely false, but there is a but: the processor and iOS have been optimized for this and the level of battery consumed by an app placed in the background is ridiculous.
What will really cause the processor to run wild and drain your battery is… launching an app that wasn’t present in the background. Completely restarting software, for a smartphone like a PC, is one of the most energy-consuming tasks possible. If you frantically close applications that you will reopen 2 hours later, you lose much more battery than you save. Now you know.
2. Best settings to save your iPhone battery
For quite a few years now, iOS has had a Energy Saving mode. Head to the Settingsclick on Battery, then you will have access to a button to activate or deactivate this mode. Note that it is also possible to install Energy Saving mode in the Control center. Activating this mode is a very effective way to extend the duration of your battery charge by sometimes several hours.
However, this Power Saver mode affects the performance of several features. If there are some that seem too essential to you, it is better not to go through this shortcut and disable a few features yourself. Note that some of the settings listed below may even come on top of Power Saver mode.
- Choose Wi-Fi over 4Gand even more to 5G.
- Brightness plays an essential role in battery consumption. The lower you lower it, the longer your battery will last. Moreover, note that the Dark mode (which allows you to navigate in the menus with white writing on a black background) is less energy-consuming than the white mode present by default.
- Disable geolocation‘ which is constantly updated.
- Lock your smartphone as soon as possible after completing a task. Even if the auto-lock occurs after 30 seconds, that’s 30 seconds too long. In the same vein, you can disable the function Always On of any iPhone model marketed from 2022.
That’s basically it. In bulk, note all the same what to call siri requires more battery life than doing your research alone, take a picture with a flash consumes more than without the flash and that nothing is more energy intensive than a video. If you are ric-rac in battery and you are bored in transport for example, it is much better to play a little game off-line than to watch a YouTube video.
3. Disable notifications: for the battery or for yourself, it’s life changing
Notifications are designed to suck us into a vortex of unproductiveness. Our brain has a hard time resisting these red dots and other popups. A notification, in essence, consumes battery power. Your iPhone vibrates and lights up each time it receives one. Having to “wake up” every 5 minutes sucks a lot of energy out of him.
But that’s not all. A notification is also a call to unlock your smartphone. Let’s say you have a like notification on Instagram and that notification makes you take your iPhone. You go to Insta, and there you’re not just going to check the profile of the person who liked your photo. No, you will probably spend some time scrolling. And then, as long as you do, you’ll take a look on Twitter… and presto, here you are in a spiral that can take you not only precious minutes, even hours, of life but also several tens of percent of battery every day.
So go to:
- Settings
- Notifications
- Apps
From there, you can manage your concentration modes and limit the number of apps that will be allowed to disturb you throughout your day.
4. No matter your iPhone, update iOS!
There are myriads of urban legends surrounding iPhone updates. A little conspiratorial, many people think that Apple would do everything to curb the old models on the arrival of the new ranges in order to push consumption. Not only is this false, but it is even the exact opposite that is happening in reality.
Every iOS update improves the way your iPhone works. Sometimes there are even new feature additions to protect your battery. The reverse will never happen, a priori. If you feel like an update is slowing down your device, it’s due to a bunch of cognitive biases. In reality, this does not happen, it is a fantasy.
Finally, remember that updates are also essential for the security of your device. Apple fixes new flaws or vulnerabilities with each update.
5. When an iPhone’s battery is worn out, you need to change it
On iOS, you have access to the measurement of your battery capacity. Meet in the Settingsthen in Battery and, finally, in Battery status and charging. Your battery is 100% new or like new. Below the 80% mark (which is generally exceeded after about 3 years of wear), it is time to change the battery. Many people take the opportunity to completely change their smartphone, but if you have a state-of-the-art iPhone, it will be far from obsolete in just 3 years. A battery replacement in the Apple Store will cost much less and you will be left for at least 2 new years!
To avoid wearing out your battery too quickly, there really isn’t a magic formula. Surely you have already heard urban legends about:
- The impact of fast chargers (which, under 30 Watts, does not heat the battery, so does not wear it out more than a 5 Watt slow charger)
- Charging time (some people think it’s bad for an iPhone battery to be left plugged in overnight…again, the impact is either nil or far too minimal to be worth it).
- The loading time (some people think that the battery must be completely discharged, or, conversely, never below 20% before plugging in their iPhone. Again, you can do whatever you want. has no impact on wear).
All of these preconceptions are wrong and come out of nowhere. In the field, in the tests, none of this really changes the situation. In reality, the state of your battery only depends on the number of charge cycles it has taken. A charge cycle goes from 0% to 100%. If you recharge 40% one day, 50% the next day and 60% two days later, you will have “spent” 150%, or 1 cycle and a half, in 3 days. Regardless of the rest, it is after a certain number of cycles that the state of the battery deteriorates.
