3 Tips to Improve Your iPhone’s Battery Life

If there’s one complaint you hear more than any other, it’s that the iPhone battery life could be, well, a bit better. J.D. Power found in 2012 that poor battery life was the number one cause of dissatisfaction among smartphone users. But did you know there are a few simple ways you can help extend your battery life day-to-day? Here are three simple tips for improving your iPhone’s battery life:

Quit Not Thy Apps

Let’s start with this. It’s a big one because many people think the opposite is true, but the reality is, you should not quit your apps between uses. It turns out that quitting your apps doesn’t help much at all. In fact, closing an app takes it out of your RAM, which means that when you open it again your phone has to reload the whole thing back into its memory. Loading and unloading apps is ultimately worse for your battery life than just leaving them running, so unless you’re absolutely sure you’re done mindlessly scrolling Twitter, leave it alone.

Keep It Temperate

There are two big things you can do here: keep your iPhone out of extreme temperatures (especially anything over 95°F/35°C) and remove cases that trap heat in with your phone during charging. While the iPhone should run well in most temperatures, exposing it to temperatures above that may cause permanent damage to your battery’s capacity to charge and stay charged. Some cases can inadvertently create that higher temperature, so pay attention. You can have a thick and less breathable case during daily use, but if you notice your phone feel hot a lot of the time, try taking the case off for charging. Notably, while extreme cold temperatures may temporarily reduce battery life, function should not be permanently damaged while experiencing the lower end of the weather spectrum. Good news, Canadians!

No More Refreshments

Though it may be generally handy, when your battery is running low, you can turn off the feature that allows apps to refresh in the background. You’ll need to go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh and turn the feature off. Easy! You can always manually trigger apps to refresh. That means that, while apps might not send push notifications once it’s off, this doesn’t disable them from checking for new mail, notifications, etc. when you’re actively looking for them. Also on the table: you can change the intervals at which apps refresh to be less frequent. That won’t be as effective as turning it totally off, but anything’s an improvement.

Check Out This Video Guide for More Tips to Improve Your iPhone’s Battery Life