Maximizing the battery life of your iPhone is a smart way to ensure you don’t have to replace your phone or its battery as often, and it’s easier to do than you might think. For starters, some of your apps and settings are responsible for consistent and rapid battery drainage, so either deleting certain apps or changing specific settings can go a long way. One area you could be overlooking though is download settings, says Adam Smith, the founder and CEO of Eco Energy Geek.
“When you download content from the internet, your iPhone uses a lot of energy to do so,” Smith said. “The default setting for iOS is to allow apps downloaded from the App Store to use data even when the phone isn’t in use. This means that your battery life can be significantly reduced if you don’t disable this feature. iPhone download settings are designed to optimize the speed and performance of your iPhone. When you turn on optimization, your phone will attempt to connect to the Internet as fast as possible, which can result in higher battery usage. However, if you frequently use features like AirDrop or File Sharing that require an active internet connection, these optimized settings may not be ideal for you.”
If you notice that your battery is draining more rapidly than usual, adjusting some of your iPhone download settings may be helpful, Smith noted. Here are two download settings that Smith recommends changing first.
Podcasts
There are a few different ways to adjust the automatic download settings for podcasts on your iPhone, Smith said, the easiest being to go to Settings > General > Restrictions and toggle the “Download Unwanted Apps” off.
“This will stop apps from automatically downloading new content, which can save your battery life,” Smith said. “Alternatively, you can change the default setting for how long an app should wait before it becomes eligible to be downloaded again. To do this, open the app you want to adjust and tap on its menu button (2 vertical lines in the top left corner of the screen). From here, scroll down until you find “Settings,” then select it from within this list. Once inside Settings, turn on “Save Recently Used.” This will keep recently used apps available for faster access when they’re needed again – perfect if you have a lot of podcasts that you frequently listen to.”
Fetch New Data
The “Fetch New Data” settings on iPhone is another setting that can be adjusted to improve battery life.
“This setting determines how frequently the data from your apps are downloaded,” Smith said. “The more often data is retrieved, the greater the load on your battery and phone system.”
There are three different options that you can choose from: Low, Medium, or High. “Low should be suitable for most users who just want their apps to work as usual and don’t need excessive data retrieval times; Medium will slightly increase performance but may also result in increased data retrieval times; while High will enhance performance even more by sacrificing some of your convenience,” Smith said. “To change this setting, go to Settings > General > Usage & Networking > Fetch New Data and select the desired option.”
Don’t neglect download settings when you’re making hard choices about which settings and apps to keep and which to delete and change.
