If you’re still charging your iPhone overnight — and then leaving it on the charger for a few more hours in the morning — stop everything you’re doing. You may think there isn’t much harm you can do your phone unless you drop it in water or accidentally drop it from a high shelf. But the reality is more complicated than that. These are the iPhone mistakes you should avoid at all costs, according to Apple experts. Keep your expensive investment well-protected by avoiding these mishaps.
Charging Your Phone Overnight
Even though it’s the most convenient way to charge your iPhone — place it on a charger at night and leave it there for hours while you sleep — it’s also one of the ways you are killing your battery.
“I find it comforting to see my iPhone charged up to 100 percent and ready for whatever task I need it to perform throughout the day,” admits Tech Expert Max Shak, CFO of Abtron. “Therefore, I may think it best to charge your phone overnight so that even a small percentage of the battery power doesn’t drain. It is actually one of the worst mistakes you can make as an iPhone user if you charge your device throughout the night.”
iPhones have lithium-ion batteries that charge faster, Shak explains.”Unfortunately, [they] also lose their charge faster as you use and demand more from them,” Shak says. “You can keep using your phone even after it has reached 100 percent even if it drops to 30 percent at night. Doing so won’t necessarily damage your battery. A smart phone is equipped with built-in protection chips that prevent it from being overcharged, overheating, or exploding (or any other myth you may have heard) when it is being charged too much.”
However, this does not mean charging your phone while sleeping is a good idea, he says.
“In other words, your phone fluctuates between a fully charged state and a bit below a fully charged state,” Shak says. “In addition to higher ambient temperatures, trickle charging can reduce capacity over time.”
The best thing you can do is swap your overnight charging habit to one where you give it small bursts of charging throughout the day.
Shutting Apps Down
“I often see people swiping up on apps to quit them,” says Tech Expert Steve Anderson, CEO of Junk Yards Near Me. “I believe it derives from the days when operating systems had weaker memory management, or perhaps they receive alerts on their Mac or PC indicating that some background software is draining battery life. This, I believe, applies to the iPhone. Closing applications will accomplish nothing at best, but if you do this for apps you access frequently, you will lose more juice when you reload that program.”
Fiddling With Settings
You can get a bit more battery life out of your iPhone by changing a few settings, Anderson says, but you may also screw things up and cause additional issues. “Turning off auto screen brightness (Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size) is one of the biggest offenders since it drastically reduces battery life and damages the OLED screens on newer iPhones,” Anderson says. “Background refresh (Settings > General > Background App Refresh) is another popular option. Unless you have a solid need to go in here, the best and safest setting to utilize to improve battery life is Low Power Mode.”
If you’re experiencing a slower, more stubborn battery, try changing these habits before you spend another dime on your phone. You may be surprised to learn that’s all it takes to get your device back up to speed.
