Several pre-installed apps on your iPhone pose virtually no threat to your battery or phone’s longevity. Truthfully, you may not even realize they’re on your device (Compass, Tips, and Stocks, looking at you). Sure, it will save some battery power and storage space if you delete them, but that would also be a little like saving a dollar a day to buy a huge property in Los Angeles.
And then there are pre-installed apps that you don’t think about because you can use them all the time. That’s where this category with two of the most battery-consuming pre-installed apps falls in. You can’t delete them — because you need them. But you can be aware of how they take up battery and steps you can take to mitigate the damage a bit. Here are two pre-installed iPhone apps that take hours off of your battery.
1. Location Services
So many of your apps rely on location services to get their jobs done. Apps like Apple Maps, Weather, ride-sharing, and services like Yelp need to know where you live or are located to provide the services that you expect. But keeping Location on for all of these apps — as well as those that’s do NOT need your location (like social media) is one of the fastest ways to drain your device.
Go to Location Services and choose how frequently you want specific apps to access your location. For some that might mean always, while others will be “never” or only when you’re using the app.
2. Mail
When you have push notifications turned on, this affects your Mail app by forcing it to constantly check for new notifications and updates. This “push” consumes battery power and, what’s worse, it doesn’t just stop happening — it’s a constant that constantly drains your resources. You can put a stop to how Mail affects your battery by turning off Push Notifications. Go to Settings > Notifications. You’ll see a list of apps (including Mail). Go through them and turn Notifications off where needed.
