For us iOS 8 users, our wish is for Apple to solve the battery life problems. While every update has its own flaws and improvements, the recent iOS 8.2 update was reported to be a stable one, maintaining a solid battery life for the iPhone 5 according to GottaMobile. However, if you feel that your device consumes a lot of battery life, perhaps you need to apply these tips to fix them.
With a few tweaks, installations of third-party apps, and changes in settings, we can optimise a device’s battery performance.
1. Toggle Off: Location Services, Background App Refresh, and System Services
It’s time to get around the General Settings and tweak these seemingly hidden settings that drain your battery faster. Turning off the Location Services will save you tons of battery life. You can also scroll down to System Services and toggle off each function on the list. This is quite tricky because even if you’ve toggled off “Location Services,” they still run in the background and are toggled on. Lastly, go to “Background App Refresh” and do the same thing.
2. Use Battery Management and Diagnostic Apps
Cheetah Mobile Inc.’s Battery Doctor is one of the popular battery management apps for Android, and while it ranks pretty well on Google Play Store, you can also install it on your iOS 8 device to systematize your charging times and monitor charging cycles. You may also try System Status Lite as your battery and device management and diagnostic app.
3. Decrease Auto-Lock Time and Adjust Display
Change the setting to “1 Minute” so it’ll automatically turn off the display when not in use. Don’t forget to dim the display as well as turned-off notification banners that keep on popping up and activating your device’s display; toggle off the “Auto Brightness” and adjust it manually to decrease the brightness.
4. Hard Reboot If Battery Temperature Increases
If the temperature of your device increases during the charging time, a hard reboot will perhaps cool it down. Theoretically, this is due to intensive CPU activity; to regulate the device’s overall functionality, simply press the Power button and home button simultaneously until you see the Apple logo during the restart. Wait for a few seconds and monitor until the temperature of the battery normalises. It’s also advisable to let your device “breathe” for a while – take it out of the case while charging. According to Apple there are some styles of cases that may generate heat while charging your device which can affect the battery capacity.
5. Refrain from Using Dynamic Wallpapers
These animated wallpapers may look good on screen, but they’re also taking up the device’s accelerometer and graphics processor which adds up to the internal process and incrementally eats up the battery life.
6. Airplane Mode When Connected to Wi-Fi Spot
If you’re connected to a WiFi spot and most of your communications are via social media and instant messaging apps, you might as well turn off your cellular data network to save more battery and switch to Airplane Mode. You can also speed up the charging time when the device is on Airplane Mode.
Other Practical Tips
Thanks to the updated iOS 8, we can preview the battery usage and check out the apps that drain the battery while we’re using it. There are other ways to extend the battery life – you can tweak your settings in Accessibility, deactivate Siri, Bluetooth and WiFi, don’t “Push” your emails to your mailbox, and deactivate the notifications of some apps you don’t use.
Is there anything I missed? Feel free to drop your tips for our readers on how they can fix battery issues on their iOS 8-powered devices. What do you think of the latest software update and how it affects battery issues?
Photo credit: Karlis Dambrans
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