How to Extend The Battery Life of Your New iPhone 6

Apple phones have always created a sensation in the market whenever they have been launched. With a wide spectrum of apps, an iPhone user has the privilege of a variety of services that are just a click away. The iOS or the Apple Operating System brings with it a variety of features, but with all those features, comes a disadvantage, which is perhaps, the only major problem that iPhone users have to tackle, and that is battery life. Now, with a gadget of iPhone’s standard, you would normally not expect something as trivial as the battery life to be an issue, but unfortunately, it is. Most iPhone users have one and the same problem. The battery dies out too soon, and the phone discharges furiously even at standby mode. So, with all the apps and facilities that the phone has got to offer, this problem comes as a bane. But it isn’t that the people at Apple haven’t thought about this already. In fact, with the launch of the latest series, i.e. iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, Apple has tried a rather advantageous method to help its device consume less power. Before I go on to tell you how to increase battery life of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, let me throw some light on how Apple has tried to maximize it.

The new iPhone 6 uses an extra chip as an accelerometer which consumes less power, hence increases battery life. According to a recent revelation from a publication ‘Chipworks,’ the new iPhone now uses two accelerometers, one from InvenSense and another from Bosch. The one from InvenSense, is a six axis accelerometer which is used for complicated programs such as games and other applications that require advanced inertial sensing, hence consumes battery life. On the other hand, Bosch’s accelerometer is a three axis accelerometer which works at a lower power value (130 micro Amperes in normal mode as against 3.4mA for InvenSense’s), hence reduces battery consumption. The inclusion of this extra chip allows applications which do not require sophisticated sensitivity and a full six axis integration to work with lower power consumption without compromising on the user experience. This is elegant engineering on Apple’s behalf.

[Read also: How Much Have Batteries Improved Over Time?]

Now, having said that let us enlighten ourselves about those subtle ways by which we can increase our iPhone’s battery life. Your new iPhone 6 comes with certain pre-set battery life expectations. Before you start using it, you must know exactly how much your new phone is expected to deliver.

Usage	iPhone 6	iPhone 6 Plus
Talk time	Up to 14 Hours on 3G	Up to 24 hours on 3G
Standby time	Up to 10 days(250 hours)	Up to 16 days(384 hours)
Internet Use	Up to 10 hours on 3G, 10 hours on LTE and 11 hours on Wi-Fi.	Up to 12 hours on 3G, 12 hours on LTE and 12 hours on Wi-Fi.
Video Playback	Up to 11 Hours	Up to 14 hours
Audio Playback	Up to 50 hours	Up to 80 hours

It is important to understand how much battery is consumed depending upon your usage. You must know what activity requires how much power and should accordingly use your phone to save power. For example, listening to music from your playlist would save battery as compared to listening music online.

1. Battery Usage

There are certain apps that consume battery life without your knowledge, as these apps run in the background. Before iOS 8 the users were required to install independent apps to find out their battery usage. Now, with iOS 8, it comes built-in. Now you can know which app is consuming what percentage of your battery and you can crack down your app usage accordingly. To find battery usage in iOS 8, follow these steps:-

• Go to the settings app
• Tap on General
• Tap on usage and then Battery Usage

This will show you all the currently active apps, both the ones which you’re using as well as the ones that are running in the back ground along with the percentage of power that they are consuming from your phone’s battery. By default, it shows the battery consumption for the past 24 hours, but you can also check the consumption for the past 7 days by tapping on ‘Last 7 days.’

Also remember that if an app shows high battery consumption, it may not necessarily mean that the power requirement to run that app is more. Instead, it may also mean that you have been using that app quite frequently or it was running in the background, such as a download. What you really need to worry about are the apps that feature at the top of that list that aren’t using much. There are three things that can be done about them:-

• If those apps aren’t absolutely necessary, remove them
• You can close the apps which you don’t want to use, like the ones that are not used frequently. Updates consume battery drastically. And you don’t need to update an app for the moment, you can close them. It must also be remembered that while you can force close the apps which you don’t intend to use, force closing all the apps may have an adverse effect on battery life. You can force close an app by pressing the home button twice, going through the apps and swiping it up to close it
• You can control the ‘Location Services’ that are required by the app, as getting your location may not necessarily be required. This feature is discussed in detail next

[Read also: How to Protect and Extend your Gadget’s Battery Life]

2. Location Services

When certain apps function, they ask users for their location, and the user is often unaware of the fact that allowing them an access to their location also has an effect on the battery life. Not all apps that ask for a user’s location, require it essentially. It is advisable that you disable location for such apps and turn it on only for apps such as navigation or the ones that cannot work without it. To this you should first of all disable location services for all apps and then turn it on for apps that require it essentially. You can disable location services via Settings> Privacy> Location Services. Apple has added a new feature this time, which allows a user to turn on the location services only when its use is required, so that battery consumption is minimized. Like for navigation apps, the user can use location services only while navigating and they will automatically be disabled when the use is over or the phone is idle. To do this, go to Settings> Privacy> Location Services, and then tap on the app which you’ve been using along with location service. You should see an option ‘While using the app.’ Tap on it and it is done.

3. Background App Refresh

In iOS 7, Apple had introduced a feature of Background App Refresh, which allows apps to assemble in formation in the background, such as updates, but these updates can have a serious impact on the battery life. To disable this feature, go to Settings> General> Background App Refresh and disable it for apps that do not require frequent updating.

4. Push E-Mail

Often, in smartphones, we get instant notifications for new messages, emails etc. While this might feel convenient for a user, the battery life is hit hard due to this feature. Unless and until you absolutely need to know about each mail that comes in or each notification that you receive, you must turn this service off and opt for ‘fetch.’ To change your mail settings go to Settings> Mails, Contacts and Calendars> Fetch New Data. Here, you can change your setting to push, fetch or manual.

‘Push’ means that you would receive instant notification for every mail or message or notification that you receive whereas ‘Fetch will look for new data every 15, 30 or 60 minutes depending upon how frequently you need the information (Manual).

If you have multiple email accounts, you may disable push services for those accounts that you do not use frequently to see if it saves battery.

[Read more: 6 Top Tricks to Improve Battery Life on iOS 8]

5. Other Tips

Apart from these, there are some general tips that should be kept in mind before you start using your iPhone 6 with the intention of extending its battery life:-

• In the Notification Center, there is a ‘Today’ tab which includes applications such as Tomorrow Summary, Today Summary, and Stocks etc. Disable the widget which you don’t want to use as they may be consuming extra battery. To do this, go to the Notification Center, tap on Today tab and then tap on Edit. You can then tap on the red button to remove a widget
• Disable dynamic wallpapers to save battery. They use CPU cycles and consume more battery. You can use still wallpapers or images from your gallery as a wallpaper to save battery
• You can disable app store’s Automatic Updates. Updates running in the background consume battery without the knowledge of the user. The apps which you don’t want to be updated frequently can either be removed or you stop their automatic update. To do this, go to Settings> iTunes and App Store> Automatic downloads (scroll down) > turn off the Updates switch
• Spotlight Search must be disabled for apps that you don’t want to search. You can do this by going to Settings> General> Spotlight Search and unchecking the type of feature that you aren’t looking for
• Turn off push notifications for apps that you don’t frequently use by going to Settings> Notifications> Include section (scroll down) and by tapping against the app for which you wish to turn off the notifications
• You must turn of LTE/4G/Wi-Fi in the areas of low network coverage and also you must turn these on, only when you want to use them and not all the time. IN an area of no network coverage, your phone’s battery may take a hit in the quest of searching for a network to provide you with, as searching for networks consume battery drastically. So, you might want to turn the auto search feature off by going to Settings> Wi-Fi > tap on on/off switch for Ask to Join Networks and disable it. Now, you phone will join known Wi-Fi networks automatically, but you will have to choose a network manually in case there are no networks available. It is disabled by default
• Turn the Bluetooth on only when you wish to use it, not at all times
• Dim you screen’s brightness to save on battery
• The timing of the auto lock feature of your phone must be such that the phone locks itself after a sufficient time gap for which it is left idle such as 1,2,3,4 or 5 minutes. To do this, go to Settings> General> Auto lock and adjust the settings accordingly

This is a brief insight on how you can take some simple steps to save on battery life. There are many more methods and you can discover a few too while using your new iPhone. I hope this article helps. Any sort of feedback would be much appreciated.

[Image credit: gjacobs228 on Flickr / Sam on Flickr / Tom Raftery on Flickr]