MacOSG: Optimizing an iPhone’s battery life
Posted by Dave Merten 
May 2, 2008 at 5:10pm
Just following a few common sense pointers will pay off with a longer battery lifespan and battery life for your iPhone. The most important thing is to keep your iPhone out of the sun or a hot car (even the glove box). Heat will degrade your battery’s performance the most.
Knowing how long your battery typically lasts can help you improve your iPhone’s battery life. You can view your iPhone usage statistics by tapping the Settings application on the Home screen and choosing Usage. Under the “Time since last full charge” heading you’ll see two items:
Usage: Amount of time iPhone has been awake and in use since the last full charge. The phone is awake when you’re on a call, using email, listening to music, browsing the Web, sending and receiving text messages, or when certain background tasks occur such as auto-checking email.
Standby: Amount of time iPhone has been powered on since its last full charge, including the time the phone has been asleep.
Optimize Your Settings
Depending on how they are configured, a few features may decrease your iPhone’s battery life. For example, the frequency with which you retrieve email and the number of email accounts you auto-check can both affect battery life. The tips below may help extend your phone’s battery life.
• Change Mail Auto-Check: Turn off Mail auto-check or increase the auto-check interval. To turn off auto-check, from the Home screen choose Settings > Mail > Auto-Check and tap Manual. To increase the auto-check interval, go to Settings > Mail > Auto-Check and tap Every hour. Note that this is a global setting that applies to all active mail accounts on your iPhone except push mail accounts with push mail enabled.
• Turn off Push Mail: If you have a push mail account, turn off push mail when you don’t need it. Go to Settings > Mail, choose the push mail account, tap Advanced, and set Use Push Mail to Off. Messages sent to this account will now be received on your phone based on the global Auto-Check setting rather than as they arrive.
• Auto-check fewer Mail Accounts: You can save power by checking fewer mail accounts. This can be accomplished by turning off a mail account or by deleting it. To turn off a mail account, go to Settings > Mail, choose a mail account and set Account to Off. To remove an account, go to Settings > Mail, choose a mail account and tap Delete Account.
• Turn off Wi-Fi: If you rarely use Wi-Fi, you can turn it off to save power. Go to Settings > Wi-Fi and set Wi-Fi to Off. Note that if you frequently use your iPhone to browse the Web, battery life may be improved using Wi-Fi instead of EDGE.
• Turn off Bluetooth: If you rarely use a Bluetooth headset or car kit, you can turn off Bluetooth to save power. Go to Settings > General > Bluetooth and set Bluetooth to Off.
• Adjust Brightness: Dimming your phone’s screen is another way to extend battery life. Go to Settings > Brightness and drag the slider to the left to lower the default screen brightness. Additionally, turning on Auto-Brightness allows your phone’s screen to adjust its brightness based on current lighting conditions. Go to Settings > Brightness and set Auto-Brightness to On.
• Turn off EQ: Applying an equalizer setting to song playback on your iPhone can decrease battery life. To turn EQ off, go to Settings > iPod > EQ and tap Off. Note that if you’ve added EQ to songs directly in iTunes, you’ll need to set EQ on iPhone to “Flat” in order to have the same effect as “Off” because iPhone keeps your iTunes settings intact. Go to Settings > iPod > EQ and tap Flat.
Lock Your iPhone
It may seem obvious, but you should lock your iPhone when you aren’t using it. You will still be able to receive calls and text messages while it is locked, but nothing happens if you touch the screen. To lock iPhone, press the Sleep/Wake button.
Use iPhone Regularly
For proper maintenance of a lithium-based battery, it’s important to keep the electrons in it moving occasionally. Be sure to go through at least one charge cycle per month.
Charge Cycles
A properly maintained iPhone battery is designed to retain up to 80% of its original capacity at 400 full charge and discharge cycles. You may choose to replace your battery when it no longer holds sufficient charge to meet your needs.
Caution Charging in Case
Charging your iPhone while in certain carrying cases may generate excess heat, which can affect battery capacity. If you notice that your iPhone gets hot when you charge it, take it out of its case first. Also, if you’er talking on the phone for an extended period of time, you may want to take it out of the case so it can breath better and run cooler.
Source: Apple Lithium-ion battery information.
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Dave Merten
Dave was one of the founding guides at ‘The Mining Company,’ now known as About.com, in February 1998. Dave was their ‘Focus on Mac Support’ guide. In 2004 he started ‘G5 Owners Support Group,’ and in 2005, renamed it ‘Mac Owners Support Group.’ In 2006, he started the ‘MacOSG Support Corner’ column here at Macsimum News.
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