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Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
World
Kate Lally

iPhone users told to avoid these apps to save battery

More than a billion people in the world currently own an iPhone, and while the devices are evidently extremely popular, they do have their flaws.

Many people bemoan the battery life of the Apple smartphones, with some having to charge their phones more than once in a 24 hour period. Now, experts have revealed what the culprits of this may be, and how to save your iPhone battery.

Tom Paton, founder of greensmartphones.com, told the ECHO of a number of easy ways to stop needing to charge your phone so frequently.

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From charging your phone overnight to using certain battery-draining apps, here are five things to avoid to save your iPhone battery.

Keeping your phone screen face-up

"When your phone is on a flat surface face-up and you receive a notification, the screen will turn on momentarily. But when your phone is face-down, it knows not to turn on the screen when you get a text or email.

"What's worse is, if you're sitting outside, at a restaurant, for example, your iPhone will have its brightness set very high, to ensure you can still see the screen despite the sun's glare. Every time you receive a notification, your screen will turn on at almost full brightness. By keeping your phone face-down when it's on a table or desk, you can save a huge amount of battery life."

iPhone users can also use do not disturb mode to prevent the screen from turning on when they receive a notification. Alternatively, they can disable lock screen notifications on a per-app basis in Settings > Notifications.

Charging your phone overnight

Most iPhone users charge their phones overnight, to ensure they start the next day with a full battery. However, this can degrade your phone's battery if done on a regular basis.

"Your iPhone is quite smart - when you charge your phone overnight, it knows to charge fast until it reaches 80% full, then it charges the remaining 20% more slowly, to avoid overcharging. The problem is, when on charge for an extended period, your battery gets hot. Over time, this can degrade the life of your battery, making a full charge run out more quickly."

"We recommend charging your phone in the morning and evening, instead of overnight. These days, you can get 50% battery in about 30 minutes with most modern iPhones. If you absolutely need to charge your phone overnight, we recommend taking off any covers and cases, to reduce overheating as much as possible."

Keeping Location Services on all the time

While location services are very useful, having your phone in constant communication with a satellite uses up a lot of battery life.

"Most people keep their GPS turned on all the time, which uses quite a lot of battery life, especially if you use location-enabled apps on a regular basis. Most people aren't aware of how many apps track their location - Facebook for example uses it to tag where you're posting from. Every time you open one of these apps with Location Services enabled, you're wasting battery life."

"The downside to disabling Location Services is it can affect the functionality of the 'Find My' app. If your phone gets lost or stolen, you might have a harder time tracking it. However, with modern iPhones, the Find My app mostly relies on Bluetooth signal from other Apple products to locate your device, so in most cases, you're fine to leave Location Services switched off when you're not using it."

Location Services can be disabled in Settings > Privacy > Location Services.

Using battery-killing apps

Certain apps use hundreds of times more battery life than other basic iPhone applications. It could be that your app usage habits are killing your smartphone's battery life.

"The two most battery-hungry types of apps are navigation and video streaming apps. Anything to do with constantly tracking your movement, such as Google Maps or Uber, will use up huge amounts of battery. The same is true of apps like YouTube and Netflix, because they use lots of processing power, keep your screen and speakers on, and require lots of data - which eats into your battery life."

"It's a good idea to check how much battery different apps are using, and consider uninstalling the ones that are draining your charge. Fortunately, on an iPhone, this is very easy to do. If you go to Settings > Battery, you can see a list of apps that use the most battery life."

Using Raise to Wake

By default, when you lift up your iPhone from a flat surface, the screen will turn on, due to a feature known as Raise to Wake.

"If you're constantly on the go, you could be picking up your phone hundreds of times a day, using up a huge percent of your battery life. To save battery, it's a really good idea to disable Raise to Wake. If you pick up your phone and want to see your notifications, you can always double-tap the screen, or press the power button."

Raise to Wake can be disabled in Settings > Display & Brightness.

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