Keep the battery between 30%-80% & never let it run out of juice!
Lithium-Ion batteries (which are in all iPhones) don’t enjoy being completely flat and they prefer to be within the range of 30-80% full, annoyingly you cannot set this range when charging because that would be insane… but if possible try to avoid charging your phone to 100% and leaving it at 100% all morning/night. Abusing your phone battery over time will reduce the total available capacity.
- Keep a phone charger in your car
- Keep a multi-port phone charger by your sofa + combine with a few extra long 6FT iPhone cables + Micro USB versions
- Use a 6FT long cable when you charge in your bed
- Buy a small external battery pack combined with a 10cm short cable for when you’re out and about
Cover your phone with protection
- iPhone cases from companies like Spigen, Anker & ULAK will massively improve your chances of a damage-free phone
- Screen protectors from Anker or Maxteck will also give you a scratch free screen and massively reduce your chances of a smashed screen!
Stop overheating the battery
All iPhones are best when they’re at an ambient temperature of 16° to 22° C (62° to 72° F)
- Cases are superb at protecting your phone from damage but they do restrict airflow and therefore increase temperatures. If you notice that your device gets hot when you charge it, take it out of its case first especially if you’re using a powerful charger like an Anker 24W USB charger
- Charging in sunlight or leaving your phone in direct sunlight will cause your phone to overheat
- Leaving your phone in your car on a hot day or in a location where the temp is above 35ºc
- Turn off Bluetooth if it’s not needed
- Playing music, playing a game and also other strenuous tasks all at the same time
- Charging your phone under your pillow (massive no no as it’s a fire hazard)
- You’re overusing battery charging cases, these are OK bits of kit but having them constantly charge your phone is a bad idea. They should only be used for the odd day you need your phone to last. Instead, consider one of these small external battery packs combined with a 10cm short cable these are better for your phones but do add bulk to your pocket.
You’re consuming too much battery power!
- Switching your phone to ‘Low Power Mode’ if you need the power
- Turn your screen brightness down
- Reduce Auto-Lock time
- Turn off air drop
- Stop location services
- Download data (e.g. movies) via Wifi instead of 4G
- Kill ‘Hey Siri’ – It uses loads of power and quite frankly sucks for most tasks anyway. To turn it off, go to Settings > General > Siriand turn Allow “Hey Siri” off.
- Turn off background refresh – Settings > General > Background App Refresh – Turn off the apps you don’t need to update in the background
- Turn off Automatic Downloads. Settings > iTunes & App Store and sliding Use Cellular Data to off, so it only updates on Wi-Fi. You’ll save even more if you just turn the automatic downloads off altogether and update on your own schedule.
- Turn off notifications for apps you don’t care about – Go to Settings > Notification Center and look under Include. Tap on any apps that you don’t need notifications from and choose None under the Alert Style, and then toggle Show in Navigation Center to off and Show on Lock Screen to off.
- Do you need emails to arrive instantly or can you have them arrive every 15-30 minutes? Go into Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Fetch New Data and switch from Push to either Fetch or Manual.
You’re incorrectly storing your old phones
We’ve all got an old phone in a drawer somewhere, we know we really should sell them but still, we leave them for another day.
Ensure these devices are stored:
- In a cool place (16° to 22° C)
- Roughly half-charged, not empty and not completely full but somewhere in the middle.
Otherwise According to Apple, if you leave the battery completely depleted it will fall into what’s known as a “deep discharge state,” which will remove a chunk of the battery capacity for all future use!
Keep the thing clean!
- Buy an airblower and get rid of the dust
- Buy a decent screen cleaner and microfibre cloth and clean it
- Use some rubbing alcohol mixed with water and earbuds to clean it
- 10 ways to help your technology last the test of time
You’re using the wrong charger
Cheaper chargers are cheap for a reason, avoid them at all costs. Stick with the official Apple one (it’s expensive but it’s pretty solid) or check out Anker chargers.
You can buy fast chargers and these are great but often a slower charger will put less stress on your phone. If you’re charging overnight a lower powered charger will help with the longevity of your battery.
You’re running old software
Older iOS software has poor battery management software. Go to Settings > General > Software Update to see if you can upgrade your phone to the latest software.
Delete your life / backup your life
Storage can be a pain with iPhones. We take endless photos but want to see these photos again in the future.
- Set your text messages / WhatsApp to automatically delete after 30 days (Settings > Messages > Keep Messages)
- Stop Instagram/Whatsapp from saving duplicates of your posts/saving images to camera roll (Open the Instagram app > your profile > Options > unselect “Save Original Photos.”
- Delete old voicemails, podcasts, apps, and Spotify playlists you’ve saved offline but never listen to.
- Delete outdated phone backups from iCloud
- Stop backing up stupid apps like Tinder/Farmville
- Turn off your photo stream (Settings > Photos & Camera, then switch off Photo Stream)
- Only keep HDR photos (Settings > Photos & Camera > switch off Keep Normal Photos)
- Delete Safari cache (Settings > Safari > Clear History and Website Data)
Don’t Clean Caches if you want to speed up your phone
Clearing caches will not help speed up your iPhone. Leaving caches intact is highly suggested. Don’t worry about it. The iPhone itself will shut down apps when it needs the resources. If you are noticing any slowdown, just try rebooting your phone. It’s not like a PC, which should be defragged and cleaned up from time to time. 1
You’re throwing away / selling a perfectly good phone without trying a new battery in it first etc
A new Apple fitted battery will cost you £79 (or free if it’s a warranty repair or far less if you shop around). Doing this before you’re tempted to upgrade your phone may massively help with battery life and stop you from upgrading early!
Or consider a DIY job by buying:
- iFixit Repair Kit
- A replacement battery – this is the problem… there are loads on eBay but they’re all dodgy.
- Following this guide (this is for iPhone 7 so just YouTube your phone model)
