Everyone wants to get as much battery life as possible from their iPhone. Maybe you want to ensure you end the day with enough battery or want to use numerous apps without worrying about going home with a dead phone. To get the most battery life out of your iPhone, you must first understand what drains it.
Understanding the iPhone Battery
Apple uses Lithium-ion batteries in all its iPhones. Apple says Li-Ion batteries charge faster, have higher power densities, and last longer than their traditional counterparts. Apple also implements various software tweaks to ensure you can charge the battery up to around 80% faster and charge it slowly from 80-100% to expand the battery’s lifespan, which is the time between buying an iPhone and replacing the battery, or the time between purchasing a new original battery and replacing it.
iPhone batteries work in charging cycles, where one cycle is using an amount that is equal to 100% of the phone’s total capacity. Sometimes you can do this over several sessions and reach 100% capacity of use even if your phone never goes to 0%.
An iPhone’s battery degrades every time it completes one charging cycle, so it seems to hold less charge the older it gets.
What Drains iPhone Battery?
Every function and component in your phone uses power, which is why the iPhone battery drains when used. However, you might notice the battery draining much faster in some instances or situations than in others. Here are some reasons why that happens.
Screen Brightness and Phone Usage
Modern iPhone screens are very bright, even though they can be very dim depending on the settings. Apple reports that the typical brightness for an iPhone starts at about 1000 nits and goes to 2000 nits and above. This brightness level helps the screen be more visible in low light. Still, it also kills the battery faster regardless of the power-consumption optimisations Apple has added to iOS in recent years.
High brightness can kill your battery faster if you receive many notifications. Each of these notifications lights up the screen, and even though the power usage in those few seconds is minimal, it adds up if you get a lot of notifications.
Rogue Apps and Background Activity
Most iPhone apps are well-optimised, so they do not drain your battery too fast. However, you can encounter apps with bugs that drain a battery in a few hours, even when you are not using them. Two high-profile apps that have done this in the past are YouTube and Facebook, which both had numerous background activities, even when not using them.
Location Services Usage
Discussions about whether using location services reduces battery life on an iPhone have been going on for a long time. The truth is that the GPS in your iPhone uses a hardware chip that requires power when it is in use. If the chip is not in use, Apple uses various optimisations in iOS to ensure it uses as little power as possible.
The issue with Location Services is leaving it on and then leaving an app that uses location services running in the background. An app like Maps always tries to find where you are, activating other chips and components to get your exact location. If you use such apps frequently, turning location services off helps, but it has little to no effect if you do not have background apps that need GPS and other location services.
Another part of the discussion is that various apps also ping your location without you knowing. For example, a ticket booking app might need your location to know what currency to charge. Numerous apps do something similar, so the consensus leans towards turning your Location services off to reduce battery drain.
Content Consumption
Content consumption drains your battery in a few obvious ways. First, the screen has to be on when consuming content that is not audio or in the background. The time you spend consuming content like this and the screen brightness while doing this will determine the battery drain rate.
The other obvious way is through chip activation. There is a lot that goes on when streaming video content. The network chips must be active, and various parts of the system chip have to activate. These include the CPU, the encoding and decoding engines, AI engines to ensure smooth frame rates, and the graphics components all used to show a video on your screen.
What Uses iPhone Battery: Poor Mobile Usage
Your phone will drain much faster if you are in an area with poor network coverage. The reason is that the network chip will use more power trying to acquire a network. The same is true when using Wi-Fi; having poor signal leads to the chip working harder to acquire and keep a network, leading to battery drain. This issue typically affects people who commute a lot and are more likely to enter areas with low connectivity.
Raise to Wake
The Raise to Wake feature is activated by default on iPhones. The feature turns the screen on so you can see your notifications and use facial recognition as soon as you pick the phone up. However, Raise To Wake can also activate if you walk with the phone in your hand where its sensors confuse the arm-swinging motion with picking up the phone numerous times. The battery will drain faster if the screen constantly turns on and off like this.
How Do I Stop My Battery from Draining So Fast?
Just like your iPhone battery drains fast for many reasons, there are also ways to slow the drain.
Adjust the Brightness
One of the best things you can do for your iPhone’s battery life is to reduce the screen brightness. Doing so manually is an option, but it is impractical if you need to use your iPhone in different lighting conditions.
If you want to dim the screen manually, you can start by swiping up from the bottom. Doing so will open the control centre where you will see the brightness slider that you can use to adjust the brightness.
Instead of doing it like this all the time, it is much better to turn on Auto-Brightness. To do this, go to Settings > General > Accessibility. You will see Display Accommodations where you can turn this setting on.
Uninstall or Limit App Usage
If you find your battery draining too fast and think an app is the culprit, you can go to Settings and then to Battery to see which app is responsible. You can do two things: uninstall the app or limit its ability to keep acting in the background. You can do this by going to Settings, General, then Background App refresh.
Limit Notifications
If you have an app that constantly lights up your screen due to numerous notifications, consider turning off notifications for it. You can do so by going to settings and then notifications. Once there, find the offending app and disable the show on the lock screen.
Disable Wallpaper on Lock Screen
Apple implemented a feature where the iPhones on iOS 16.2 dim the screen when the phone is locked, but it still shows the wallpaper, time, and date. Although Apple advertised this as a power-saving feature, users have found that showing the wallpaper leads to a little battery drain.
Disable the wallpaper and ensure it does not show on the lock screen, only leaving the date and time showing against a dark background.
Use Low Power Mode
Low Power mode reduces the amount of power an Apple device uses and therefore makes the device last much longer. Although it can increase the time between charges, it can cause some features and updates to take longer or not complete.
Turn Off Raise to Wake
To turn off Raise to Wake:
- Open Settings
- Go to Display and Brightness
- Scroll to Raise to Wake and toggle it off. Once you do, the toggle should turn gray.
Update iOS and Apps
Every iOS update comes with new battery and power optimisations that help iPhone batteries last longer. These updates also keep the battery in good condition, so you continue seeing excellent battery life even as the phone ages.
New updates like Screen Time, which Apple introduced recently, also help with battery life management. The feature helps users know how much time they are spending on specific apps so they can adjust their habits accordingly. Less app usage leads to lower battery usage and, thus, slower battery drain.
New iPhone apps also come with optimisations that help minimise battery drain. Ideally, you should set your apps to auto-update if you have a Wi-Fi connection. If you do not have one, you can update all your apps manually through the App Store.
An iPhone battery is supposed to drain as you use the phone. However, there are instances where the battery drains too fast due to several factors. These can include rogue apps, using older iOS and phone versions, receiving too many notifications, and being in areas with poor connectivity for extended periods. Fortunately, you can do many things to reduce battery drain and ensure the phone lasts much longer.