iPhone battery drain: Hidden settings secretly killing your phone's power

The battery life of the iPhone is frequently cut short not by hardware constraints but by default modes in the software that are in their convenience-optimised forms. With this knowledge of which settings to use in order to consume power, the user can provide meaningful battery performance improvement by merely changing their settings. Such modifications make the iPhone experience one that does not need charging in between the day but one that is comfortably able to last a full day of normal usage. Here are some tips you must consider for your iPhone battery drain.

iPhone battery drain: The silent battery killer

Background App Refresh is one of the largest battery offenders and this feature is provided by applications, which enables them to update the content even when you are not using the application. Although this feature sounds handy, when you open the apps, they are full of new information - the fact is that your iPhone is constantly active in the background, making updates, synchronising the data, and updating the notifications.

In order to turn this power-draining feature off, go to Settings - General - Background App Refresh and choose Off. To maintain the granular control you may instead turn off Background App Refresh on selected applications which do not need constant real-time updates, like productivity apps or games. After the disability, the majority of users report a visible and direct improvement in battery life, which can add an average of one to two hours to daily use, depending on the pattern of application use.

iPhone battery drain: Constant sensor activity

Two features inaccessibility settings have are rather energy-intensive. Auto-Brightness automatically balances your screen brightness to the surrounding light conditions, having proximity sensors and ambient lighting sensors running all day long. Although this automation ensures the presence of the best screen visibility in all kinds of environments, the fact that the sensor constantly polls, and the screen brightness is altered consumes the quantifiable power.

In order to turn off Auto-Brightness, firstly, go to Settings - Accessibility - Display and Text Size, scroll down the bottom and switch Auto-Brightness off. You still have control over manual brightness through the Control Center where necessary and can make strategic decisions with brightness control without incurring constant overhead due to the autosensor control.

iPhone battery drain: Reduce motion

The Motion section is linked to the same Accessibility menu and has an option of Reduce Motion. This option when turned on helps to reduce animated transitions and visual effects across iOS a lot, and it helps lighten the load on the graphics side of your processor. All animations - including transition between apps, the look of a notification, or a system-level visual effects, all need both GPU memory and battery life. The ability to disable these dazzling visual effects saves on the work of graphics, and at the same time saves on power, as well as enhances perceived responsiveness to those users who value performance more than graphics.

iPhone battery drain: Preventing unnecessary screen activation

Raise to Wake is a feature in the iPhone that lights up your phone every time you pick up the phone and it is very convenient as the iPhone recognises your presence and activates your phone screen. Nevertheless, this sensor surveillance and screen wake-ups are high power consuming activities throughout an entire day. Your iPhone is continuously tracking accelerator data to determine pick-up movement and each of them costs battery power.

In order to turn this feature off, go to Settings - Display and Brightness and switch on Raise to Wake. You will not have to wake up your screen separately, so it will always stay dark until you tap the screen or press the side button, which removes any unnecessary wake-ups and battery loss. This is a simple modification that eliminates wasted power due to accidental or foreseen screen activations.

The impact: Small tweaks, significant results

On its own, each of these environments can be viewed as a small power user. But mixed together, Background App Refresh, Auto-Brightness, motion effects and Raise to Wake makes an enormous combined battery drain that a lot of users greatly underrate. A machine that has all these features turned on can lose 20-30% of its battery in just a day as opposed to a machine that has all these features optimised.

With a systematic battery drain identification procedure, finding the corresponding settings, and conducting strategic modifications, you can attain some evident results on iPhone battery performance. These optimisations help to increase the daily run time, decrease the time period to recharge, and enhance the overall efficiency of the devices throughout the day. On top of battery improvements, when unnecessary background activity and visual effects are disabled, the device will tend to be significantly cooler, have a smoother performance, and battery performance will be much more predictable.

Disclaimer:The information regarding the gadgets/devices listed in the table and article has been sourced from various secondary sources. For detailed product specifications, please refer to the brand sources.