Preserve your battery life on iOS 7

iOS 7 may not do you battery life any favours but we have some great tips on how to preserve your battery life with the new software.

Background App Refresh

With the new update, more apps are allowed to run in the background and continue to download content even if you are not using them. This can be good if you want an app downloading the latest stock prices, weather or other information, or processing or sending out data, but not great for your battery life. You can easily disable this function, either by disabling individual apps or you can turn off the function altogether.

Go to Settings> General> Background App Refresh > Simply turn the ‘Background App Refresh’ switch off or the app switches you wish to disable.

Force Quit Apps you’re not using

Any apps that you ‘close’ actually remain running in the background which is another battery draining exercise from Apple. There is a quick way to force quit these apps, and it’s different from the way you may have force quit apps using iOS 6.

Double tap home button > Flick left to right to see the apps which are running > To force quit, flick the app screen upwards and you will see the screen disappear.

Turn of any unnecessary radios

Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are available on most iOS devices and are great features to use. However, if you’re not using them its best to switch them off to preserve your power. You can do this either by swiping from the bottom of the home screen upwards to reveal the Control Center. From here you can disable Wi-Fi and Bluetooth by tapping the icons if they are highlighted. Alternatively you can go to Settings and turn Wi-Fi and bluetooth off from here.

Turn off “Parallax”

Parallax is the new iOS 7 feature that enables icons to move about the screen depending on the angle at which you’re holding your phone. This is said to have caused motion sickness for some people as well as causing the gyroscope to use extra energy. You can turn this function off by turning “Reduce Motion” on.

Settings> Accessibility > Reduce Motion > Turn ON

Turn off Airdrop

Airdrop allows you to transfer files and data wirelessly to other iOS devices which is a great feature but one that will probably only be used on the odd occasion. You can turn this off by swiping from the bottom of the home screen upwards to open the Control Center, click Airdrop and turn it off.