Push vs Battery

MousePad

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Hello everyone,

I'm using an iPhone 4 on Telus in Canada since last October, and have to say that I love the experience mostly. My phone is jailbroken, and am using a few tweaks, like BiteSMS and Winterboard. I do have a strong Blackberry background, being a BES Admin at my job, and had blackberries for my personal line for a few years. I stumbled upon a good deal on an iPhone and decided it was the occasion to try it out.

I come across the following statement now and then: "Push notifications use more battery on an iDevice". I always ask myself how it can be... Isn't Push supposed to help with battery life?

The way I understand Push is that a smartphone will simply wait for a message from a push server to go through it's network before notifying the user that an email/status/tweet has come in, instead of always checking at regular intervals... That's supposed to be how BBs could have so much battery life until recently (I used a 9900 for a few months, and cannot go through more than a day on a single charge... Things change... :)

So I ask: What am I missing in the way Apple implements Push notifications? If anyone could explain to me how it works and how it affects battery life, then I'll understand my iPhone a little better, and be better informed when an app asks if I want it to use push... :)

I'm not trying to start a war... If you see this post as a "Blackberry is better than iPhone" message, wait a few seconds before answering, it will pass.. And if it does not, please move on to the next thread... Flames and otherwise not relevant answers will be spectacularly ignored... :)

Thanks
 

Just_Me_D

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I'll simply answer your question in a non-technical manner. In my experience, push notifications does NOT have an ill-effect on your battery. I have 5 email accounts configured on my device, 4 of which are set with push notification, and with moderate to heavy use, I still won't need to charge my battery until bedtime tonight.
 

MousePad

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All right. :)

That's what I would expect as device behaviour.

What I can't understand is how Push notifications appears in a lot "battery life issues" articles... I'll gladly say that a device that does absolutely nothing will use less battery, but push will be more efficient than an application that checks periodically for updates...

For the sake of discussion... :)
 

sting7k

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Push notifications do use more battery. It's a service so it's going to need power. If you compare usage for a day with and out them turned on the battery will last longer with them off. Nothing huge; you might save a few % with them off.

That said, the power usage is very small. If you have dozens of things pushing notifications you might see a little more power usage but still it's small in comparison to fetching at regular intervals.

They show up in battery life problem stories because that's normally what you do is just start turning things off to see what is killing the battery.
 

MousePad

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Something just occured to me... Here's the question...

On iDevices, can apps be configured to check periodically for updates by themselves (i.e. without the user opening it), or is push the only way to go?

That would explain why push uses more battery on iDevices... :)
 

Just_Me_D

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Something just occured to me... Here's the question...

On iDevices, can apps be configured to check periodically for updates by themselves (i.e. without the user opening it), or is push the only way to go?

That would explain why push uses more battery on iDevices... :)

Check the following settings:
1. Settings-Mail, Contacts, Calendars-Fetch New Data. From there, you can enable/disable Push. Also, if you scroll down and select the 'Advanced' setting, you can select which method (push, fetch or manual) for each configured mail service.

2. Settings-Notifications. From there, you can select which app to use in regard to notifications and the method you want to be notified, if any.


Just Me, D
(Tapatalk - iPhone 4S)
 

iSpi7Fire

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Something just occured to me... Here's the question...

On iDevices, can apps be configured to check periodically for updates by themselves (i.e. without the user opening it), or is push the only way to go?

That would explain why push uses more battery on iDevices... :)
No. Only way would be the user opening AppStore App so that it checks for app updates from there. In fact that's the only way you can do it. :)
 

iDonev

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No. Only way would be the user opening AppStore App so that it checks for app updates from there. In fact that's the only way you can do it. :)

I've also discovered that playing around in the iCloud section of Settings.app also checks for updates and puts a badge on the App Store.
 

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