iphone shortcomings -

[shimojunk]

I'm a former BB Curve 8330 user and moving to an iPhone has been both a delight and also an annoyance. 90% of the annoyance has to do with emails and notifications, since it's not nearly as robust as the BB. I've had the phone for a couple of days and was wondering if the following can be done either natively or with apps/cydia apps:

1 - Individually set email accounts to push/pull. Since I get tons of emails all day long via my work Exchange account and push email drains the battery, I would like to pull my work emails (mainly at night) but want to keep my gmail accounts pushed.

2- Marked all as read emails. If I blasted with many work emails, they are pushed to my phone and I have to go through each one and mark as read.

3 - Quick reboot to close all apps open. I'm not sure if I'm doing this right, but when I'm in an app, the only way I know how to "close" the app is to hit the menu button, but that seems to leave the app open. I'm assuming that more open apps cause the battery to drain quicker. I know I can double tap the home button and close each one out one by one, but that is somewhat cumbersome.

4 - Do more installed apps drain the battery quicker? I went overboard installing apps, and if it drains the battery quicker, I'll uninstall some.

5 - Dim the screen quicker: Is there a way to adjust when the screen dims after being idle? My phone's screen stays lit for two minutes then the autolock kicks in. I'm trying to maximize the battery life...

6 - Do applications that are set to push notifications drain more battery life even though they aren't pushing notifications? In other words, I have some apps that are set to push notifications (Chase app, ESPN, etc). Even though I haven't received any pushing notifications, is turning them on draining more battery life?

Thanks in advanced

 

[Darth-gamer]

1. Yes. Set up the e-mail accounts you don't want to push as regular IMAP e-mail accounts.
2. No idea.
3. Open apps don't drain battery. Only their state is saved.
4. No.
5. You could just manually turn the screen off by pressing the lock button...
6. Yes, but a negligible amount.

 

[Jf15]

I came over from a BB too which I relied heavy on for outside work emails and I am still very happy with the iphone4. It has a different way of doing things. You just need to get use to it.

 

[big9erfan]

Dealing with your issues one at a time:
1 - you can set Accounts to not push as was mentioned above

2 - I believe there's a jailbreak app for that but I've never found tapping through a dozen emails that cumbersome.

3 - depends on what apps are open in the background. Are they streaming music or gps data? Then yes, otherwise they are just Savin their last state in ram. There is also a cydia app called switcherplus that makes closing background processes a breeze.

4 - been answered

5 - settings ->general ->auto lock : you can set it down to one minute.

 

[sting7k]

I'm a former BB Curve 8330 user and moving to an iPhone has been both a delight and also an annoyance. 90% of the annoyance has to do with emails and notifications, since it's not nearly as robust as the BB. I've had the phone for a couple of days and was wondering if the following can be done either natively or with apps/cydia apps:

1 - Individually set email accounts to push/pull. Since I get tons of emails all day long via my work Exchange account and push email drains the battery, I would like to pull my work emails (mainly at night) but want to keep my gmail accounts pushed.

2- Marked all as read emails. If I blasted with many work emails, they are pushed to my phone and I have to go through each one and mark as read.

3 - Quick reboot to close all apps open. I'm not sure if I'm doing this right, but when I'm in an app, the only way I know how to "close" the app is to hit the menu button, but that seems to leave the app open. I'm assuming that more open apps cause the battery to drain quicker. I know I can double tap the home button and close each one out one by one, but that is somewhat cumbersome.

4 - Do more installed apps drain the battery quicker? I went overboard installing apps, and if it drains the battery quicker, I'll uninstall some.

5 - Dim the screen quicker: Is there a way to adjust when the screen dims after being idle? My phone's screen stays lit for two minutes then the autolock kicks in. I'm trying to maximize the battery life...

6 - Do applications that are set to push notifications drain more battery life even though they aren't pushing notifications? In other words, I have some apps that are set to push notifications (Chase app, ESPN, etc). Even though I haven't received any pushing notifications, is turning them on draining more battery life?

Thanks in advanced

1. Go to settings -> mail, contacts, calenders -> fetch new data -> advanced and you can set accounts to push or fetch (pull).

2. Jailbreak

3. Apps you open and then close are not running in the background. Apps can only do a few things in the background such as audio and GPS navigation. They do not contiune to run, they stored in RAM at the place you last used them. After you open more if the system runs low on RAM the OS will automatically purge apps from RAM to keep things running smoothly.

4. As per number 3 since apps are not running the background they do not consume battery or use CPU resources.

5. [Edit] One minute is the lowest setting for auto-lock. You can manually lock of course any time with the sleep/wake button. The auto-lock is more just if you forget.

6. Anything push will use battery life. However that small data connection to Apple's servers is a great way to maximize battery life and still get information fast and seemlessly. It doesn't crush the battery but if you do some tests with it on and off you will see a small hit to the battery.

It's great to maximize battery but you aren't going to get BB battery life out of the iPhone unless you don't use any of it's fun features. Making it through the day should be considered victory IMO and charge every night.

 

[shimojunk]

Thanks all. I jailbroke my phone and installed some very useful apps like the SBSettings app, MyProfiles (this one is the reason I broke it, for sound profiles). Definitely the iPhone's notification and email system can use some work and although the iP4 doesn't offer true multitasking, it's probably for the better in regards to battery life and performance.

 

[takeshi]

Individually set email accounts to push/pull. Since I get tons of emails all day long via my work Exchange account and push email drains the battery, I would like to pull my work emails (mainly at night) but want to keep my gmail accounts pushed.

You have it backwards. Pull drains the battery unless you have very long polling intervals.