Tips on how to save some battery life

[Jeremy]

Just a thought and I'm testing this out now to see if I get better results with the 3g on all day but certain apps like AIM seem to help drain the battery. I've had that on since day one and you can set it where it does not log you out when you close the app. I know it can't run in the background or it's not supposed to... I've seen some major battery drain with the 3g on and I tried turning edge on yesterday with similar battery drain. Today so far I have 3g on but made sure that AIM does not have me logged in. And so far my battery seems to be holding up much better. Just something to think about. Maybe I'm crazy but I'm guessing certain apps might create some stress for battery life.

Anyone have thoughts on this?

 

[abalboa3]

I also noticed that if you have Fetch New Data set to 15 minutes it noticeably drains the battery faster. Down side is that my Gmail doesn't update until I do it. Guess I could set my Gmail to forward to my Me account.

 

[Jeremy]

Something else that I stopped right away was having 2 seperate email accounts set on push. Both yahoo and mobileme were pushing. Last night I changed the yahoo to check once a hour. So that should help improve battery life as well. Forgot about that.


Yeah forwarding would be wise. I'd forward my Yahoo but I'm not paying $20 a year to do that...

 

[Billsteve]

I have like four e-mail accounts all going to my gmail for this and other reasons. these are some good tips, thanks guys.

 

[whmurray]

Battery Life

The battery life on my first iPhone was terrible. Would run down over night. An early firmware update fixed it.

I have a Belkin battery pack that uses for 4 AA cells to charge. Works great on iPod Classic, my iPod 5G, and my first iPhone. Does not work on the 3G.

I have a car charger that works on all the above but not on the 3G. I have a 12V to USB plug. I will try that with the cable that came in the box and let you know how that works.

Update: Did not work. Had to buy a new car charger. It turns out that only Apple USB sources and the PC work. All of the other 12V to USB and 110V to USB dongles that I have do not work.

 

[Libuff]

1st day... 3g ON... mobile me... and a gmail account checking each hour... how do they derrive these numbers?

 

[IrishJK09]

1st day... 3g ON... mobile me... and a gmail account checking each hour... how do they derrive these numbers?

Standby is all the time the phone is OFF the charger and not being actively used. If the phone is in sleep mode, or just sitting on the home screen on your desk, it counts as standby.

Usage is just that, usage. This is time spent actively using the mail app, Safari, talking on the phone, listening to music, watching a movie, etc. (I may be mistaken, but the mail app checking for mail in the background should not count towards this number)

 

[Jeremy]

1st day... 3g ON... mobile me... and a gmail account checking each hour... how do they derrive these numbers?

This is a good idea to post our numbers with a screen shot... see who can get the most out of the battery...

 

[hermdog]

Here is a good article on battery saving tips.

Iphone 3g Battery: How To Maximize Your iPhone 3G's Questionably Adequate Battery Life

 

[whmurray]

Iphone 3g Battery: How To Maximize Your iPhone 3G's Questionably Adequate Battery Life

Good article. Very useful. Auto-lock solves my problem with falling asleep while reading.

 

[Jeremy]

Not too bad... still didn't get the 5 hour mark. I think if I didn't have all that standby time I could of pulled it off. Took this screen shot at 20%.

3g was left on
BT was also on
Mobileme set on push
Some games played, hour or so talk time, some browsing, and a lot of texts.

 

[Snafu#IM]

what are the "location services"? and should i turn it off? its under the general options

 

[Jeremy]

what are the "location services"? and should i turn it off? its under the general options

Location services is when a app uses your gps location within the program. Example... the camera. When you open it it asks for your permission to use your location.

 

[smileyboy]

Nice tips. I will try these out and see how I fair tomorrow.

 

[Libuff]

20% alarm at this point... if i didn't need to go out and conduct some business, i would have let it die and check it...

 

[Jeremy]

20% alarm at this point... if i didn't need to go out and conduct some business, i would have let it die and check it...

Very similar to what I got above. 3g and BT on?

 

[Jeremy]

*If you have a wifi signal around... use it! Wifi uses less power than 3g.
* You can also shut off "location services" in settings / general.

Here is a good article with some battery stats for you guys.

AppleInsider | Apple's iPhone 3G battery good for about 3.5 hours of browsing

Finally managed to get 5 hours out of the phone with 3g on.

 

[mullrat]

I don't have the 3g yet but I was wondering is there a way to turn the GPS chip off? or does it remain off until you start maps? In my old BB8830, GPS would cut battery life in half if I left it on. Also with my iphone 2g, if I turn off wifi, it seems to save battery life a lot. And has anybody done the drain battery to zero and then recharging thing? Something about the chemical nature of the battery.

 

[Jeremy]

Yeah, it only turns on when a app needs it. Whether it's the map app or camera, etc...

 

[marcol]

And has anybody done the drain battery to zero and then recharging thing?

I've done it twice and it was quite surprising, the first time especially where it took well over 90 mins of web browsing (over Wifi) to get from the 10% remaining warning to the point where it shut down (probably closer to 2 hours than 90 mins in fact). Now I certainly don't get between 900 and 1200 mins total browsing time (wish I did!) and this seems to indicate that the battery meter (at least out of the box) is terribly inaccurate. Second time was less extreme - probably an hour browsing (including some YouTube videos) form 10% to switch off.

I read somewhere that one of the reasons for the depletion cycle thing is to calibrate the meter and that certainly makes sense with what I'm seeing now - the meter seems to be going down more slowly since the two depletion cycles. I'll try another one today I think.