How to save your IPhone 4's battery life

Gone are the days when you'd charge your mobile phone and it would last a week (even with heavy usage) - oh how I miss my Alcatel One...

These days, with the latest 'Smart' phones you're lucky to get a days charge, let alone two. How Smart is that? The IPhone 4 was meant to be a step towards fixing this with 20% more battery power than the 3G, 3GS etc but sadly it too (on first impressions) is lacking in the battery life department.

Ok so this blog is all about giving you tips on how to lengthen your IPhone 4's battery life. Some of the tips will apply to earlier models as well as the IPhone 4, but sadly none will apply to androids and definitely not to the Alcatel One.

When I received my IPhone 4 I expected the battery to last significantly longer than my old 3G. It didn't. Happily, after a few hours research I was able to come across enough tips which have enabled me to stretch my battery life from 8 hours standby to almost 72 hours standby. Sounds incredible right? Well here's what I did.

1. Spotlight. First of all I switched off the spotlight search facility. Unless you actually use this function it is pointless and drains your battery like nobodies business! You can find it under settings > general > spotlight search. The literally just unselect each option.

2. Turn off Wi-Fi! Wi-Fi is great if you are at home and want to save on your download usage (and phone bill) but if you are out and about and relying on 3G make sure you've turned off Wi-Fi. If you don't your IPhone will automatically search for connections where ever you go draining your phones life (and causing havoc with your work's internet connection!). To turn off Wi-Fi go to settings again > Wi-Fi then slide the button to the 'off' position.

3. Turn off notifications. Like Wi-Fi notifications will automatically search for updates every now and then, helping to drain your faithful gadget's life, sniff, sniff! Turn it off by going to settings > Notifications > then slide the button to the 'off' position.

4. Turn Off Fetch New Data. So you've got your email's downloading to your iPhone? Very clever! One thing every 15 mins, hour it is checking for your mail and not finding anything (opps) is a further drain on your battery life. Why not change the setting to check manually? Then you can check whenever you feel like it! Setting > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Fetch New Data > Select Manually (bottom of the screen). Turn off the Push option while you are on this page - this also helps your battery life!

5. Brightness. You know you don't need your IPhone's screen to be set the highest most battery draining setting... set it to 50%. You might notice to being with but I can guarantee you soon won't! Also make sure you turn on the auto-brightness setting for those really dark days ;o). Settings > Brightness > Move the button to the centre of the two suns.

6. Vibrate... If you don't need it (it drains you battery ALOT). turn it off and you'll notice a difference. Settings > Sounds > Slide the vibrate button under silent to off. Do the same for the ring section.

7. Bluetooth. Apple's bluetooth facility is a lot to be desired at the best of times... if you're like me this will be off anyway. But if you're lucky enough to have an IPhone 4 with bluetooth that actually works (! - no bitterness from me) then make sure you turn it off when you are not using it. Settings > General > Bluetooth > Slide the button to the off position

8. 3G. This is great for browsing the net but if you don't need to browse the net turn it off and you battery will last ever longer! Settings > General > Network > Enable 3G Slide the button to off

9. Close Down Your Apps Fully! When you close a program make sure you've shut it down completely. Confused? Try double clicking the iphone button twice. See the bar that appears at the bottom of the screen that's full of every single program you have ever run? All of those are draining your IPhone battery! To shut them down completely hold your finger over one until it starts to wiggle and the red minus sign has appeared. Touch the minus sign and that app will shut down. Do this for every single app you don't want open. I tend to go through this process once or twice a day and it really helps to lengthen my battery life.

10. Battery Charge. Finally go through a full battery charge cycle once a month. What does this mean? Simply run down you IPhone 4's battery completely then recharge to 100%! Easy as 3, 3G, 3Gs and 4!

Hope this helps and enjoy those apps!,

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