How to Maximise Your iPhone’s Battery Health

Batteries don’t last forever and that can become quite a problem for something like an iPhone. iPhone batteries are notoriously difficult to replace and battery health can impact a number of things, including your phone’s performance.

To provide more insight into your phone’s battery life, Apple has a number of tools you can access with the touch of a button.

How to check your iPhone’s battery health

The key to maximising your iPhone’s battery life is to understand it. Luckily, finding out your iPhone’s battery health is pretty simple.

Make sure your iPhone is running iOS 11.3 or later. Then in the Settings menu of your iPhone go to the Battery tab and select Battery Health.

Once there, a bunch of different information is at your disposal.

You’ll be able to see your iPhone’s maximum battery capacity and enable optimised battery charging. You can also tell whether your iPhone’s battery is running at peak performance or not.

Obviously, the closer to 100% you are the better off your battery is. Apple warns that a lower capacity may result in fewer usage hours between charges.

Why pay attention to battery health?

You may have heard those rumours that Apple slows down older iPhone’s as new ones come out in order to make more bank. This isn’t entirely true, however, Apple does implement performance management features on iPhones with degrading batteries.

If your battery hits under 80% Apple may automatically implement management features that slow your phone’s performance in order to avoid unexpected shutdowns.

Apple will warn that your battery is “significantly degraded” in the Battery Health menu and that performance management has been applied. You might see some differences such as longer app launch times, slower scrolling, slower apps and backlight dimming that point to this feature being enabled.

You can manually disable this in the Battery Health menu. If you wish to re-enable it you’ll have to wait for your iPhone to experience a shutdown, whereby Apple will automatically enable it again.

Apple says a normal battery is designed to retain 80% of its original capacity at 500 complete charge cycles, under normal conditions.

If your battery drops below 80% capacity Apple will prompt you to take it to an authorised server for a replacement. Be aware that battery defects are only covered fully by Apple in the first year of warranty. After that, you’ll have to fork out for a service yourself.

You can learn more about Apple’s different battery messages here.

How to make your battery last longer

Here’s a couple of suggestions from Apple for extending your iPhone’s battery life.

• Turn on Auto-Brightness. Go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Display Accommodations.
• Enable Low Power mode. This will inhibit apps like Mail or iCloud sync continually downloading content in the background.
• Modify which apps can run in the background. Go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh. You can choose which individual apps are allowed to refresh or turn the feature off entirely. To get a better idea of which apps are eating your battery check out the Battery tab in Settings for a performance breakdown.
• Keep your device up to date with the latest software.
• Remove certain cases before charging. If you notice your iPhone gets unusually warm while charging it could be due to the excess heat generated by charging through certain cases. On these occasions, it’s best to remove your case before charging.
• Use Wi-Fi when you can. Wi-Fi connections use less energy than cellular so connect to Wi-Fi where you have the option.
• Turn off Location Services. Go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services and switch it off entirely or for the apps you choose.
• If you’re in a low or no-signal area switch to Aeroplane Mode to conserve battery.

May your battery live long and prosper!