An iPhone is about as useful as a rock when it runs out of battery.
So naturally, we all want to get the most out of our iPhones.
And that's what we're going to talk about today, starting with a setting that we all
use every day, Wi-Fi.
When you use your phone to access the internet, Wi-Fi uses less power than cellular data.
Your phone uses more power staying connected to a cellular data network than your home
Wi-Fi.
And that has to do with signal strength.
The weaker the signal, whether it's Wi-Fi or cellular data, the more power your phone
uses staying connected to it.
So having a good Wi-Fi router at home and having strong signal strength everywhere you
use your phone is actually going to help you to save more battery life.
How do you know if you have a good Wi-Fi router?
Well, if you're using the one that came with your internet service plan, you may be paying
a monthly fee.
You don't have to.
And the ones that are included usually aren't that great.
You can go on Amazon and we'll drop some links below and pick up one of these guys,
such as a TP-Link router, for probably less money than you think.
And you'll get better speeds, better battery life all throughout your house.
And speaking of weak signals and battery life, let's head back to Settings, scroll down
to cellular and tap on that.
Then tap cellular data options and tap into voice and data.
I have an iPhone 15 Pro.
I have LTE selected here.
Why?
Because 5G in my area is terrible.
I know it's supposed to be this great thing.
Years ago, we said that 5G was not going to change the way you use your phone at all.
That it was marketing.
And we were right.
Especially where I live, 5G Auto drains my battery much faster than just having LTE on.
And it's slower than LTE because LTE is a built-out network.
It's mature.
5G is still kind of catching up.
And what happens if it doesn't have a good signal, the phone just hops back and forth
between LTE and 5G.
And while it's doing that, you don't have data.
So if I want to listen to music in my car while I'm driving around, I have to have it
on LTE.
Otherwise, I get some of a song and then nothing.
Next up, music.
Everybody loves listening to music on their phone, but is the way you're listening draining
your battery?
Let's find out.
I'll tap back in the upper left-hand corner of the screen, back to cellular, back to Settings.
We're going to scroll down to music.
You guessed it.
Tap on that.
Then we're going to go down here to EQ.
EQ on my phone is turned off because if you have one on, it uses more battery life because
of the audio processing that happens in the background.
Also, the Apple EQs like don't really sound that great.
If you want to be able to EQ the music you're listening to, I suggest maybe using headphones
like the Sony XM5s.
Hashtag not sponsored, but they're great headphones and there's a really good EQ built into the
Sony app.
We'll still drop a link in the description below so that you can get them yourself.
And speaking of sound, let's buzz on over to sounds and haptics.
Tap back to Settings and an aggressive swipe to the top will get you all the way up here
to sounds and haptics.
Tap on that.
And then let's start with haptics under ringtone and alerts.
I'll tap on that.
Right now it says don't play in silent mode because haptics, what are we talking about?
Vibrate.
They call it haptics now.
It's fancier.
I choose don't play in silent mode.
You can choose to play it in silent mode if you want to, but just know that it's not
actually silent.
Tap back to sounds and haptics and now to the important battery ones.
We're going to scroll down here to system sounds and haptics.
Most important one, keyboard feedback.
Tap in there.
A lot of people like the clicks for sound.
It's awful.
It's going to drain your battery.
Also, I hate it.
So just turn it off.
Also, haptic.
Even Apple admits that having haptic turned on for your keyboard will drain your battery
faster.
Makes sense.
It's going (buzzing sounds).
You don't need that.
Zach, our editor, just informed me that he has it on, which speaks to the point that
even if I recommend you turn something off, it's your phone.
If you don't mind losing a little bit of battery life because you love this feature,
just leave it on.
I won't take it personally, I promise.
Next up, an oldie but importantie, background app refresh.
Tap back, and then back to Settings and scroll down here to general and tap on that.
And then tap on background app refresh.
Background app refresh allows apps to check for new data in the background, even when
you're not using them.
So it's refreshing the apps in the background, where the name comes from, I suppose.
Let's tap in here to the top setting, which on my phone just says Wi-Fi.
Why not Wi-Fi and cellular data?
Same reason as before, it's going to save battery life if you're doing this downloading
on Wi-Fi.
But then, we'll tap back and go through our list of apps here.
And as you go through, ask yourself, does this app need to be able to download new content
in the background of your phone, even when you're not using it?
And if the answer to that question is no, like for me, the Major League Ballpark app
or Best Buy, then just turn it off.
Each one you turn off here is a little win for your battery life.
Next up, display brightness.
Seems obvious, but there's a little more detail in here than you may be anticipating.
Tap back to general in the upper left-hand corner of the screen and back to Settings.
And then tap on accessibility, which is a few below general.
Tap right there and then tap on display and text size and aggressively swipe all the way
to the bottom.
Auto brightness.
A lot of people think that having your screen brightness set too high drains your battery.
And all those people are correct.
It does.
Even Apple says right here, turning off auto brightness may affect battery life and long-term
display performance.
When they say affect, they don't mean positively.
So let's keep auto brightness turned on.
Level two, reduce white point.
Let's tap the switch to turn it on.
This reduces the intensity of the brightest whites on your iPhone or the most battery-draining
colors on your iPhone.
And if you drag this slider to the right, it gets really dark.
Maybe good for reading in bed.
If you drag it all the way to the left, it gets a little bit darker.
You might not notice a difference.
If you're really trying to maximize battery life, give this a try.
I'm going to turn it off though for right now.
But there's a level three to auto brightness.
It's called dark mode.
Let's head back to the main page of Settings and then scroll up to display and brightness.
Tap on that.
And we're going to change from light to dark.
If you have a newer iPhone with a screen that supports localized dimming, like any of the
14s or 15s, but not the iPhone SE 3 on that phone, then having dark mode turned on is
going to save your battery life.
Next up, time for the controversy, close out your apps.
I know people say you should never have to do it and they're correct.
If everything worked perfectly all the time on iPhones, well, then we wouldn't even have
to have this conversation about your battery life because it would just be the same for
everybody's phone.
But that's not the world we live in, people.
So swipe up from the very bottom of the screen with your finger, hold your finger there for
a second until the app switcher appears.
Then you can swipe the apps that you're not using.
Look at that.
Fit Index, 202.
Down from 235, people.
Got a long way to go, but we're getting there.
If I want to close this app, I'll just swipe it right off the top of the screen.
You don't have to be crazy about it and do it every time you use an app, but I do this
once every day or two.
I'm going to turn light mode back on on my phone, just so it's consistent throughout
the video.
Let's tap back to Settings and I would like to notify you about notifications.
Let's tap in there and then tap into scheduled summary.
Tap on that.
Why are we starting here?
Well, first off, scheduled summary is a really good feature because it reduces distractions
throughout the day.
It also reduces screen wake-ups, the amount of time your screen is on during the day,
aka saving your battery life.
You're less distracted, but also in this apps in summary, you get to see how many notifications
each app is sending you each day.
And when you do get a notification, it's going to drain battery life because your phone is
waking up.
For instance, if I wanted to turn off the Nextdoor apps notifications because I am sick
about hearing people's, you know, pumpkin stories getting smashed, then I can tap back
and then scroll down to Nextdoor because I know it's an offender now.
And then I can also turn off alarm notifications from Nextdoor.
Battery life saved.
Double duty.
Next up, let's turn off your family.
Tap back to notifications, back to Settings.
Scroll all the way to the top and tap on your name at the top of the screen.
Then tap on family sharing and scroll down to location sharing.
Tap on that.
When I was at the PGA Championship with my dad, I wanted to be able to wander off while
he did whatever the heck he was doing.
So I turned on share your location with my dad and then I forgot about it until I started
prepping for this video.
So he's been able to see where I am all the time.
I don't think he probably knows that.
I'm going to turn off dad right here.
Boom.
Sorry, dad.
You're turned off.
Next up, a classic.
Let's talk about location services.
Step back to family, back to Apple ID, back to Settings.
Scroll down.
Go to privacy and security.
Tap on that.
Tap on location services at the top and just turn them all off.
Right?
Wrong.
We don't tell you to turn off location services because they're great.
It's GPS.
No one wants to turn off a big portion of what your phone can do.
Not me, but there are ways you can optimize it.
As you scroll through your list of apps, keep an eye out for anything that says always.
Always is the worst because it means that the app can be used in your location all the
time.
If you do have any always's, tap into that and then change it to either never or while
using the app.
That's the safe bet.
Does Saratoga National Golf Course need to know where I am always?
No.
Step back to location services.
I'm going to assume that, you know, you've done this.
So we're going to go to the bottom.
We're going to talk about system services.
This is where I'm going to pitch the membership because if you want a PDF guide of all the
Settings we're talking about in this video to get the most out of your phone, click the
join button below this video and join the Payette Forward YouTube channel.
Free PDFs, not just for this, but for other videos too, and it helps us out.
So thank you.
Back to system services, and I know your time is valuable, so I'm not going to go into too
much detail here, but the ones to leave on are compass calibration.
If you like the little pointer in Maps apps, like you like to be able to point your phone
a certain direction, that's what you're going to lose.
If you turn this off.
Emergency calls and SOS, it's important.
Find my iPhone, important.
Share my location if you use it.
But other ones like Wi-Fi calling, it sounds like if you turn it off, it's going to like
break your Wi-Fi calling, but no, dude.
Significant locations, turn it off.
The product improvement stuff, turn that off too.
Next, push mail.
Let's tap back in the upper left-hand corner of the screen, back again, back again, and
then tap on mail.
Tap on accounts, tap on fetch new data, and turn off push at the top.
We've talked about this one before.
Why do we keep talking about it?
Because it's super important and it's a battery video.
I feel like I'd be doing you a disservice if I didn't keep talking about it.
When push is on, your iPhone maintains a constant connection to its email server and asks, is
there mail?
Is there mail?
I've said it a hundred times, but I have to say it again.
Push is fine for iCloud.
It's an Apple service.
Push is really bad for Microsoft Exchange email accounts.
Just turn everything to fetch and then choose at the bottom every 15 minutes or every 30
minutes, depending on how important other people think you are.
Next up, to the battery section of Settings.
Tap back to accounts, back to mail, back to Settings, and scroll up to battery here.
And we'll tap on that.
And let's talk about low power mode.
Low power mode is great in a pinch, but you don't want to have to use it all the time.
So you should know where it is.
You should also know that you can access it through control center by swiping down from
the upper right hand corner of the screen and looking for the little battery guy.
And that battery, if it's not there for you, here's how you get it there.
Tap back to Settings, scroll up to control center and tap on that and make sure that
low power mode is in this list.
As you can see, I can take it out of the list and then it'll be down here.
Low power mode, tap plus, and then grab the little handles over here and drag it way up
to the top because it's important.
But you really shouldn't have to use it all the time.
That's the point.
And did I forget to mention the new setting in iOS 17, kind of hidden in about for no
reason?
Stop the video, David.
You forgot to mention that it's only the iPhone 15s where you can go into Settings, general,
about, and look at the number of battery cycles.
So save your comments for other negative things.
Go to general, go to about, and then scroll down.
And we are going to take a look here.
Manufacture date, August, September, first year cycle count 19.
So I'm at 19 cycles through the battery.
Let's remember that.
So if you go back to general, back to Settings, back to battery, and let's take a look here
in battery health and charging, maximum capacity, a hundred percent.
Now that number is not a hundred percent accurate, but if it was something like 95% after only
19 cycles, I would be doing pretty bad.
I would know that something's wrong with the battery.
The way Apple calibrates batteries, it's like the gas gauge in your car, a hundred percent
what they call it is not actually the 100% capacity of the battery because every battery
is a little bit different.
So they kind of pick a number arbitrarily.
And while we're here, let's tap into charging optimization.
This charging optimization section of Settings is brand new in iOS 17.
Optimized battery charging.
Most people should probably just choose that 80% limit.
Why 80%?
Because if you're the type of person that never eats fast food, because you could die
if you have one McDonald's cheeseburger, that's who this setting is for because you really
are just trying to be as healthy as humanly possible.
Next up, let's update your iPhone's software.
Tap back in the upper left-hand corner of the screen, back to battery, back to Settings.
Come up here to general, tap on that, and then tap software update.
You've probably been here before.
Apple releases software updates once every couple of months, usually, unless there's
a security problem.
And software updates frequently contain bug fixes that make your iPhone battery last longer.
So it's always a good idea to keep your iPhone up to date.
Some people are afraid to update their iPhone software because every time Apple releases
an update, there are people who say their iPhone battery got worse.
And the truth is, it did, but it's also normal.
What happens when you update your iPhone is that software is cached in the background
and that takes a day or so.
So the first day of a new update, you're going to have not so great battery life, maybe
even the first couple of days, but you kind of have to wait and see.
Which leads us into our next step, which is restoring your phone.
Now, I don't recommend you do this right away.
Restoring your phone, backing it up to iCloud, it's kind of a process and you won't know
if it's necessary until you continue to use your phone for the next few days.
But if you still have bad battery life, that's a good step to take before you choose whether
or not you want to replace the battery altogether.
If you have an older phone, you could replace your battery at a mom-and-pop shop, really
not worth the Apple cost.
If you have a newer phone, definitely go through Apple.
If you have AppleCare, definitely go through Apple.
And before we move on, your iPhone is kind of like a person in one way at least.
It wants to be at a comfortable temperature.
If it gets too hot, that's actually the worst, probably not the thing to worry about during
the winter.
If it gets too hot, it can actually permanently damage the battery in your iPhone.
So don't leave it in a hot car.
If it gets too cold, however, the battery will drain, but it will come right back to
life when it warms up.
So if you're having bad battery life and you're watching this video from the top of a mountain,
maybe just go to the bottom of the mountain, go to the ski lodge, have some cocoa, you
know, you're going to get battery life back.
We talked about some new Settings, some old ones, but they're still important.
And to get the most out of your phone, check out our next video about the Settings you
should turn off now.
Now.
An iPhone is about as useful as a rock...