- Let's talk about some iPhone settings to turn off.
Now we've got some new iOS 15 settings,
as well as some older iPhone settings
that have a way of getting turned back on
after those major iOS update.
- It's sneaky. - Sneaky settings.
Those are the ones that they want you to have on,
but we tell you to turn them off.
Let's dive in. What's the first one?
- The first one, the big one
"allow apps to ask to track."
- Huge! Facebook hates this thing.
- They hate it so much they bought full-page ads
in The Washington Post, The New York Times,
all sorts of news.
This is crazy.
- So, let's open the settings app,
scroll down,
and tap "privacy"
and then tap on "tracking."
"Allow apps to request to track."
Do you want to allow certain apps
to track you as you use other apps
or visit websites in your iPhone?
- Right. Crazy.
- Probably not. - Yeah. No, of course not.
Why do they want to track you?
So they can gather personality data about you.
What you like, things you're interested in
so that companies like Facebook
can sell advertising to you.
- [Ron Weasley] That's mental!
- What do you do?
Turn off the switch at the top of the screen
next to "allow apps to request to track."
Now they can't track you at all.
And you'll see if you had any apps previously,
if you gave them permission before,
it'll say, "allow apps that continue tracking"
or "ask apps to stop tracking."
You want to tap "ask apps to stop tracking."
See you later, Reddit.
Nice try. - Yep, try to track me now
across multiple apps and websites.
You don't need to know how to do that.
What's the next one?
- Yep, next we'll go back to the main page
of "Privacy" in Settings
and tap on "location services" at the top of the screen.
Here, you'll see a list of all your apps
and what you really wanna look out for
is the word "always."
- "Always" means that that app is allowed to track you,
your GPS location, all the time.
So that is a big battery drainer and a big no-no.
- Yeah, "while using,"
generally okay. - Yep.
"Never," they don't use location at all.
- Yeah. - Exactly.
"While using" is the safe one.
- So, scrolling down, we have an "always" here.
It is SEFCU. It is my credit union.
Do they need access to my location all the time?
No. - No.
Is this nefarious? No.
- No. I think, you know,
the SEFCU app designers
may not have been the best.
- Yeah. Small town bank,
small town app developers.
- Yeah, so tap on that app.
And then this is, anything else,
I mean, for SEFCU, really?
The answer is probably "never" for me.
- Yeah, why does your bank need to do that?
- I mean, ATM locations is one thing.
- Right? If you were to use that app,
but then you can just always come back in here
and turn stuff back on.
This is not gonna break an app.
- So really,
really just look out for "always,"
those are the bad ones, the big battery trimmers.
- The big bad, yep.
- So we tap back to "location services"
and scroll down here.
Next up, we're gonna tap on "system services."
- Oh my gosh. - We've got
a lot of switches turned on here
and we wanna turn off most of them.
- Right, real quick,
a solid purple arrow means
it's tracking your location now.
Gray means it's tracked your location
in the last 24 hours.
Hollow purple arrow, geo-fencing,
checking to see whether you're entering a certain area
or leaving a certain area to give you alerts or whatever.
Geo-fencing, huge battery drainer.
- Yep, so the main ones that we recommend leaving on
are emergency calls and SOS,
Find My iPhone, and networking,
and wireless
Compass calibration, who uses the compass?
- Even if you do use the compass,
I mean a GPS, whatever.
Even if you do,
it's still gonna work.
This is just calibration.
- Setting time zone.
- Unless you're going through different times zones.
Like, David just was recently.
- Yeah, I had it off and I turned it on
and then the timezone got changed.
- Yeah, that's what you do.
- Then I turn the switch back off again, really cool.
And then, so down here we have "wifi calling."
We've got some comments,
"If I turn off this switch,
will wifi calling stop working?"
No. - No, not at all.
- Almost certainly not. - No, certainly not.
What it is, is that there are certain settings
for wifi calling that have to change
based on what country you're in.
So if you're going to a different country,
you might wanna turn this on
because then it'll change
a couple of configuration things automatically,
but, just leave it off.
- Yep! Down here, you'll see "Significant Locations."
Tap right on that.
I gotta do face ID.
I have no locations here.
I just turned this on for the purposes of this video.
But if you had this setting on,
you probably see a long list of places you've been recently.
It's weird and it's a battery drainer.
- Absolutely. How do we turn it off, David?
- Well, you just tap that switch, sir,
"significant locations,"
then tap "turn off."
Done. - Right, okay, done.
- Saves the battery, no weird lists.
- Back to- - Back to "system services"
and we're gonna come down here
under "product improvement,"
"iPhone analytics,"
No. - Right.
Routing and traffic? - No.
Improve maps? Lost cause.
- Lost cause. Apple's, Apple's, yeah.
- So there's just no chance.
- Yep. - Why even turn it on?
- We did it.
We made it through the "location services" settings.
However, there are a couple more privacy settings
we need to turn off.
So tap back, upper left-hand corner of the screen,
then tap "privacy" and scroll down
to analytics and improvements.
All these switches? Turn 'em off.
- Turn them off, but turn off the top one first,
because a lot of the time
that will get rid of the other switches completely.
- There you go, you have battery drainer
and it can use a little bit of cellular data, too,
sending this information to Apple.
- Right, and if you're, you know, thinking,
"Oh, how much could it be?"
Just look in the analytics data.
There's a lot of data that's been getting sent.
I mean, tons of these things, these files can be,
- Oh, I just closed Settings. - Oh dear.
Yep. - Aggressive swiping.
That's all right. You'd have to be aggressive.
You're not even halfway there.
- I think you get the point. - Yep.
There's a lot of stuff in there.
Let's tap back to the privacy page one more time.
Tap on "Apple Advertising"
then turn off the switch next to personalized ads.
It says that by turning this off,
you won't reduce the number of ads you receive.
That might not necessarily be true.
The less information advertisers have about you,
the less valuable you are,
the less likely they'll send you an ad.
- Right, because every time you see an ad,
there was a bidding war for you specifically
based on your interests.
And as David said, if they don't know about you,
they can't bid for you.
- Yep, one more quick privacy setting.
Let's tap back, upper left-hand corner of the screen,
tap on "Research Sensor & Usage Data,"
and then let's turn off
this "Sensor & Usage Data Collection."
Bit of a battery drainer,
kinda like those iPhone analytics system,
different section of the settings app.
- Indeed, yep, so, is that it?
- That's it for privacy.
Hold on, we have so many more settings.
Before we do, if you've enjoyed this video so far,
please subscribe.
Please give this video a thumbs up.
- Give us a like, give us a like.
- Give us a like.
- [Smeagol] (heavy breathing) Give it to us.
- [Brown-Haired David] Let's go back to the main page
of the settings app,
scroll down and tap "Mail."
Quick detour, new iOS 15 setting,
"Privacy Protection," tap on that.
Just make sure the switch is on.
I know this is a "turn off" video.
This switch, turn it on.
- Right. - Make sure it's on,
it's on by default. - Very cool.
- Tap back to mail.
Then tap on "Accounts."
Then tap "Fetch New Data."
- Turn off "push" at the top.
With push mail, your iPhone maintains
a constant connection to your email server.
And so it's basically saying,
"Is there mail? Is there mail?
Is there mail? Is there mail?"
And with "fetch,"
you get to choose how often your iPhone checks
to see if there's new mail.
So for most people, every 30 minutes is totally fine.
- We should also say that
anytime you open up a mail app,
it'll fetch that new mail for you.
- Right, so you're not even gonna notice a difference-
- not gonna notice a difference at all.
- except in your battery life.
- Yeah, much improved. - Yep,
This one has a way of turning itself back on, too,
especially with push.
So the way that David has the setup with iCloud on push,
Absolutely perfect.
Turn the other ones to fetch,
absolutely perfect.
- Our next setting is for 5G iPhones only.
So if you don't have a 5G iPhone,
timestamp's in the description,
just skip right to the next step,
but we've got an iPhone 12.
- Maybe they're interested because they're about to get one.
- Might get an iPhone 13 soon.
So might be good for you. - Yep, there ya go.
- Tap on "Settings." - Okay.
- Tap on your name at the top of the screen.
Tap on "iCloud,"
tap on "iCloud Backup"
and look for that "Backup Over Cellular" switch.
I don't know who at Apple had this idea.
- It's really bad. - Yeah, it's a terrible idea.
Yeah, so iCloud backup works every night,
connected to wifi, your iPhone's plugged in,
the screen's off, it'll back up to iCloud.
But, for some reason, they wanna be able to do it over 5G
which is just gonna burn through your cellular data plan.
Even unlimited data plans have high-speed data caps.
So why do we need to do this over 5G?
- You don't. - It makes no sense.
- Turn that switch right off. - Turn it off.
Unless you, you know, I mean,
this may cause you to exceed your cellular data plan
- They're telling you.
- Apple's telling you right there,
yeah, it's stupid. - It's unbelievable.
Unbelievable.
So this one's for all iPhone users, similarly, iCloud,
let's go back to the main page of the settings app,
scroll up,
and tap on cellular.
Then scroll all the way down to the very bottom.
I have a lot of apps.
Turn off this switch next to iCloud Drive.
"When not connected to wifi,
your iPhone will use your cellular network
to transfer documents and data."
That can use a whole ton of your data.
- Yeah. Especially if you're using iCloud drive.
Just, I mean, it's not like the stuff's gonna disappear.
It's just gonna be on your phone
until you connect to wifi later that day.
- [Brown-Haired David] Turn that switch right off.
- Turn it off. It's a no-brainer.
Did we ask you to like the video earlier?
Well, if you gave us a like,
then you can give us a subscribe
We would really appreciate it.
- Lovely.
- See how we asked for something small first
and now we're asking for something just a little bit more.
- Let's go back to the main page of the settings app again.
Let's talk about photos.
This is a setting that we don't talk about often enough.
And I don't think anyone really talks about this setting
all that much. - They don't.
- [Brown-Haired David] Photos.
We're going to tap on cellular data
and make sure this switch is off.
"Turn off cellular data to restrict updates to wifi,
including shared albums and iCloud photos."
- Right. So you're taking photos.
You're taking videos.
These are giant files.
I mean, we're talking, like,
hundreds of megabytes per minute here with videos.
And then your iPhone is gonna use
your entire cellular data plan
uploading them to iCloud photos
instead of just waiting
until you're on wifi later then, later that day.
- [Spongebob Narrator] Twelve seconds later.
- And really be careful about unlimited updates too.
If you think cellular data is bad,
unlimited updates, a lot worse.
- [Blonde David] Terrible. I mean, Apple is saying,
"this may cause you to exceed your cellular data plan."
I think that Verizon went to Apple and they were like,
"Hey guys, can you do us a solid and build in some features
that are gonna use our customers' data plans instantly
- Collusion. - Yep.
- Possibly.
("dun dun dun" suspenseful audio)
who knows?
So, back to the main page of the settings app.
We're gonna tap on a "Safari."
You gotta scroll up to get there.
Safari.
"Preload top Hit"
- Sounds innocuous. What does that mean?
- Well, it's gonna load the data on that first top hit,
Google search number one ranking.
- You're on a webpage,
and then it's gonna be loading another webpage
assuming that you're gonna go to that webpage next.
- That page is full of photos, potentially videos.
- It's just downloading it.
- It's gonna use a bit, a little bit of cellular data,
if you're not already.
- It's gonna use battery, cellular data.
People used to leave comments,
"Would the blonde guy
please stop interrupting the dark-haired guy?"
I'll stop.
- Turn off that "Preload Top Hit" switch,
then come down,
I'm pretty sure this is a new iOS 15 setting.
It's "Close Tabs."
Now, if you're like me,
you are a serial tab leave-opener, right?
You leave a lot of tabs open, right?
- Preserver. - Right.
I checked earlier today, I had 25 tabs open.
There were like, you know,
12 of them were ESPN, all on the same page
'cause I didn't just go back and close the tab.
- Right?
So, manually do it yourself, you get out of control tab.
- You got tabs for years. - Tabs for years.
- One month, I'm gonna set that to one month.
Any of these options, it'll close your tabs automatically.
It might actually speed up your iPhone, too,
'cause you got all these tabs open in Safari
in the background, you know, you got a thousand tabs open.
It's gonna start to slow down.
- Yeah, or like my mom with 400 tabs open.
I showed her how to do it, though,
and now she's on top of it.
- All over it. - All over it.
- Let's talk about a classic battery-saving tip.
Background App Refresh - Background App Refresh
- To get there, tap "Safari"
upper left-hand corner of the screen.
Tap back to Settings,
scroll up,
and tap on "General"
then tap "Background App Refresh."
First thing, top of the screen,
tap on "Background App Refresh,"
make sure that wifi is selected.
Again, if wifi and cellular data is selected,
it's gonna use your data.
- Yeah, Background App Refresh allows apps
to download new content in the background of your iPhone,
even when you're not using them.
So if you turn this off for an app like ESPN,
you're, it's not gonna download
the sports scores automatically.
But, it will as soon as you open the app.
So you're not really gonna see a difference.
This is like a tiny little difference,
but it can save you a lot of data.
- There are apps where you might want this,
you know, messaging apps especially,
you want those messages to be there
when you open up the app.
So to scroll through this list of apps,
which apps do I want to download new content
in the background of my iPhone?
How about the Ballpark app?
Not a chance. - Not a chance.
- How about eBay? Really? - eBay?
- eBay? No. - Nah.
Yeah, Facebook, - Facebook.
- Maybe Facebook is a yes,
but I don't know how much data,
I would just not.
- Thanks for watching this video.
Those are some iPhone 15 settings to turn off.
Now, give this video a thumbs up.
- This is our last one?
It was over before it began.
- Yeah. - Wow.
- If you enjoyed this video,
you'll really enjoy our iOS 15 settings to turn on now.
- Where we go through all the same settings and turn them,
no, they're different settings.
- They're very different.
There's actually one that's the same.
- Right, but we mentioned that.
- We mentioned that, yeah.
- Thanks for watching. Please join this channel.
We'd would really appreciate that as well.
- Thanks.