Battery Life: The dilemma of a 3G iPhone owner
A short and glorious life, or a long and dull one?
Owners of the new 3G iPhone face the same dilemma put to the Greek hero Achilles by the gods of Olympus. In the end, he chose glory. But iPhone users might take a different view.
The new phone has a more power-hungry chipset. Walt Mossberg is not the only one who has found 
“the battery indicator on the new 3G model slipping below 20% by early afternoon or midafternoon on some days, and it entirely ran out of juice on one day”.
I take and make much fewer calls than he does, and I notice it too.
Apple has published a page of tips to help users manage this Achilles’ heel.
Much of the advice is common sense: reduce the brightness of the screen, minimise or turn off the phone’s “push” features, turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth if you don’t need them, don’t play games on it, and so on.
But three of the suggestions were news to me.
First, you can turn off 3G and still receive calls and data via GPRS and EDGE. Makes sense, but it never occurred to me. You will find the option in the Network section of General Preferences.
Secondly, “applying an equalizer setting to song playback on your iPhone can decrease battery life.” You can switch that off, or set it to “flat” in the phone’s iPod settings.
Lastly, Location Services chews a lot of power. Switching it on only when you need it will prolong the life of your battery.
Finally, it surprised me with its advice on cycling the battery:
For proper maintenance of a lithium-based battery, it’s important to keep the electrons in it moving occasionally. Be sure to go through at least one charge cycle per month (charging the battery to 100% and then completely running it down).
I have always thought—following someone’s sage advice when I was a gullible new Switcher—that it was important never to let the battery level fall too low. Now I know.
Luckily, just like Achilles my iPhone thirsts for a short and glorious life, so there will be no problem getting the battery charge down.
[Via InformationWeek ]
Similar Posts:
- The iPhone: What email client is that?
- What your inbox says about you
- Take Control of Maintaining your Mac
- 9 productivity tips, 6 life tips
- Life2Go 1.6.4: Mail, news, more on your iPod
Tags: 3G, achilles, Apple, apple mail tips, battery life, iphone, Location Services, no Super Monkey Ball for you!, not apple mail
July 14th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
Li-ion batteries need to be drained periodically mostly to recalibrate their charge-measuring electronics. Here’s a site that has almost become canonical when it comes to batteries, with lots of tips and information on the life span of Li-ion cells:
http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm
July 15th, 2008 at 2:03 am
the funny thing is that apple’s power management tips mean pretty much turning off the new features.
July 15th, 2008 at 4:06 am
I’d have to agree that the iPhone’s battery is it’s greatest weakness. For such a versatile device, it really deserves a robust battery that can last for a steady seven hours for playing games, watching videos, listening to music, running GPS and of course, talking. Some aftermarket company should create a longer-lasting iPhone replacement battery even if it costs more money. An iPhone user could really get messed up by not being able to replace the battery on the road.
There was a rumor a few months back that said Apple would put out an iPhone model called the iPhone Pro that was thicker than the standard iPhone 3G in order to accomodate a larger battery. I’d definitely buy that model if I had a choice.
July 15th, 2008 at 5:34 am
[...] (Via Hawk Wings) [...]
July 15th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Oh, but it gets worse – even with all the “goodies” shut down, the battery life is less than staggering. You might get a full day and a bit (if the gods are smiling)…
In addition to some savvy battery wunderkind coming up with a battery that packs double the punch of the standard iPhone fitment (and, no, I don’t care if such a replacement voids my warranty, Mr Jobs!), it would be really cool if some equally savvy iPhone Apps coder could come up with a suite of single-purpose doo-hickies that switched the various “goodies” on and off from the home screen(s). The increasing drudgery of going back and forth to Preferences to switch this or that bit off or back on is starting to wear a bit thin!
And, yet… And, yet, I’m still gob-smacked by the iPhone. It really does do the business. Now even more so that MobileMe is working through its teething troubles (and like a global “cloud” network was going to happen smoothly… ever). This is the gadget (and the associated software) that shift the paradigm. Its nice to be at the start of something groundbreaking. Bring it on!
Oh, and fix the battery!
July 15th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
@Julian—I agree with you. I’m a little gob-smacked by the iPhone too.
The internet is a fickle place. Initial hysteria worthy of the Second Coming is now widely replaced with a slough of despond. I find myself growing into it more and more, despite the atmosphere of skepticism.
July 15th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
This is why I’m so happy staring at turning 50 this year – the fine (oh, alright, crusty) patina of cynicism that comes with age makes it easy to take claims of “Jesus phone” and all the other overheated babble that’s characterised the coming of the iPhone in all forms of media with a boulder of salt.
Which is not to say that I wasn’t caught up in the hysteria – guess where I was on Friday morning last! By the same token, I didn’t burst into tears when I wasn’t first in the queue to get my hands on an iPhone. Yep, watched that happen twice, and one of the tantrum-tossers was a bloke in his 30′s – seriously uncool. If I was really crusty, I’d wander away about now muttering dire imprecations about the younger generations and saying stuff like “Wernt loike dat in moi day”…
Well, it wernt! (mutter, mutter)
August 5th, 2008 at 7:19 am
Here is was REALLY helped my iPhone 3G battery… A LOT! AND I even keep 3G ENABLED!
1) Turn push mail off. Set mail to fetch at 1 hour intervals.
2) Turn WiFi off when not needed.
3) Turn Bluetooth off when not needed.
4) AND… This one is VITALLY IMPORTANT: when you find yourself using GPS, you MUST go into settings and turn Location Services OFF AGAIN! This is a major bug and hopefully Apple fixes it soon. This 4th step is the one that saved me. It meant the different between having my battery drained before lunch – to having it at at about 90% capacity at bedtime!
August 13th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
Firmware 1.1.4 gave me 36 hours of battery life on the original iPhone. I get hardly 16 hours with 2.0.1 firmware. My phone brightness is set low, wifi is off, bluetooth is on. I did notice that location services consumes more battery under 2.0.1.
I hope 2.1 is better.
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:15 am
Is that battery advice really true? Because, with laptops, you should always plug them in as soon as you can, regardless of how far down they are battery-wise, because battery life=charge cycle. (1/2 drain then full then half drain then full = 1 cycle, full drain then full full drain than full = 2 cycles)
November 29th, 2008 at 8:36 am
To save power, under settings, Fetch new datat, change your Push to off, set Fetch to manually.
When you click on the mail button you will get your mail. You will be shocked at your battery savings. Keep your 3G. Bad advice be damned.