How to Improve Battery Life on iOS 8

Apple’s latest software iOS 8 is up and running, and users around the world have updated their favorite devices. Despite the increased battery life on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, individuals are still complaining about their drained battery life. The good news is that sacrificing a few features like sharing your location with friends can save your battery’s life. 

Below are six of the top tricks for iOS 8 that will inject your devices with a battery boost.

1. Hide from Big Brother

Nobody likes to be followed. Location services use a huge amount of data and can drain your battery life. Turning these features off while they aren’t in use gives devices a nice battery boost to keep them going all day long. Go to Settings > Privacy > Location > System Services and turn off the following switches:

-Location-Based iAds

-Share My Location

-Spotlight Suggestions

-Wi-Fi Networking

-Frequent Locations

2. Get Your Hands Off Handoff

Handoff allows users to have continuity when moving between devices. This feature allows individuals to do things like answer a call on their iPad or even look at something on Safari on their Mac and pick up the webpage on their phone. If you don’t use this aspect, turning it off can increase battery life since data doesn’t need to be continuously pushed between devices. Go to Settings > General, and then click on Handoff & Suggested Apps and flip the switch next to it to the Off position.

[Read also: How Much Have Batteries Improved Over Time?]

3. Who Needs Suggestions?

One feature of iOS 8 is that as you move around in the world, the app store recommends apps based on your location. For instance, if you walk into Starbucks, the App Store may recommend you download the coffee shop’s app based on where you are. Because these location services are constantly running on the background of your device, they can drain your battery and are best on the off position. Go to Settings > General, and press on the Handoff & Suggested Apps feature once more. Scroll down to Suggested Apps, and turn My Apps and the App Store on the Off position.

4. Goodbye Motion Control, Hello Vertigo

iOS 8 has a great number of visuals with plenty of zooms, icons and even a few floating graphics. While these look great, they also use a lot of power to run on your display. Putting the motion control feature on a diet can increase your battery’s life. Go to Settings > General > Accessibility, and turn the Reduce Motion feature to the off position. This should not only boost your battery, but also your processing power.

5. Refresh Manually

One of the best battery boosters for iOS 8 is to turn off the apps running in the background. Even when you close your apps, some continue to run on the background of your Apple devices refreshing automatically. Turning this feature off will increase your battery. Simply go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh, and turn off all the apps you don’t mind refreshing manually.

6. Download When You’re Ready

While automatic downloads are mighty convenient, it’s best to live without this little feature. Go to Settings > iTunes & App Store and click on Automatic Downloads. Flipping this switch off will get the app to stop checking in the background for new downloads, and you’ll save quite a bit of your battery.

[Read more: How to Protect and Extend your Gadget’s Battery Life]