Some smartphone owners found the new software makes their battery run down more quickly. Here are a few straightforward tweaks which will save you a bit of energy and make your gadget last longer
THE release of a new operating system for Apple iPhone and iPad is sometimes a bittersweet moment for Apple gadget owners.
Yes, it's brilliant to have all the new features of iOS 11 - but now software often means that battery life is reduced.
Since rolling out the official version of iOS 11 last month to coincide with the release of the iPhone 8, some Apple fans have reported a frustrating dip in the length of their battery life.
A study of 50,000 moderate to heavy iPhone and iPad users carried out after the new iOS was launched found the average battery used to go for 240 minutes on iOS 10 but plunged to just 96 minutes with iOS 11.
Apple moved quickly to address the battery concerns and released two new updates to iOS 11, which appear to have solved the problem for many people.
But if you're still suffering from battery problems - or just want a bit more Apple juice in your smartphone - there are some simple steps you can take to avoid putting too much strain on the battery.
Here are some tips on how to boost battery life if you're using iOS 11.
The most obvious and simple solution is to turn on Low Power Mode.
Your phone will automatically suggest you use this mode when your battery drops below 20 percent but you can switch it on in the Settings under the Battery category to conserve some mobile juice when needed.
The mode turns down the display brightness, reduces the time for auto-lock to kick in and disables various features like background app refresh and automatic downloads.
If you’re not that keen on Siri being at your beck and call every second, you can turn stop the digital assistant from constantly listening to you.
You can still use Siri by holding the home button, but she (or he) just won’t be listening out for you to say “Hey Siri” to engage.
You can turn the feature off by going to Settings, then Siri & Search, then turn off Listen for “Hey Siri”.
This feature is for people who have difficulty touching the screen and is designed to assist with your finger dexterity when doing gestures like pinch or multi-finger swipe on the touchscreen.
If you happen to have it turned on, it will contribute to draining your phone’s battery so to switch it off, go to Settings > General > Accessibility > AssistiveTouch.
If you’re not desperately waiting on an e-mail from your boss, you can stop your phone from constantly searching for new messages dropping into your inbox. Instead, it will only refresh to look for new emails when you open the app.
You can also change it from automatically fetching data to doing so every 30 minutes of every hour.
To toggle with this feature go to Settings > Accounts & passwords > Fetch New Data.
You can also stop your phone from working to refresh the data on all your apps as well. Even if you’re not worried about chewing the battery, this is a good thing to do for those trying to be less distracted by their smartphone by limiting which apps are able to refresh themselves in the background.
Go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh and there you can choose which apps you want to stop from constantly updating in the background.
