Save battery.. For those who are not getting enough.

[jptolife]

So I found that you can close the applications whenever you want to do so with the iPhone. The applications (Safari, iPod, Mail, etc.) Do NOT close when you press the home button which causes the battery to run out way faster what it would norally do.

So what you do is, when you are not going to be using an application for some time, you should "force quit it" so it doesn't use that much battery energy. The way you do this is, WHILE in the application press the home button for abour 5 seconds, it will go to the home screen and it will close the application too.

Sorry if this is old news or known already. Hope it helps some people. It worked for me:laugh2:

JP

[justahsquirrel]

So I found that you can close the applications whenever you want to do so with the iPhone. The applications (Safari, iPod, Mail, etc.) Do NOT close when you press the home button which causes the battery to run out way faster what it would norally do.

So what you do is, when you are not going to be using an application for some time, you should "force quit it" so it doesn't use that much battery energy. The way you do this is, WHILE in the application press the home button for abour 5 seconds, it will go to the home screen and it will close the application too.

Sorry if this is old news or known already. Hope it helps some people. It worked for me:laugh2:

JP




how do you know this.? where did u get this intel from?

[veedubcos]

Yea I would like to know this as well... I just tried it in iPod and reopened it and the song that was playing preivously was still pulled up at the same place in the song...i call BS

[Ace4261991]

yes i can confirm that this DOES work
i went into notes typed somthin then pressed home then re opend notes and the stuff i typed was still there. then i went to notes again typed sothing then held the home button for about 8seconds (untill it closes the app) and then re opened it and what i typed had gone away so this indeed does work. great little tip!

yep and it works for the ipod portion because i was lietnin to music and i held home for 8 seconds and it shut off the music

[jptolife]

Well, call it whatever you want. You have to hold the home button until it goes home, did you do that? If you try it in Safari you'll see that when you reopen it loads the page again. Don't say "I call BS" when you are not doing it right and you don't know if is true or not... Jeezzz

[veedubcos]

yes i can confirm that this DOES work
i went into notes typed somthin then pressed home then re opend notes and the stuff i typed was still there. then i went to notes again typed sothing then held the home button for about 6-7 seconds (untill it closes the app) and then re opened it and what i typed had gone away so this indeed does work. great little tip!

so does the phone return to the home screen while holding the button or when you let go?

[kbhark]

Not sure if it works for iPod but definatley for apps like safari, mail, weather, and maps. You can test it out by opening safari, loading a website, then closing it by pressing the home button for about 5 seconds. When you reopen safari it will load the page from the start where as if you dont completely close the app, the page will appear without loading. I have definatley saved battery by using this tip.

[Ace4261991]

so does the phone return to the home screen while holding the button or when you let go?
yepp it does

[HarleyS]

So I found that you can close the applications whenever you want to do so with the iPhone. The applications (Safari, iPod, Mail, etc.) Do NOT close when you press the home button which causes the battery to run out way faster what it would norally do.

So what you do is, when you are not going to be using an application for some time, you should "force quit it" so it doesn't use that much battery energy. The way you do this is, WHILE in the application press the home button for abour 5 seconds, it will go to the home screen and it will close the application too.

Sorry if this is old news or known already. Hope it helps some people. It worked for me:laugh2:

JP

Well I tried this (holding home untill it went to the home screen the letting go). When I re opened ipod and safari they were still on the last page or artist that I left it on. Does that matter? I have been wondering if these apps were closing when you went home. I will continue to try this to see if my battery life is any different even though these apps are still up when i reopen.

[jptolife]

Well I tried this (holding home untill it went to the home screen the letting go). When I re opened ipod and safari they were still on the last page or artist that I left it on. Does that matter? I have been wondering if these apps were closing when you went home. I will continue to try this to see if my battery life is any different even though these apps are still up when i reopen.

If you did it right, Safari should have reloaded the same page you were watching, wheras if you didn't do it right, it would just open Safari on the same page but already loaded.... Did it reload it?

[HarleyS]

If you did it right, Safari should have reloaded the same page you were watching, wheras if you didn't do it right, it would just open Safari on the same page but already loaded.... Did it reload it?

ahhh ok your right. good call. lol

[tharmsen]

Does it close all open apps or does it just close the app you're in?

[Ace4261991]

im pretty sure just the one your in lemme test it right now gimme a sec
oh yeah it does cuz before when i was doing it to other apps it didnt pause my music until i did it to the actual ipod app. so there you go

[jptolife]

Yeah... just the one you have opened.

[tharmsen]

Thanks guys, good info. I already get killer battery life, this should make it even better.

[oriolesfan23]

Sweet. Thanks.

[Hondamaker]

Works for me, thanks!!

[TrippalHealicks]

Ok, nice tip here.

I didn't know this, at all.....
I'll give it a shot today. :)


EDIT: I'm assuming this includes all the other apps, like widgets and stuff?
(Notes, weather, maps, etc..)

This is kinda a pain in the butt...lol
I guess if I know I can't get a charge for a while, it would be a good idea to use this method, though... ;)

[tharmsen]

Ok, nice tip here.

I didn't know this, at all.....
I'll give it a shot today. :)


EDIT: I'm assuming this includes all the other apps, like widgets and stuff?
(Notes, weather, maps, etc..)

This is kinda a pain in the butt...lol
I guess if I know I can't get a charge for a while, it would be a good idea to use this method, though... ;)
Yup! It works for them all.

[sammyb]

Thanks guys, good info. I already get killer battery life, this should make it even better.
What do you do to get a killer battery

[alb0zf1n3st]

Cool Find thanks alot I didnt know that

[adseguy]

who ever confirmed that this worked in the first place. I'm taking this with a grain of salt until someone can prove it.

I doubt sleep mode will care if the apps are OPEN in the background much less if they even running (which they aren't)
:frown:

[jptolife]

who ever confirmed that this worked in the first place. I'm taking this with a grain of salt until someone can prove it.

I doubt sleep mode will care if the apps are OPEN in the background much less if they even running (which they aren't)
:frown:

Did you try it yet? I can confirm it works like other people here who have done it and can say it works too. So why not give it a try and see for yourself.

[zac12345]

I just did it and it worked perfect, Thanks. I closed the browser and music and a movie to. Now I was wondering is there a way to look at running applications so we can check to see what is still running??

[DRabbit]

Did you try it yet? I can confirm it works like other people here who have done it and can say it works too. So why not give it a try and see for yourself.

I personally think it's a load of crap. YES, it does indeed close the applications, but I do not for one second believe it preserves battery life.

The most reasonable way to preserve your battery is to keep WiFi and WiFi auto-connect off when you're not using it, to keep bluetooth off when you're not using it, and to turn your screen brightness down. I'm getting 2 days without charging typically, and have gone as long as 3 days.

And I NEVER use the "hold home" button thingy. It's dumb. LOL

:tounge:

[jptolife]

I personally think it's a load of crap. YES, it does indeed close the applications, but I do not for one second believe it preserves battery life.

The most reasonable way to preserve your battery is to keep WiFi and WiFi auto-connect off when you're not using it, to keep bluetooth off when you're not using it, and to turn your screen brightness down. I'm getting 2 days without charging typically, and have gone as long as 3 days.

And I NEVER use the "hold home" button thingy. It's dumb. LOL

:tounge:

No, actually you are dumb. It makes total sense. It is just like in a computer. When a program is open it still uses memory even if you are not acively using it. The same happens with the iPhone.:tounge:

[emx620]

Also, people probably know this, but turning Wi-Fi off unless you are using it is a BIG battery saver.

[DRabbit]

No, actually you are dumb. It makes total sense. It is just like in a computer. When a program is open it still uses memory even if you are not acively using it. The same happens with the iPhone.:tounge:

Funny, I never called YOU dumb, just this method to "save battery life".

Go and start loading a webpage (do a busy one with lots to load, like CNN.com) and then, while it's still loading, go back to the home screen (the normal way). When you open Safari back up, you'll notice it didn't load the page in the background at all... it stopped running when you went back home. It picks back up when you go back into Safari. It's most noticeable when you use EDGE (since WiFi is so fast you might not realize it).

Just because you think it's "open" doesn't mean it's using significant enough resources to eat up battery life. I personally don't think it's using enough resources to impact battery life in any substantial way.

The proof is in the pudding honestly. Like I said, I NEVER use the "hold to close" method suggested here, and I'm going 2 and 3 days without charging.

[jptolife]

I'm not even gonna bother anymore in talking to you... some people are just stuck and I'm not gonna be the one struggling with you. I'm happy that some people got it to work and believe it does, that's enough for me. Thanks

[DRabbit]

I'm not even gonna bother anymore in talking to you... some people are just stuck and I'm not gonna be the one struggling with you. I'm happy that some people got it to work and believe it does, that's enough for me. Thanks

LOL, okay.

[zac12345]

OK I know I said I did it and it worked but now I'm back to being unsure again. So more testing is needed. BUT I still would like to know if on our iPhones is there a way to see what programs are running like you can do on other phones.

[Spin This!]

When a program is open it still uses memory even if you are not ac[t]ively using it.
Not entirely. Using memory and wasting processor cycles are two separate issues. [Mac] OS X uses a scheme called Virtual Memory. Any memory it can't map to physical memory, it dumps off into a swap file on the hard drive (or in the iPhone's case, the Flash memory). So when you switch applications it just reloads the memory from the hard drive's cache, letting you bounce back to where you were before.

afaik, ram and the iphone's flash-based memory use the same amount of power whether something is being stored or not. If this force-quitting theory was true, you'd get worse and worse battery life as the drive was being more filled with files. That obviously can't be true in practice. On a hard drive based model, this is somewhat true, as you have to physically move to more parts of the drive to access the files that are stored on the outer ring of the drive. But I'd wager it's negligible.

Quitting and relaunching an application is a pretty cpu intensive process because it also has to potentially load in any shared libraries as well.

On the iPhone, it also looks like the applications relaunch themselves after being force quit, because they immediately activate to being launched. This fits the device's paradigm of "you don't quit and launch applications, you just switch to them."

[sixkilla22]

Cool this does work.

[jptolife]

Not entirely. Using memory and wasting processor cycles are two separate issues. [Mac] OS X uses a scheme called Virtual Memory. Any memory it can't map to physical memory, it dumps off into a swap file on the hard drive (or in the iPhone's case, the Flash memory). So when you switch applications it just reloads the memory from the hard drive's cache, letting you bounce back to where you were before.

afaik, ram and the iphone's flash-based memory use the same amount of power whether something is being stored or not. If this force-quitting theory was true, you'd get worse and worse battery life as the drive was being more filled with files. That obviously can't be true in practice. On a hard drive based model, this is somewhat true, as you have to physically move to more parts of the drive to access the files that are stored on the outer ring of the drive. But I'd wager it's negligible.

Quitting and relaunching an application is a pretty cpu intensive process because it also has to potentially load in any shared libraries as well.

On the iPhone, it also looks like the applications relaunch themselves after being force quit, because they immediately activate to being launched. This fits the device's paradigm of "you don't quit and launch applications, you just switch to them."

You are not supposed to "force quit it" every time you are gonna close it, just when you are not going to use it for a while.

[DRabbit]

You are not supposed to "force quit it" every time you are gonna close it, just when you are not going to use it for a while.

Still think it's ridiculous, but I know you're not going to waste your time arguing with me about it - LOL - "force quit" is for when an application freezes. There is no reason to force quit when you're not going to use that application for a while... the power it would be consuming is negligible.

If your theory were true, as Spin This agrees, you'd get worse and worse performance as time wore on... which isn't the case at all.

[Austinsdc]

I wondered about this issue as well. Anyone know what the manual says about it?

[DRabbit]

I wondered about this issue as well. Anyone know what the manual says about it?

I don't know what the manual says, but Apple's site refers to "force quitting" (by holding the home button for more than 5 seconds) when an application freezes.

[jptolife]

If you wanna use it, you use it. If it doesn't work for you then too bad. I know I have almost doubled my battery life. I used to need to charge it every day (Heavy user) and after using this the last time I charged was yesterday morning and I still have little less than half left. I just thought I'd let people know about it but even people who think "It's ridiculous" are here... I guess wasting their time since they don't think it works.

That's it for me folks. Peace:smile:

[TrippalHealicks]

If your theory were true, as Spin This agrees, you'd get worse and worse performance as time wore on... which isn't the case at all.


This is what I thought......that's why I thought it sounded a little funny.

[HarleyS]

Well up untill today (when i started trying this) I was using about 80% of my battery by the time I went to bed at night. I have been trying this all day and still have a full bar. By now i would have atleast gone through 50% or more.

[direktor]

Force quitting apps all the time will eventually create corrupt preference files. When an app closes normally (or in the case of the iPhone, the app is switched to the background), it would write info back to it's caches and preference files. If you force quit it every time, it would never have a chance to do this, and eventually the state of the caches/preferences will not match the actual state of the app and you will get crashes.

Doing this constantly is a recipe for an unstable phone.

[jptolife]

Force quitting apps all the time will eventually create corrupt preference files. When an app closes normally (or in the case of the iPhone, the app is switched to the background), it would write info back to it's caches and preference files. If you force quit it every time, it would never have a chance to do this, and eventually the state of the caches/preferences will not match the actual state of the app and you will get crashes.

Doing this constantly is a recipe for an unstable phone.

But the iPhone apps, I believe, are never closed. They are always running so I don't think your point is valid. That's just my thinking, I can be wrong though.

[S.Gitlin]

I just did a chat now with an apple expert on Apple.com..this is a snapshot of our convo..............


<LI class=cust>You: I've been reading numerous forum about force quitting applications like safari, mail, and ipod by holding the home button for several seconds. Is this necessary to truly preserve battery life or should it just be done if your not planning on using the applications for an extended period of time?
<LI class=agnt>Tim: Good question...
<LI class=agnt>Tim: The actual strain of having multiple programs open at once on battery life is probably small, if it even exists...
<LI class=agnt>Tim: People may be used to doing that with their Macs, where there's a hard drive that can spin up, which would affect battery performance.
<LI class=agnt>Tim: However, I have not seen any benchmarks on what affect - if any - it has on an iPhone without a hard disk.
<LI class=cust>You: That's what I figured, so basically disabling wi-fi when not using is the only way to have maximum battery life?
<LI class=agnt>Tim: Turning off things like Bluetooth or wifi can improve battery life, yes.
<LI class=cust>You: Thank you. I appreciate your help.

[Errk!]

But the iPhone apps, I believe, are never closed. They are always running so I don't think your point is valid. That's just my thinking, I can be wrong though.

The whole point of this thread is that you CAN close them to save battery life, and how to do it.

[jptolife]

The whole point of this thread is that you CAN close them to save battery life, and how to do it.

You are right, but you misunderstood what I tried to say, or I said it wrong.

What I meant was that by going to the home screen the apps are not closed, but by holding the home button they are.

I don't know if I'm confisong you, If yes sorry but can't explain it.