battery charging

[mylababy]

I had a problem with my first i pod touch the battery would only last about 2 hours and then it needed charging again. I now have a new one and was wondering how long should I do the first charge so it gets the full capacity, maybe several hours?? I just want to make sure I charge it properly so any advice would be appreciated thanks

[fury]

There's not much you can do that will increase the battery's performance; you can only prolong its degradation. I would suggest do a full discharge cycle once a month (play it til it shuts itself off), and in between, keep it charged as often as possible. Plug it in whenever you're not out and about with it. It handles shallow recharges better, and the full discharge cycle every month recalibrates the charge meter.

For extending battery life between charges, I'll list a few of my favorite tips

• Use the lowest brightness setting that you can stand. You'll be surprised how bright it can still be with a setting at around 33% on the slider. The higher brightness settings are really good for using it outside, where the sun can overpower the lower brightness settings, but they really suck down the juice, and they aren't much more beneficial other than outside.
• Turn off Location services. It's pretty much useless with the iPod touch.
• Use a short auto-lock timeout (a minute) and get used to putting it back to sleep when you're not going to be looking at the screen.
• In Mail/Contacts/Calendars, set up your Fetch Data settings. Turn off Push if you don't have a need for instant email notification (which only really works while you're plugged in or awake). Set the periodic checking to every hour, or manually.
• Turn off the auto Wi-Fi network scanning (the bottom setting in the Wi-Fi menu). This will basically use the radio to look for networks while the device is on and not connected to your preferred networks. That sucks up the battery really quickly. You can accomplish the same scan if you need a hotspot by simply waiting in the Wi-Fi menu.
• The OS 3.0 upgrade will enable bluetooth on the 2nd generation touch. Turn it off when the time comes, unless you'll be using a bluetooth headset with it or plan on interacting with other iPod touches with bluetooth.
• Make sure you don't use an EQ in the music settings. It uses more processing power. If you have EQ settings saved in your songs on iTunes, set your EQ in the iPod touch to "flat" to make sure to cancel out any saved EQ you set in iTunes.
• Turn off any sounds you don't need (I turn off lock sounds and sent mail); the speaker will drain the battery slightly.