Poor battery life and iPhone are a few words that get mixed together all too often. The battery in an iPhone is a lithium-based battery which is commonly found in consumer portable devices. A lithium-ion battery will typically provides 300-500 discharge/charge cycles in its lifetime. The battery life is either terrific or terrible, depending on your point of view.
However, battery life will fluctuate greatly between users and their individual usage patterns. But never mind all that; the point is that if you’re not careful, the iPhone 3GS’s battery might not even make it through a single day without needing a recharge. So knowing how to scale back its power appetite could come in extremely handy.
1. Condition your battery by charging the battery to 100% and then completely running it down can maximize the battery’s life.
2. Turn off the Wi-Fi to stop the iPhone from searching for available wireless connection. From the Home screen, go to Settings > Wi-Fi > On/Off.
3. Turn off the Bluetooth. If you are not using Bluetooth to connect to any headset or earpiece, shut down the Bluetooth. Go to Settings > General > Bluetooth > On/Off.
4. Turn off the GPS. If you do not need the iPhone to track your location, save the power required to operate the GPS chip. In Settings > General > Location Services > On/ Off.
5. Push Data Manually. Unless there is an urgent need for you to check new email or spam every now and then, it would be good to make your iPhone to do less email checks. Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Fetch New Data > Fetch > Manually (or Hourly if you really need your daily spam updates)
6. Turn off the 3G network. Yes, I know this is 3GS and using 2G is like taking a backward step but it will be worth it if you are anticipating a long day and you cannot risk the battery dying halfway through. Go to Settings > General > Network > Enable 3G > On/ Off.
7. Dim the screen brightness. Well, unless you live underground with little light source else I guess it would be fine to look at the not so bright but still lovely screen. Go to Settings > Brightness > Slide the adjuster to your preference.
8. Turn off the EQ while listening to your favourite tunes could save you quite a bit of battery juice too. Go to Settings > iPod > EQ > On/ Off.
9. Take note that 3D games can cause a serious power hog. For example, games like Brothers In Arms or Avatar are some great 3D games but not so good news for the battery though.
10. Finally, turning off the phone can save you plenty of battery juice. Go to Settings > Airplane Mode > On/ Off.