Check battery usage on iPhone and iPad

Identify where all your mobile energy is going

You’re probably already aware that iOS works differently to the Mac when it comes to

power management. Apps can’t just run in the background eating up battery power – if they’re not visible on screen, they can only operate in very limited ways in the background. This means you don’t have to worry about quitting all apps to save battery life in quite the same way – but some apps still tend to hog energy more than others, and you’ll want to identify them.

In Settings, tap the Battery option (in the third group down). The Battery Usage section will tell you exactly which apps are responsible for running down your charge. Apps are listed in descending order of culpability, showing what percentage of your total power expenditure each is individually responsible for; you can also tap the clock icon to see how long apps have spent on the screen, and how much time they’ve spent doing things in the background. Usefully, rows may also list ways in which apps might be using your battery even when not visible. Mostly, reasons will be obvious – a podcast app will indicate that it plays audio, say. It’s the nebulous ‘Background Activity’ you should watch for.

This will generally consist of two things: fetching data in the background (an email or social network client may do this, so new messages are ready to view the second you open the app); and checking your location. If you see apps in this list that you don’t really use, but are performing a lot of background activity, consider uninstalling them. Just two or three apps could add up to 5% of your usage, and that could mean another hour of charge.