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Welcome...
T
he iPad Air remains king of the tablet world, but its future is starting to look a little shaky with the emergence of the Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet. Sony’s Z2 is a solid rival, potentially faster and with fancy features such as waterproofi ng, but more is required to blow Apple’s champ out the water. We compare the two from page 15.Of course, the iPad Air – and other iOS devices – recently received a boost with the iOS 7.1.1 update. We look at the updated mobile OS in from page 3.
Even with the useful functionality aff orded by Offi ce for iOS (see page 70), the iPad remains a device we use for entertainment. So what do we like to do with ourselves outside the offi ce?
Well, we like to sleep. You’ll fi nd our top sleep apps on page 78. And we like to go on holiday – see page 82 for the top travel apps. Chilling out in front of a fi lm is pretty good, too (see how to import a DVD to an iPad on page 66).
But the number-one thing we do with an iPad is go online. We recently asked iPad & iPhone User editors what they’d do without the internet (you can read what they said over on our Tech Advisor blog at tinyurl.com/noyckc6), and we learned that without the web we’d all be unemployed, uninformed, anti-social and pretty darn bored.
To make sure you never go without the web, we explain how to manage your iPhone’s data on page 35, plus how to share its data connection (page 32).
Defi nitive review of Apple’s latest iOS update
i
OS 7, the latest version of Apple’s operating system software for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, heralds the biggest change to the visual style of its mobile interface since the fi rst iPhone was demonstrated in 2007. For the fi rst time, the new look is the brainchild of Jonathan Ive, the person behind the hardware design of Apple’s products since the original Bondi Blue iMac.The most noticeable diff erences in iOS 7 are a set of new, brightly coloured icons and a simpler, more minimal design aesthetic. It’s all part of a so-called ‘fl at design’ that replaces faux-3D elements such as bevelled buttons and embossed toolbars that were used in all previous iterations of iOS. Yet transparent
layers and other neat visual tricks convey depth in more subtle ways.
New features
Update, 30th April 2014: Before we get on to the major changes from iOS 6 to iOS 7, we’ll quickly cover the smaller (but often signifi cant) tweaks and design updates that have arrived since iOS 7.1’s initial launch. These have been released in Apple’s two latest point updates, iOS 7.1 and iOS 7.1.1, both of which are free to download.
(Bear in mind that, barring some clever
jailbreaking or similar hacks, you have to install the latest OS when updating. At time of writing, if you want to update from iOS 6 to iOS 7, that means iOS 7.1.1. iOS 7.0 is no longer an option for most of us.)
Visual changes
The most obvious change in iOS 7.1 is visual. This update saw some of the more controversial aspects of iOS 7’s design toned down and softened to
appeal to a wider audience. Take the ‘toxic’ bright greens that people found so objectionable, for instance. Those are now darker and less eye-catching. This has mostly been applauded, although we now miss the old look ever so slightly. I guess we
got used to it. Some interface changes are more obvious. The Phone app, for example, sees a lot of bar-style buttons replaced by round buttons, and the old caller ID image, which used to take up the whole screen, has been shrunk to a little thumbnail:
iOS 7.1 includes a number of other visual updates, including some changes to typography and colour choices, as well as updated interfaces in Apple apps.
Performance changes
The most controversial aspect of iOS 7 wasn’t the look, however – it was the performance penalty seen on older hardware. The iPhone 4 was supposed to be able to handle iOS 7 (it was the lowest level of iPhone ratifi ed for this), but many iPhone 4 experienced slowdowns after updating.
iOS 7.1 addresses this, and benckmark tests show that an iPhone 4 is faster on iOS 7.1 than on iOS 7. It’s still slower than on iOS 6, however, and our advice to iPhone 4 owners would be not to update.
New Siri voices
iOS 7.1 included new Siri voices. In the UK that means at long last the option of a female voice - hooray! You can stick with the bloke if you prefer.
CarPlay
As expected, iOS 7.1 brings CarPlay compatibility. We’ve got more on that here: CarPlay buying guide: which cars and models come with Apple CarPlay?
Touch ID
This one will only aff ect iPhone 5s owners, but iOS 7.1.1 includes some improvements to the way Apple’s Touch ID fi ngerprint scanner works.
Thin and fl at interface design
A thinner system font, Helvetica Neue, is used throughout the system. Borders around many apps are plain white with simple black
text, with a colour tint used to indicate buttons and interactive elements. This minimalist design reminds us of the approach Jony Ive favours for the seamless casing of Apple’s hardware.
Certain apps such as Game Center and Notepad, which previously used graphical replicas of real-world objects to convey their function, such as yellow notepaper and green table felt, have been scaled back to only provide visual information relevant
to the task they perform. But the fl at, simplistic style takes some getting used to. When Apple fi rst demonstrated iOS 7, the initial response was not entirely positive. The icons in particular have polarised opinion, with many describing the bright colours as garish, childish, or plain ugly, compared with the previous established designs.
Changing the look of a software interface familiar to millions is a delicate procedure, with the risk that by confusing users, they may abandon your platform and opt for a competitor’s product instead. Sensibly, although Apple has made radical changes to the appearance of iOS 7, the method of interacting with the devices is just about identical. This is no repeat of Microsoft’s Windows 8 debacle, where users were left fl oundering for their way around.
Transparency, depth and three dimensions
iOS 7 grows on you over time. Behind the simple appearance are subtle and complex ideas. The redesigned Notifi cation Centre has
a translucent background, allowing the wallpaper and icons to show through, enhancing the sense that each UI element is a physical object lying atop whatever’s underneath.
The new Control Centre, accessed by swiping from the bottom of the screen upwards, is similarly see-through, as is the Search bar, which now appears when you swipe down on any empty area of the wallpaper.
Control Centre provides easy access to commonly adjusted settings such as Flight Mode, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Flashlight toggles, something users have been requesting.
The transparent eff ect is striking. Choose a wallpaper with a range of sharp blues, for example, and UI elements such as the new translucent dock glow with a frosty appearance, almost as through a pane of glass. Change to a purple background – Apple’s new set of included wallpapers have been carefully chosen to highlight this – and the UI looks totally diff erent.
Another small touch Apple has added to the wallpapers is a clever parallax eff ect, where you can tilt your device to slightly roll the background image behind the icons, giving the subtle impression that they are physical objects on a diff erent plane from the background.
The eff ect is nifty, and enhances the idea that three-dimensional space is created from interface elements, rather than via the more basic shading of buttons on iOS 6 and earlier.
There’s another 3D eff ect when opening and closing apps. Tap on an icon and the app neatly zooms in to become full screen. Hit the home button and it zooms out. This works on folders of icons too, and gives the impression you’re drilling in and out of various sections of iOS 7, again to make it seem the OS is built from layers of physical objects. Words
don’t easily convey how impressive this looks in the fl esh, but it’s undoubtedly one of the best visual improvements of the software.
On the down side, a number of users with vestibular disorders have reported that the many animation tricks within iOS 7 trigger motion sickness and related problems. Apple has been reasonably responsive to concerns, and you can tone things down by going to Settings > General > Accessibility > Reduce Motion, but not everyone is satisfi ed.
With these caveats, however, iOS 7 is on balance a design triumph, full of attractive visual touches. The passcode lock screen (see page 8), for instance – which might seem trivial, but is a screen the average user will be seeing a lot of – has been given a much more modern look.
Music
The Music app now lets you browse your music via a scrolling list of cover art, with a quick tap zooming onto the album, displaying a tracklist.
Voice recorder
The voice recorder, which previously showed a redundant picture of a real microphone, now displays a simple spectral analyser and a list of recordings, along with a big red button to start capturing audio.
Camera
The Camera has received perhaps the most attention, and is all the better for it. You can quickly swipe through photography modes: normal, square, panoramic and video, with a set of Instragram-like fi lters to apply, such as chrome or sepia. The iPhone 4 doesn’t get all these features, though.
Safari web browser
Rather than being limited to eight, you can now open as many tabs as you like in Safari, which has a smaller border around web pages to display more information on the screen. When browsing through
your open tabs on an iPhone you can swipe through screenshots of each page, presented as a 3D roll of pages. Safari in iOS 7 also sees improved navigation and performance tweaks, a unifi ed search fi eld, new bookmarking features and more.
Calendar
Calendar is perhaps the best example of how iOS 7 uses colour to draw the user’s attention to relevant information. The current date is highlighted with a big red circle, instantly drawing your eye to it, with the same shade of red used to highlight other interactive elements.
But there are drawbacks to the aggressive minimalism of iOS 7’s calendar, and we can see many users looking elsewhere for a calendar app.
On the iPad, month view lets you see a few words of each appointment or birthday, but the iPhone – which surely is the platform on which most people use a calendar app - is far less useful: in portrait mode you only see a little dot to indicate that something is happening (we advise switching off indicators for Facebook birthdays and such like, or you’ll fi nd that almost every day has a dot). And in landscape mode you only see a fi ve-hour snatch of three days at a time, making it hard to quickly skim your free nights.
Maps
Apple’s much-criticised Maps are still present, as expected, but with a few small additions. There’s a scale indicator in the corner, and bookmarks are now saved in iCloud and shared across devices, a handy addition we think that should have been there in the fi rst place. Mac users can look forward to being able to send maps and directions directly to their iPhone using the desktop Maps app in OS X Mavericks, too.
Siri
Two years after it launched, Siri is no longer in beta. The interface is slightly changed, but the big addition is a wider range of search abilities. Ask it to search Wikipedia, and it comes up with the article without going into Safari and loading the page.
Search the web (amusingly now with Bing, a further severing of Apple’s ties to Google) and you get all sorts of relevant information directly in the app. This is a far better approach that makes Siri more useful in itself, rather than as a voice-controlled launchpad to other parts of the system.
Newsstand
The Newsstand app now runs full screen, with a gorgeous shaded background that shows your wallpaper through it, rather than expanding like a folder as in iOS
6. And thank goodness, if you don’t use it, it can now be dropped into the obligatory ‘unused’ folder everyone often ends up with on their device, rather than occupying space on the home screen.
Multitasking
Multitasking, to simply switch between already open apps, now works as it does on Android or HP’s WebOS software. There’s a snapshot of each running app displayed above the icon. Swiping up closes the app.
Visuals, ringtones and backgrounds
As before, Apple has aimed for a consistent experience between the experience of using iOS 7 on both the iPhone and iPad, using the same colours, design choices and identical functionality. The major diff erences are related to layout, with a prominent use of split-views (such as in the Settings app) to display more information on the larger tablet screen.
A small addition that will be welcomed by many is the inclusion of a new set of tasteful ringtones. The old ones are still there too in a ‘classics’ folder, if you’re quite attached to the familiar default Marimba tone, for example. There’s also a range of dynamic backgrounds, with bubbles that slowly move across the screen if you move the device.
This makes use of a new physics API built into iOS, one of a long list of under-the-bonnet enhancements in iOS 7 that third-party developers can take advantage of.
Miscellaneous updates
The hard limit to the number of apps you can keep in a folder has been removed, a major irritation for people with a lot of apps on their device, which often resulted in a messy folder system such as ‘Games 1’, ‘Games 2’, ‘Games 3’ and so on.
Once again, a few apps on the iPhone aren’t available on the iPad, and vice versa, wherever Apple has deemed them less relevant. The iPad has no Voice Memos, Passbook, Compass, or Stocks app (thankfully for many unconcerned by city fi nances) while the iPhone misses out on the Photobooth app.
Verdict
iOS 7.1.1 tackles the criticisms that were levelled at iOS 7 in an admirably honest fashion, such as the more extreme colour choices and the performance issues
on older hardware. Nevertheless, you’ll be disappointed if you were hoping for Android-like features, such as widgets, the ability to change the default keyboard, or install apps without going through the App Store.
Ashleigh Allsopp reveals which 10in tablet is best
S
ony has launched a new iPad Air rival, the Xperia Z2 Tablet, and with a thinner, lighter design than Apple’s latest iPad it’s certainly a contender for the top spot. Here, we put the two 10in tablets head-to-head to compare design, tech specs, features and software and determine which is best: iPad Air or Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet. Can Sony really scare Apple with its new tablet off ering?Build and design
Apple’s iPad Air is known for its incredibly lightweight and thin design, so it may come as a surprise that the Xperia Z2 Tablet, despite having a slightly bigger display at 10.1in compared with the iPad Air’s 9.7in, is thinner and lighter than the Air.
Believed to be the thinnest and lightest 10in tablet in the world, the Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet is just 6.4mm thick and weighs 429g, whereas the iPad Air weighs slightly more at 469g and is 7.5mm thick.
While we think the overall look and feel of the Xperia Z2 Tablet is stylish and high quality and are impressed by its incredibly light weight, it still doesn’t ooze style, sophistication and coolness like the iPad Air does. The bezels on the Xperia Z2 Tablet are pretty enormous, and it’s a simple, squared device that is just not as appealing as the iPad Air, in our opinion.
Price
The iPad Air and Xperia Z2 Tablet match up closely when it comes to price. Both tablets start at £399 for the 16GB Wi-Fi-only models, or £499 for the 16GB Wi-Fi plus 4G models. That makes it diffi cult to choose a clear winner when it comes to value. The iPad Air’s 32GB model is £30 more than Sony’s Xperia Z2 Tablet equivalent, though.
Screen
While both classifi ed as 10in tablets, the iPad Air and Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet’s screens do diff er. The iPad
Air has a smaller display, at 9.7in, while the Z2 Tablet has a bigger, 10.1in display.
The iPad Air has a higher pixel density, though, with a resolution of 2048x1536 pixels which makes it 264 pixels per inch (ppi). The Xperia Z2 Tablet’s resolution is 1920x1200 pixels, which equates to 224ppi, so the iPad Air’s higher pixel density means you’ll get a slightly sharper, more detailed picture.
Beyond that, both the tablets have the same IPS LCD display technology and are able to show 16,777,216 colours each, which means both the iPad Air and Z2 Tablet are excellent devices to use for watching movies and television shows, or viewing image slideshows, for example.
Processor, performance
In theory, the Xperia Z2 Tablet should trump the iPad Air when it comes to performance, as it has more impressive hardware specifi cations in terms of processors and memory.
The iPad Air sports an Apple-exclusive A7 chip with a 64-bit architecture, which is certainly a speedy processor, but it’s a dual-core at 1400MHz, whereas the Xperia Z2 has a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor running at 2300MHz. The Z2 also has 3GB of RAM
compared with the iPad Air’s 1GB. That said, both the iPad Air and the Xperia Z2 have such excellent performance specs that it’s unlikely you’ll notice much diff erence between the two. Both are fast and responsive, even during heavy-duty tasks.
We’ve put both tablets through some benchmark tests to give you an idea of where they rank against each other. It’s worth noting, though, that these are synthetic tests designed to give you a number, not hard-and-fast rankings.
In the GFXBench test, which benchmarks graphics performance, the Xperia Z2 tablet managed to beat the iPad Air. Averaged over three runs of the T-Rex (onscreen) test, the Z2 tablet scored 1,530 frames at 27fps, while the iPad Air averaged at 1,187 and 21fps. However, both tablets can run the most demanding of games, so you should fi nd that both are
The GeekBench 3 test for the Xperia Z2 just tops Apple’s iPad Air results. Designed to test the overall performance of a tablet, the Z2 scored an impressive 2719 in the multi-core test, compared with the iPad Air’s 2703. In the single-core test, though, the iPad Air trumped the Xperia Z2 with a score of 1487 compared with the Z2’s 967.
In the SunSpider Javascript test, which measures your browser’s ability to handle Javascript, the iPad Air blitzed the Xperia Z2 Tablet. Lower is better in this test, so the iPad Air’s score of 400ms beats the Xperia Z2 Tablet’s 1099ms by a long way.
Storage
The iPad Air is available from a 16GB model all the way up to 128GB, though it’ll set you back more than £600 for the latter. The Xperia Z2 tablet, on the other hand, is only available up to 32GB, though,
it does have a MicroSD slot that lets you add up to 64GB of storage.
So, unless you really need the whopping 128GB iPad Air, you’ll fi nd that the iPad Air and Xperia Z2 can off er similar capabilities when it comes to storage.
That said, you won’t be able to add further storage to your iPad Air, so you’ll need to pick the capacity you think will suit you when you purchase it and the price skyrockets pretty quickly as you begin increasing the built-in storage. With the Xperia Z2, you can add storage at a later date at a reasonably low cost. A 32GB MicroSD card can cost you around £20, or even less if you shop around.
Camera
We’re still not keen on the idea of using a tablet as a camera, aside from video calling, of course, so the specifi cations of the camera aren’t of critical importance to us. However, for some consumers who enjoy tablet photography, it could be the deciding factor.
Apple’s iPad Air falls down against the Xperia Z2 Tablet when it comes to the camera. The Z2
boasts an 8.1Mp camera with a variety of modes and features including panorama, self timer, smile detection and white balance presets in addition to the autofocus, face detection and HDR that it shares with the iPad Air.
The Z2 Tablet’s front-facing camera is also better than the iPad Air’s at 2.2Mp compared with Apple’s 1.2Mp off ering.
Both the iPad Air and the Z2 Tablet have the ability to capture 1080p HD video, though.
Overall, if the camera on your tablet is a really big deal then you might want to consider the Z2 Tablet, but for us, the iPad Air’s camera is perfectly suffi cient for our needs so we’d still choose the iPad Air.
Software
When it comes to software, the Air runs Apple’s gorgeous iOS 7, with default apps and extra features including iCloud, Safari, Apple Maps, FaceTime, Game Center, Newsstand and iTunes. Apple also off ers Find My iPhone, Find My Friends services.
We love iOS 7, and also love the apps available on the iOS App Store for the iPad, though the Google Play Store is catching up in terms of numbers. We’d choose iOS 7 any day over the Sony Xperia Z2’s Android 4.4 KitKat, additionally because we already own many iOS apps and wouldn’t want to have to buy them again for Android.
That said, KitKat is the most recent Android software to be released, and is not yet available on all devices, so we’re pleased to see that Sony had adopted it. Sony also has the Walkman app complete with ClearAudio+ designed for better audio quality, and Music Unlimited, a service similar to Apple’s iTunes Radio (which has yet to arrive in the UK). There’s also the PlayStation Mobile app which lets you download new games directly from the PlayStation Store, and the compatibility with the DualShock 3 controller for an enhanced gaming experience.
While Apple’s iPad Air has AirPlay Mirroring (which requires a £99 Apple TV) Sony’s Xperia Z2 Tablet has screen mirroring and a ‘Throw’ feature that lets you virtually fl ick your content onto your television screen so long as your TV has DLNA or Bluetooth capabilities.
Battery life
In terms of battery life, we’ve yet to test out the Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet’s battery ourself, so we’ll base this
on Sony’s own estimations. It says the Z2’s 600mAh battery will last for more than 50 days on standby, but, while in use, it has a mode called ‘Stamina Mode’ which can signifi cantly prolong the battery life of the device. In Stamina Mode, the Z2 recognises when you’re not using the display and automatically turns off unneeded functions that’ll begin running again only when you activate the screen.
With this taken into consideration, Sony touts up to 188 hours of music listening time and up to 13 hours of video playback time for the device.
You can charge the Z2 Tablet using Micro-USB or, alternatively, the wireless magnetic charging pat situated on the bottom of the device. You’ll need to have a compatible accessory such as Sony’s speaker dock in order to take advantage of the wireless capabilities, though.
Meanwhile, the iPad Air has an 8820mAh battery, which is pretty huge but still smaller than the battery found in its predecessors. Apple says that it’ll last for up to 10 hours of web browsing, listening to music or watching videos.
Overall, the Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet should last longer than the iPad Air in theory, but we’ll need to put the two tablets through head-to-head tests to determine the true result soon.
Other features
Really, the only other feature important to note is the durability of the two tablets, which is signifi cantly
diff erent due to the Xperia Z2’s waterproof and dust resistant nature. Sony’s tablet is waterproof and dust resistant to an IP55 and IP58 standard, and has covers for all ports that could potentially let water in.
The iPad Air, on the other hand, is not waterproof or dust resistant, so if you’re known for being clumsy you may want to consider whether the Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet is a more suitable option. Of course, you could always buy a waterproof case for the iPad Air if you’ve got your heart set on it.
Verdict
As users of Apple products including Macs and iPhones, the iPad Air is the natural and more fi tting choice for us. We’d choose the Air not only due to its stunning design and easy-to-use software, but also because it ties in well with the our Apple ecosystem including iCloud and our purchased apps.
However, it’s clear that Apple is not absolutely ahead of the game with the iPad Air, and that the successor to its most recent tablet should bring something new to the table that can blow the likes of the Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet out of the water. After all, its camera, weight, thickness, and even processor and battery life are better than the iPad Air, at least on paper for the latter. The Z2 is a solid rival that could cause some minor concern for Apple, so let’s hope the company is innovating hard behind the scenes to launch something that enables us to write a comparison review in the future that can recommend the iPad without a shadow of a doubt, because right now, it’s tricky to be convinced that Apple’s ahead of the game.
Which of Apple’s apps is best for your needs?
i
Photo comes free with every new Mac, and there is even a version you can use on the iPhone and iPad, but for some people with particularly large photo libraries, or very large images iPhoto might not be enough. Would it be worth updating from iPhoto to Apple’s Aperture in that case? We evaluate the options in this comparison review.It’s easy to get started with iPhoto, as all your photos are automatically sorted into ‘events’ that group together photos taken on the same date. You can also use its Places feature to display the locations of photos on a map, or the Faces option to identify photos of particular people.
Stepping up to Aperture is just as easy as the latest version of Aperture can share your existing iPhoto library. The fi rst time you launch Aperture it gives you the option of importing your iPhoto library, complete with all your events, places and faces information, so you’ll immediately know where to fi nd all your favourite shots. The only minor complication here is that iPhoto events are referred to as ‘projects’ in Aperture – which is a hangover from the days when Aperture cost hundreds of pounds and was primarily aimed at professional photographers who used it to organise their work projects. Apart from that, the two programs organise your photo library in essentially the same way, ensuring that the transition between iPhoto and Aperture is as straightforward as possible. You can even continue to use the two programs side by side, as editing changes that you make in one program are automatically carried over into the other.
Sorting and searching
These similarities ensure that Aperture will feel very familiar to anyone that has used iPhoto. The diff erence is that Aperture tends to go further and provides more detailed control than iPhoto, both with its editing tools and its options for sorting and searching through your photo collection.
As well as events and projects, Aperture can also create ‘stacks’ of photos that were taken in quick succession – such as a series of action shots at a sporting event – so that you can fi nd the shot that captures just the right moment.
Both programs have a basic Search tool that lets you search for keywords such as ‘football’ or ‘wedding’, but Aperture also has a more powerful set of search fi lters that can employ multiple criteria to locate exactly the photo you need. You can search for photos taken on a specifi c date and location, or photos in a particular fi le format or size. You can
even tell Aperture to only search for photos that you have already edited in some way. And if your photo library is really huge then Aperture allows you to split it into a number of separate library fi les – perhaps one for a recent holiday and another for a wedding – and then switch between libraries instantly.
Adjustment tools
Once you’ve got your photos organised you’ll probably want to do some additional editing work on them. Both iPhoto and Aperture provide a series of ‘adjustment’ tools that allow you to fi ne-tune the appearance of your photos, but iPhoto tends to focus on just a handful of key options, such as adjusting the exposure or contrast of a photo.
This is where Aperture really leaves iPhoto far behind, as it provides an extensive pull-down menu containing 22 diff erent adjustment tools, ranging from basics such as exposure and white
balance to more exotic options such as ‘colour monochrome’ and ‘spot and patch’. Another key diff erence here is that iPhoto is mainly used to make ‘global’ adjustments that are applied to the entire photo, whereas Aperture allows you to use brushes to selectively apply eff ects to specifi c parts of an image.
Aperture’s brushes give you much fi ner control when using its adjustment tools, but the sheer variety of adjustment options means that Aperture can seem a bit daunting for people who are used to the simpler tools of iPhoto. If you just want to make some quick tweaks to enhance the appearance of a few photos then iPhoto will do the job quickly and easily. But if you want more precise controls and the ability to work on really fi ne details within an image then it’s worth making the eff ort to master Aperture.
Photo eff ects
The Adjustment tools in iPhoto and Aperture are primarily intended to correct fl aws and to improve the overall appearance of your photos. However, both programs also include additional Eff ects tools that allow you completely change the look or the style of a photo.
The Eff ects tools in iPhoto are pretty limited, really just consisting of simple colour adjustments and old standbys such as sepia and black-and-white eff ects. Aperture doesn’t exactly go to town with its Eff ects either, but it does provide a few more options than iPhoto. There are several variations on the basic black-and-white eff ect, a number of diff erent exposure and white balance eff ects, and some colour eff ects, such as ‘toy camera’ and ‘intensify’. Aperture also includes a useful preview option that shows how each eff ect will look on your currently selected photo. However, neither program really goes beyond the basics here, so if you want to get really creative and experiment with a wider range of special eff ects and fi lters then Photoshop Elements from Adobe might be a better choice.
Plug and play
One fi nal diff erence between iPhoto and Aperture is that there are a number of ‘plug-ins’ – small, modular programs that you can use to add new features to Aperture. These plug-ins tend to be divided into diff erent categories, such as export plug-ins that will help you to export photos or upload them to sites such as Flickr. There are also plug-ins that provide additional editing tools, fi lters and other eff ects. You
can fi nd more information about Aperture plug-ins on Apple’s website, but just remember that buying lots of plug-ins quickly becomes rather expensive. In that case you might be better off paying for a more fully-featured editing program such as Photoshop Elements or even the full professional version of Photoshop.
Verdict
If you’re just a casual photographer looking for a quick and easy way to organise your photos and improve the look of your shots then iPhoto will do the trick quickly and easily. Aperture is more expensive, at £54.99, but professional photographers and more experienced amateurs with really large collections of photos will appreciate its more extensive search tools. Aperture’s editing and adjustment tools are a bit more complex, and probably won’t appeal to casual users, but do provide the ability to make fi ner and more precise changes than are possible with iPhoto.
How to share your iPhone’s 3G (or 4G) data connection
Y
ou can share your iPhone’s 3G (or 4G) data connection with a Mac computer and browse the internet on the Mac remotely. This feature, known as making a Wi-Fi hotspot, is great for working on the go: making an iPhone Wi-Fi hotspot enables you to use the internet on a Mac without having to fi nd a public hotspot.It’s easy to turn your iPhone into a Wi-Fi hotspot, but you should check with your mobile phone carrier fi rst (check the terms and conditions online). Some networks do not want you to turn the iPhone into a Wi-Fi hotspot, and they may charge you extra (or limit your internet if they spot you setting up a
hotspot). You should also be careful not to exceed your data allowance. If you have a limited allowance you should only use the Wi-Fi hotspot for a short amount of time.
A Wi-Fi hotspot turns the iPhone into a Wi-Fi router (like the one in your home). The iPhone emits a Wi-Fi connection that your Mac can connect to. The Mac connects to the iPhone using Wi-Fi, and the iPhone connects to the internet using its 3G/4G cellular data connection. It’s clever stuff and a neat trick to know.
Here’s what you need to do: 1. Tap Settings and Mobile
2. Tap Personal Hotspot and set Personal Hotspot to On
3. Tap on Turn on Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
4. Tap Wi-Fi Password and enter a suitable password (this can be any password you choose, it’s not
related to your Apple ID or usual Wi-Fi connection) 5. Now check the name of the hotspot listed under To Connect Using Wi-Fi (we get “iPhone 5s”) 6. Click AirPort in the Menu bar of your Mac and choose the Wi-Fi hotspot (iPhone 5s in our case) 7. Enter the password from Step 4
That should be it. You should now be able to browse the internet on your Mac using the connection provided by your iPhone.
If you do not have the AirPort icon in the Menu bar of your Mac, open System Preferences and click Wi-Fi and choose the iPhone Hotspot from the Network Name. While you’re here, you should place a tick in the setting marked “Show Wi-Fi status in menu bar”; this will enable you to access Wi-Fi settings from the Mac’s menu bar.
You can now browse the internet on your Mac using the data connection from the iPhone. Your mileage may vary, however, depending on how good the iPhone’s network connection is. You might fi nd the internet runs a little slower than you are used to.
When you’ve fi nished, tap Settings > Mobile > Personal Hotspot on your iPhone and set it to Off .
15 tips to stop an iPhone running out of data
H
as your iPhone started running out of data before your allowance is reset each month? Do you receive texts from your mobile network warning that you are at 80 percent of your data allowance for the month? Have you ever run out of data before the month was up? If you are tired of running out of cellular data every month follow our tips and never run out of data again.Track how much iPhone data you use
Before you can start to manage your data usage, you need to keep tabs on how much you are using. To view how much data you have used go to Settings
> Cellular and scroll down to see your Cellular Data Usage. If you have never reset this number it could be pretty big.
Our advice is to get in the habit of resetting it every month, perhaps set an alert on your phone so that you remember to reset it on the day your network resets your allowance. To reset your statistics, scroll down to the bottom of the page and tap: Reset Statistics. Get in the habit of looking here once in a while so you can see if you are on target.
Stop iPhone apps using cellular data
Another new feature in iOS 7 was the ability to determine which apps are allowed to use cellular data. When we are close to our allowance, we head to Settings > Cellular and scroll
down to switch off a number of apps so that we will think twice before wasting our cellular allowance on them.
The other benefi t of stopping some of your apps using cellular data is that it should stop them updating in the background when you are out and about – thereby preserving battery life.
See which apps are using
data on iPhone
Below each of the apps on the Settings > Cellular page you will see just how much data they have been using since you
last reset your phone. You can expect that the apps you use frequently will have higher data usage, but any that stand out as guzzling a lot more data that you think they should be can be switched off here.
Turn off 3G and 4G data on
your iPhone
If things are really desperate, one way to preserve your data when you are running low is to temporarily disable cellular data. This way if you have a week or so to go until your contract renews then you can manage your usage rather than running out completely.
To turn off your cellular data so go to Settings > Cellular and toggle the Cellular Data switch to off .
This will turn off all cellular data to restrict all data to Wi-Fi, including email, web browsing and push notifi cations. We also fi nd this is a handy way to preserve battery life – as opposed to turning the phone to Airplane Mode, which preserves power but means nobody can contact you.
Turn off auto play in Facebook
Facebook recently added a feature to their iOS app that means when you are scrolling through your news feed any video that’s been posted will automatically stream – even if you aren’t on a Wi-Fi
network. Obviously this isn’t an ideal situation if you have a limited data allowance.
We recommend you change your settings so that it only streams if you are in Wi-Fi. Go to Settings > Facebook > Settings and scroll down to Video and switch to Auto-play on Wi-Fi only.
Don’t use FaceTime on 3G or 4G network
It’s great that we can use FaceTime over 3G, but if you have limited data but loads of free minutes you will probably prefer to stick to normal calls. Go to Settings > Cellular and scroll down your list of apps to make sure that FaceTime is switched off for cellular data. You might be thinking that you wouldn’t contact anyone via FaceTime over cellular, but crucially, this will also
stop anyone contacting you via FaceTime when you aren’t on a Wi-Fi network.
Stop iCloud Documents &
Data using data
Go to Settings > iCloud > Documents & Data. You can turn off the ability for apps to store documents and data in the cloud by toggling the Documents & Data switch, or you can be more specifi c about which apps you think can do with out this allowance.
If you want to stop your documents syncing when you
aren’t on a Wi-Fi network just toggle Use Cellular Data to off . If you are regularly using Apple’s iWork apps, such as Pages or Keynote, you may fi nd your phone busily syncing large documents over your cellular connection, and you probably won’t want that.
Stop iTunes using data
If you have cellular data turned on for iTunes, and you subscribe to iTunes Match, you may fi nd your data is being gobbled up, which is particularly annoying given that you are paying for the service to start with. Go to Settings > iTunes & App Store and make sure that Use Cellular Data is switched off .
Use Safari’s Reading
List to view articles offl
ine
One of our favourite new features in the iOS 7 version of Safari is the Reading List feature that lets you download a web page for reading off line. This is great when you are reading a web page during a commute and about to head into a tunnel.
It’s also great if you are out of data and want to be able to read some articles on your iPhone while you are out and about. You can queue up a few web pages in your Reading List while you are on a Wi-Fi network, and then read them without using up any data. While you have access to Wi-Fi go to Safari,
open the web pages you wish to read, click on the Share icon at the bottom of the page, and select Add to Reading List. Wait for the phone to download the article and then head out. You will be able to read this article even if you are using Airplane Mode.
However, if you don’t want your phone to use cellular data to download the pages you have added to reading list on your other devices, you need to head to Settings > Safari and scroll down to toggle off Use Cellular Data for reading list.
Beware iPhone Photo Stream
Photo Stream was the main culprit when we started to regularly hit our data allowance back in the summer of 2013, having signed up to a friend’s feed, and started sharing one of our
own. When you turn off Photo Stream in Settings > iCloud > Photos and then toggle My Photo Stream on, it looks innocent enough, claiming as it does it will “Automatically upload new photos and send the to all of your iCloud devices when connected to Wi-Fi.” This may be the case, but we were getting sent photos from our friend’s Photo Stream when we were on 3G networks, suggesting that it wasn’t a very cellular data friendly service.
Luckily with the iOS 7 update, you can now manage Photo Sharing. You can turn off Photo
Sharing (at Settings > Photo & Camera), which will stop your phone from downloading images from other people’s shared photo streams that you subscribe to. However, should you still want to be able to see your friend’s images on your phone, you can stop Photo using your cellular connection in Settings > Cellular. If you have a photo stream this is one to watch when you go on holiday.
Turn off Push Notifi cations
How many of your applications are using the Apple Push Notifi cations service to alert you to new data? Go to Settings > Notifi cation Centre to fi nd out. You can easily stop any apps from pestering you with Notifi cations here (just scroll down the list, tap on those apps you don’t want to notify you, and toggle to switch beside: Show in Notifi cation Centre, and Show on Lock Screen). However, you will still want to make sure that those apps that you still want to receive notifi cations for aren’t doing so over your cellular connection.
Those apps that appear under Include on the Notifi cations Centre tab may be using data to alert you to changes. If you really don’t need to be told that your friend has replied to your post on Facebook turn Notifi cation Centre off by tapping Facebook, and switching the slider to off . Be ruthless
with the apps that are alerting you to changes, although if you then end up checking them every fi ve minutes it may be a false economy.
Stop fetching email
Another one to curb is your email. If you have the phone set to fetch data wirelessly at specifi c intervals you will quickly consume data – this can get really out of hand if you have your iPhone set to Push data to your iPhone from the server as it will be updating all the time. Start by making sure that Push is not selected. Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Fetch New Data and if Push is turned on, turn it off .
Now make sure you are set to fetch data manually. Go to Settings > Mail,
Contacts, Calendars > Fetch New Data and scroll down and select Manually from the list. You can be even more precise if you prefer, and amend your fetch settings for separate accounts. Changing these settings also has the benefi t of preserving battery life.
Stop background app
refresh in iOS 7
One of the new features of iOS 7 was the ability for your phone to automatically update its operating system, and it’s apps, in the background without you having to act. However, this can be a
problem if your phone decides to update when you aren’t on a Wi-Fi network. Head to General > Background App Refresh and make sure that the Background App Refresh switch is set to off .
Keep Wi-Fi on
If you have ever found yourself switching off Wi-Fi when your phone decides to connect to the Wi-Fi when you are about town you may fi nd yourself using cellular when you are back at home. It’s a frustration that’s easily fi xed if you choose to forget the network when one of them pops up. Just tap on the network name, and in the following screen select Forget this Network.
Use Wi-Fi hotspots
You’ll be able to fi nd Wi-Fi networks all around, especially in any big city. You can fi nd Wi-Fi in most coff ee shop chains, many restaurants, and other public areas like libraries and airports. If you are a BT broadband subscriber you can use the BT Wi-Fi app to get onto any of their hotspots for free. Download the BT Wi-Fi app for iOS here.
However, you should always exercise an air of caution when accessing a hotspot, as we explain in this article: How do I know if a Wi-Fi hotspot is safe. The best advice is to use a Wi-Fi hotspot that requires a password.
Make sure that your iPhone’s battery lasts longer
O
ne of the inescapable truths of modern technology is its penchant for regularly sucking from the national grid, like some kind of crazed electronic vampire. You mightconsider your iPhone or iPad to be the most amazing technology in the world, but they’re little more than metal-and-glass slabs when out of juice. Thankfully, it doesn’t have to be like that. We’ve got some brilliant battery-saving tricks and tips that will help you keep the iPhone’s battery running all day long. Here’s how to improve your iPhone’s battery life in iOS 7.
These tips will also help you to get your iPhone to last a little bit longer when you’re away for the weekend without your charging cable; during a power-cut; or when you are pootling along on a slow train, trying to coax your iPhone into surviving what
would otherwise be a long and boring journey home.
Follow these tricks to give your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch enough power to last those crucial extra minutes – or even hours. And, if you are experiencing battery problems with your iPhone on a daily basis - perhaps you fi nd that you can’t get through a day on a single charge since updating to iOS 7 – follow this advice and extend your iPhone battery life.
Here, then, are the best ways to improve your iPhone’s battery life in iOS 7, from system-wide settings worth tweaking to third-party apps that you should stop - or start - using in order to preserve battery life.
How bad is your iPhone battery life really?
A quick way to check whether there really is a problem with the battery in your iPhone is to head over to Settings > General > Usage to check your Usage and Standby times. The Usage time is how long you have used the phone since the last charge, and Standby indicates the total time that’s passed since the last charge. Expect usage to be a lot lower than Standby (unless you have been using your iPhone none stop since unplugging it).
To test your battery make a note of the usage and standby times and then put the device to sleep
by pressing the on/off switch at the top. After fi ve minutes check the changes in the times. If your device is working correctly, the usage time should have gone up by less than a minute, while the standby time should have gained fi ve minutes. If you see more than a minute increase on the Usage time, something is stopping your phone from sleeping and you have a battery drain problem.
Follow the following tips to stop unnecessary drain when your iPhone isn’t in use, and we also have a number of tips that will increase battery life in situations when you need the extra boost.
Turn down the brightness
That iPhone 5s you are lugging around off ers a 1136x640-pixel resolution at
326ppi. It should therefore come as no surprise the screen is one of your iOS device’s primary power drains. Lighting the pixels on your iPhone’s Retina display requires a lot of energy. In fact, in testing, excessive screen brightness was the single biggest iPhone battery killer we found. At full brightness, an iPhone 5 lasted 6 hours, 21 minutes while playing 720p video. When we set the screen to half brightness, the phone lasted nine hours, 48 minutes. That’s a huge diff erence.
Luckily you can save some battery life by adjusting the
iPhone’s brightness. A quick fi x is to turn down brightness using the slider in Control Center, accessed by swiping up from the bottom of the display. Drag the brightness slider as far left as possible, but with a setting that still leaves your device usable.
You should also open the Settings app, access Wallpapers & Brightness and make sure that Auto-Brightness is turned off , this will stop your phone turning up the brightness every time it deems it necessary.
Auto-lock your iPhone
While the screen of your iPhone is on, you’re consuming power, so make sure that your iPhone isn’t awake when you don’t need it to be. If you want to get the maximum battery life from your iPhone, set the Auto Lock to one minute. Venture into Settings > General > Auto-Lock and set your iPhone to sleep after one minute of inactivity.
This will provide a substantial improvement to battery life over time. If you really want to max out your iPhone’s battery life, try to get into the habit of pressing the Sleep/Wake button at the top of your iPhone as soon as you’ve fi nished using it.
Turn on Airplane Mode
One of the biggest drains of battery life is the antenna, because it’s constantly checking for nearby
cellular and Wi-Fi networks. Simply moving around with the phone in your pocket will drain its battery, as it moves from within range of one base station to another.
If don’t need to access data, make, or receive, calls, and you don’t require GPS (for maps) you could put the phone into fl ight mode and stop all use of the iPhone’s antenna. It’s easy to switch on Airplane Mode, just swipe up on Control Centre and tap the Airplane icon on the top left. Alternatively, tap Settings and set Airplane mode to On
If you need to use data, you can still use Wi-Fi when Airplane Mode is turned on – after switching on Airplane Mode, tap the Wi-Fi icon beside it and connect to the Wi-Fi network of your choice.
It’s a good idea to enable Airplane Mode if you are in an area of low coverage as the iPhone will be working hard to power the antenna to maintain a data connection. If you move into an area with a poor signal - perhaps the basement of a store – your iPhone will start desperately trying to hang on to signal at the expense of your battery.
This drain on your battery will happen even if you have a strong Wi-Fi connection, because your phone still needs the cellular connection for calls and SMS messages, according to Apple
Store genius, Scott Loveless. So, if you’re offi ce is in an area of poor cellular coverage, for example, your battery may spend the day trying to maintain a cellular signal even while your Wi-Fi signal is great.
Disable Wi-Fi
If you still need a cellular connection but can live without Wi-Fi, you can disable Wi-Fi by swiping up to reveal Control Centre and tapping the Wi-Fi icon to turn it off (if it’s off the Wi-Fi icon will be black). This will stop your phone from hunting around for Wi-Fi networks it could join. There are a few situations where avoiding using Wi-Fi might stop battery drain. If the Wi-Fi signal is poor then your iPhone will require more power to transmit and receive data. Similarly, if you are rarely in a place where you could join a Wi-Fi hotspot then there is little point in the iPhone hunting for one.
However, we wouldn’t recommend using 3G over Wi-Fi if there is a Wi-Fi network available. There is usually no fi nancial cost associated with using a Wi-Fi network, while you may have to keep within a data allowance as part of your network contact. Another reason is that your iPhone consumes less power accessing data over Wi-Fi than it does when doing the same task over Wi-Fi. This is why Apple quotes diff erent battery life for 3G compared to
Wi-Fi: internet use on both the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c is eight hours on 3G, up to 10 hours on LTE, and 10 hours on Wi-Fi. The iPhone 4s off ers six hours internet use on 3G and nine hours over Wi-Fi.
Tap Settings > Wi-Fi and ensure Ask to Join Networks is set to On. This will help you spot open networks to join.
Disable Bluetooth
If you have Bluetooth on the chances are you don’t need it. Swipe up on Control Centre to check if Bluetooth is on, if it is you will see the B-like icon highlighted in white. Bluetooth is usually left on after an iOS update is installed, so you may not even be aware that it is on. If it is, tap the Bluetooth icon to turn it off . You can also
tap General > Bluetooth and set Bluetooth to Off .
Bluetooth is a battery-drainer. If you’re not using it to connect to a speaker, headphones, or other accessory, then switch it off .
Turn off AirDrop
One iPhone service that requires Bluetooth is AirDrop. New in iOS 7, AirDrop allows you to transfer photos and other fi les to and from nearby iPhones with the same feature switched on. Unfortunately, it’s a battery killer, because of the way AirDrop seeks out nearby iPhones to
hook up with. You can switch off AirDrop in the Control Centre (swipe upwards from the bottom of the screen). Only turn on AirDrop when it’s needed.
Disable 3G
If you can survive without data but still need to be contactable you could turn off 3G (or LTE 4G if you have it). Your data connection can be disabled in the Cellular section of Settings. Go to Settings > Cellular and switch Cellular Data to off . If you have an iPhone that is capable of 4G you can separately turn off 4G here as well. We recommend that you do this if you don’t actually have a 4G contract.
If you aren’t using it then switching off cellular data will increase the battery length, the benefi t, when compared to switching to Airplane Mode is that you will only disable the cellular data portion of your signal, such as EDGE, 3G, 4G, or LTE. Normally your iPhone receives two signals at once: one for calls and SMS, and one for data, now it only receives the signal for calls and SMS – which means you are still contactable, you just can’t browse Facebook (unless you can access a Wi-Fi network).
You should also note that, according to Apple Genius Scotty Loveless, the signal strength meter on the iPhone only shows the signal strength for the non-data connection, which means your iPhone
could show 2-3 dots in iOS 7 for a standard cellular connection, but actually have a very poor 3G or LTE connection thus causing your iPhone to go into heavy search mode.
Turn down the volume
It might surprise you but the volume setting aff ects battery life too, so if you are playing music or other audio from your phone, turn it down using the volume buttons. Note that the music equaliser also takes up a surprising amount of power. Tap Settings > Music and make sure EQ is turned to Off .
Stop your iPhone vibrating
Head to Settings > Sounds and turn off both of the vibrate options, because
your device rattling around like crazy when a slew of messages arrives drains the battery like nobody’s business. There are dozens of annoying jingles you can choose from to announce to the world that someone’s just sent you a message without the accompanying vibration.
Tone down visual eff ects
Assuming you don’t suff er from some kind of motion sickness or balance disorder, the various 3D eff ects in iOS 7 might excite you. These pretty Parallax eff ects that make your icons and
notifi cations appear to fl oat over the wallpaper might look nice, but they constantly use your iPhone’s graphics processor and are therefore a drain on the battery that you could probably manage without if you were trying to get a last half hour of use out of your iPhone on a long journey home.
One thing you can do is switch to static rather than dynamic wallpaper - the iOS 7-style wallpaper that moves around as you tilt your phone. This will cut down the power drain a little. When you set a new Wallpaper, tap where it says ‘Perspective Zoom: On’ to turn it off . You can also go to Settings > General > Accessibility > and switch on Reduce Motion to temporarily turn off all the parallax eff ects. Note that this will replace many system zoom eff ects with cross-fades that don’t look as nice, but might give you those extra few minutes power you need.
Avoid games and high-impact apps
It sounds obvious to say your iPhone’s battery is drained quicker the more you use your phone, but how fast it falls from 100 percent to nothing entirely depends on what apps you use. Some apps burn through your battery much faster than others. Heavy use of the processor and GPU, for 3D games, or the GPS chip, for maps and location-based apps, uses
up more energy than reading content in iBooks, for example. If you play games with rich, detailed visuals, such as Infi nity Blade 3, or 3D racing games like CSR Racing, your iPhone’s battery will be drained quickly, so if you’re away from a charger and waiting for an important call, playing these sort of games is not a good idea if your battery levels are already low.
If you’re on the way home and low on power, reading apps like Kindle or Instapaper won’t drain what’s left of your battery terribly quickly. However, it probably wouldn’t be a smart move to start playing your favourite TV series, or, worse, the latest 3D gaming blockbuster. In fact, even quite simple games often utilise complex 3D trickery, and so when in the red battery-wise,
avoid them entirely.
Minimise Camera use
Isn’t it always the case that the battery on your iPhone runs out just as you take the perfect shot on a night out with your friends? If you are running low on battery you should keep your Camera app usage to a minimum, and defi nitely avoid using the fl ash.
Turn off Spotlight
Like on the Mac, Spotlight in iOS is constantly working away in the background, indexing your data so you can easily fi nd it later.
Usually, that’s great, but not when you’re short on power. Settings > General > Spotlight Search enables you to turn off some or all Spotlight categories.
Stop Notifi cation Centre
draining your battery
Similarly, Settings > Notifi cation Center might be worth a visit, although there’s sadly no global off switch, and, if you are running out of power, editing notifi cation settings for all your apps might take more power than it saves, due to how long it takes.
Each time a notifi cation is received, the iPhone’s screen lights up and it plays a sound, which uses energy. Every message wakes your device for 5 to 10 seconds, and that can add up, if you get a lot of notifi cations every day, to a small percentage of your daily battery charge.
We can live without updates about Words With Friends, so it makes sense to turn off notifi cations for noncritical apps (incidentally, it was the persistent notifi cations in that app that lead us to delete it in the end). To stop notifi cations, go to Settings > Notifi cation Centre and scroll down. About half way down the page, under the INCLUDE section, you’ll see a list of the iPhone’s built-in apps, as well as third-party apps installed on your handset. Tap on each one you’re not interested in, and select the
None option to stop it from sending Banners and Alerts to notify you. You can also remove apps from Notifi cation Centre by Switching the slide in Show in Notifi cation Centre to off .
Stop push email
You can set your phone to Push – or rather pull down -– email as soon as it arrives on the server. This is handy if you never want to miss an email and it can save you time because you’ll be able to see all your emails as soon as you open the Mail app. But when your iPhone is running on fumes, it’s best to only grab new emails when you really need them.
Push constantly polls the server so when you get a new email the iPhone knows instantly. You can even get a notifi cation every
time you receive an email. If you don’t need to know every time an email comes in turn it Push off . Tap Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars and tap Fetch New Data and turn Push to Off .
You can instead choose to Fetch your emails at certain intervals. Using Push data for email uses far more data (and power) than Fetch. Choose from Every 15 Minutes, Every 30 Minutes, Hourly, or Manually so you only grab emails when you choose to.
If you have push email on it will stop your phone from sleeping,
especially if you have an Exchange email account, you can expect battery life to be hindered.
Remove multiple
email accounts
Multiple email accounts will consume use of your precious battery life. Try to fold all your diff erent accounts into just the one email service then remove the extras by tapping Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars and choosing an account and tapping Delete Account. In the case of Gmail, for example, you could turn Mail off but keep your Gmail Calendar synced.
Turn off iCloud
Similarly, if you want to make that last bit of juice last longer, turn of anything you don’t need to be synced via iCloud.
iCloud uses a fair bit of data and power, so you can save battery life by turning off unused features. Tap Settings > iCloud and turn off everything you don’t really use, for example, you may not need your Safari bookmarks to be available on the iPhone. Be sure to check the Documents & Data tab to see if there are any apps storing data in the cloud that you don’t need access too, for example, Pages.
iCloud backup only works when the phone is plugged in so you can leave that on.
Turn off auto time zone
The iPhone can automatically update its time depending on where you are in the world. Because the iPhone determines the correct time via Location Services, this uses a small amount of power. Tap Settings > General > Date & Time and change Set Automatically to Off .
Location Services
Most of the time it is not iOS itself that is causing the iPhone’s battery to drain quickly, but all the apps that are running on it. There are a number of apps that utilise location services on your iPhone and they can play their part in draining your battery too. It’s even more frustrating when it’s not obvious why some of them need to know where you
are in the fi rst place. To stop apps from using Location Services, tap Settings > Privacy > Location Services and either turn off Location Services altogether, or deselect any apps that you don’t need to access your GPS.
Siri
Even Siri can be a bit of a drain on battery life. Go to Settings > General > Siri and make sure that Raise to Speak isn’t switched on. That sensor is active whenever your phone is unlocked so if it detects that you are holding your
phone is next to your face it will make Siri listen automatically.
Disable background
app refresh
Before iOS 7, if you switched between apps by double tapping the home button, the old app would be put into a frozen state, with limited access to system resources. iOS 7 allows background apps to periodically refresh their data though, so when you open the app again, you’ll see the latest updates immediately. This can be useful in certain circumstances, but most of the time is just wasting processing power and battery juice updating apps that you don’t really care about.
If you want to get the most out of your battery, turning off Background App Refresh will help. Go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh. Here you can turn off Background App Refresh altogether, or prune the list down on an app-by-app basis.
Disable app updating
Another handy new feature in iOS 7, is the ability to have apps update without you manually telling them to. This is a useful feature that means that apps will always be up-to-date, but can be a drain on your battery. Also, some people prefer to update on a case-by-case basis, since occasionally a
developer will update an app in a way that reduces user satisfaction.
Luckily, you can stop apps from auto-updating. Switch off automatic updates in Settings > iTunes & App Store, scroll to Automatic Downloads and switch off Updates. If you decide to leave any of these Automatic Downloads settings on, ensure that the switch for Use Cellular Data isn’t turned on if you have limited data allowance
Of all the background refreshing and location service using apps, one stands out as the worst off ender. In this blog, former Apple Genius Bar worker Scotty Loveless recommends that you disable location and background
app refresh for Facebook. He claims that Facebook app consumes a lot of memory and processing power even when it’s not in use. He tested this theory by disabling Location Services and Background App Refresh for Facebook and claims he actually saw his battery percentage increase.
Stop quitting
We tend to quit apps we aren’t using as it seems like a logical way to stop them sucking away at the battery. To quit an app, double tap the Home Button and swipe
up to close. It seems this isn’t such a good idea after all. Apple Genius Loveless explains that when you close an app you take it out of RAM, this means that when you open it again the iPhone has to load it back into memory. “All of that loading and unloading puts more stress on your device than just leaving it alone,” he writes.
Show the battery
percentage on your iPhone
If you want to keep an eye on your battery level, you may fi nd it easier to see a percentage representation, rather than a bar icon. If you want to see how much charge you have left as a percentage, go to Settings > General > Usage and activate Battery Percentage. Now you will have a more precise read-out of what life your device has left.
Note that for reasons best known to Apple, the iPod touch lacks such an option. All devices, however, will warn when your battery life hits 20 per cent and then 10 per cent; also, be mindful that even if your battery has a few per cent left in it, your device might automatically shut down anyway, so don’t be doing anything too important when your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad is gasping for breath.
Apple genius Loveless does warn that some people become so concerned about their battery percentage that they keep turning on their iPhone to
check it, and every time they wake up their phone a little bit of power dies.
Calibrate to improve iPhone battery life
If despite trying all these tips to get more battery life out of your iPhone, you are still fi nding yourself running out of juice earlier than you think you should – perhaps your iPhone battery it going from 17 percent to two percent in a matter of minutes – your iPhone or iPad might need a battery calibration.
Apple recommends that you periodically drain your iPhone or iPad’s battery totally and then charge it up until it’s completely full. That’s down to 0, and up to 100 per cent. You should do this at least once per month.
This process, called calibration, helps your device estimate its battery life more accurately. Calibrating your battery will ensure that you know when you need to charge the battery, but the procedure itself doesn’t actually make the battery itself last longer.
How do you know how
much battery you have
left on your iPhone?
Frustratingly, there is no easy answer to this question. Apple off ers the ability to discover the percentage of battery power remaining, and you see how long