Sunday 22 June 2014

17 tips for iPhone Battery Survival at a Music Festival




To mark Glastonbury Festival this week and following on from our recent blog on music festival apps let’s talk about how your mobile phone can survive a music festival and maybe even last the weekend.


You are going to a music festival and you want to take your smartphone with you (which is a debate on its own but let's move on). But hang on - your phone's battery normally begins to die on you half way through a morning? How can it survive this?

A big weekend of texting, snapping, videoing, tweeting, posting, 'gramming and maybe even calling (remember that) means you have a bit of a problem. In a field, no charger, 3-5 days….Pyramid, Shangri-la, Healing Fields, The Park or back in your tent - you sometimes need your phone to survive...

Don’t worry, we’ve got your back with some app management, device advice and some behavioural coaching. Lets do this!



1. Turn Your Phone Off



The device has plenty of little programmes and processes that might be a buggy and draining battery. As a nice refresh its wise to turn the phone off once in a while to reset your phones karma. Hold the power button down and slide the power bar. Wait a minute. Power on. Easy.



2. FULLY charge your phone



Before your hedonistic trip of a lifetime let the battery drain right down and then fully charge. Daily part-charging and part-draining is poor battery management and gives you a clunky performance. Like a good night’s sleep a full charge is good for the phone.



3. Email settings



Have you ever changed your email settings and does Push or Fetch mean anything to you? If your email is on Push then your phone is constantly asking if it’s got mail (think 5 year-old within 100 yards of an ice cream van). This drains the battery - especially in remote locations where you can’t get signal. This worries the phone and it tries even harder to connect.

The solution: On your phone go to: SETTINGS > MAIL, CONTACTS, CALENDARS > FETCH NEW DATA > TURN OFF PUSH

Change to Fetch Every 15 Minutes. Or longer.

If you do this and want to check for an email the Mail App will check for new messages when you open it up anyway so you can always pull new email on demand.



4. Delete Email Accounts



Not so much software this one but behaviour. If you can, delete email accounts you don’t need while you are away (but can easily retrieve again!). This means less mail servers, less battery use, longer battery life. I had a new iPhone recently and didn’t load an email address onto it for a week and the battery lasted for days.

 "tell them you were in a field with 100,000 other muddy folk and you couldn’t get a signal"


Particularly your work ones. If you reply to an email at the start of your trip then they know you will reply to others. Which of course they will send them. Before you know it you are getting dragged into email debates, wars, problems and you should be there having a good time. Be brave - the world will turn without you - and delete the accounts you don’t need but let your nearest and dearest know what you can be reached on.

If someone has a problem tell them you were in a field with 100,000 other muddy folk and you couldn’t get a signal. (Which is probably true).

5. Delete some apps


Go on. We dare you.
Festival signals are often poor. Of course you want to be Boast-Posting about your weekend, but come Sunday when your phone is dead it’s not going to be such a good idea. Trying to read Twitter, Facebook or Instagram amongst the madness and keeping up with the Likes and Comments means you are 1) Missing out on the stuff going on around you 2) I promise you it’s frustrating getting the signal - your poor phone is working much harder on data strengths of E or the dreaded GPRS.

So, deep breath, take the plunge, delete some of the mega-apps, free yourself from staring at your gadget while headliners headline and jugglers juggle - be mindful and enjoy.

How to delete an app? Touch the app icon and hold for a moment. The apps will then jiggle a merry dance with an X in the top corner. Delete what you want and then press the main home button to stop the jiggling.


 

6. Decide how to communicate


You are likely in a group. Text is OK, possibly more instant (although I have left Glastonbury on the Monday and while in Michaelwood services on the M5 got texts from lost mates from the Thursday night) but will everyone get it? Tip 1. Decide on one Group Messenger app like WhatsApp or similar and then use that. Build a Chat Group and then you are all on the same page and spend less time getting texts, to send another text, and then diving into Facebook to pick up messages from that and draining the battery with fussy use. Tip 2. If you have Facebook and don't have Facebook messenger then get that. Its a great add on.


 

7. Turn brightness down



An obvious one. Turn the brightness of your phone down. Light = battery = well, you get it by now.
SETTINGS > Wallpapers & Brightness

 

8. Turn off auto brightness



Another brightness tip. Your phone has a light sensor. Sensors are constantly working. This drains battery. So to turn this off go to SETTINGS > Wallpapers & Brightness and throw that switch to off.

 

9. Speed up auto-lock



SETTINGS>GENERAL>AUTO-LOCK>1 MINUTE


This locks the phone faster so it’s not illuminating your pocket after you last used it for no reason whatsoever. And while you are at it, even better…



 

 

 

 

 

10. Lock your phone when you've used it



A quick press of the power button closes the phone and locks the screen and within seconds your apps stop processing. It’s a good habit to get into.

 

11. Limit Location Services



OK, now this is a big drain on your battery as the phone is telling the network where you are constantly for its own use and for the benefit of the apps (sometimes that’s a good thing says us the App Developer!).

Some apps like iPhone finders depend on this. Other apps don’t. the more that you turn off the better.


PRIVACY > LOCATION SERVICES. You can decide whether you turn it off for certain apps or all of them.

 

 

 

 

 

12. Remove Apple diagnostics



If you care about Apple’s data collection then move on. course you don't....


Otherwise SETTINGS> GENERAL> ABOUT> SCROLL
DOWN> DIAGNOTICS AND USEAGE and turn off.



 

 

 

 

 

 

13. Close your apps



It’s wise to keep on top of open apps. Double click your home button and swipe your apps up (if you are on iOS7) and this closes apps and stops them whirring around in the background and chomping on your battery.

 

14. Choose Which Apps Can Run At All Times



SETTINGS>GENERAL>BACKGROUND APP REFRESH


How cheeky, some apps can work when you don’t want them to. Zap ‘em!


 

 

15. Manage your Notifications

SETTINGS>NOTIFICATIONS CENTER

Scroll down. Keep scrolling and you will see all the apps that have Noticiations set up on your phone. This is a good thing in normal life (said the keen App Developing company) but we are going off the radar for a few days and need to keep our device alive so....

Have a fiddle with your settings. Some apps you will want to remove from the 'Center'. Some keep. 

Here you are turning off Noticiaftions for Twitter on your home screen and settling just for the little red flag on the Twitter icon on your phone.

The more notifications you have the more tiny little nibbles there are buzzing away on your phone's life expectancy over the weekend.



16. Portable Chargers



You knew this was coming. Why not cheat? If you have £20-40 to spend then we’d recommend getting a portable charger and you’ll use it for years to come.
Glastonbury are laying on a great service this year for charging units and it’s proved so popular that they have sold out. But we of course recommend heeding some of the good advice above. 


17. Sandwich Bags


What?! Actually nothing to do with your battery but we really recommend those sliding sealing sandwich bags to keep your phone nice and dry in should it get a bit wet. These things are priceless. In fact these things are the ultimate Festival Hack and are great for carrying around your money, camera ..... and also your wet wipes .... and let's leave that there!


If you have any more tips, please leave a comment. Now, where is the Cider bar?


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