One thing Apple users universally complain about is battery life, whether it’s on an iPad, iPhone, or Apple Watch. Apple did include a Battery Usage feature in iOS 8 to help us monitor which apps suck up the most energy, but it’s too big a pain to deal with. Now, in iOS 9, there gave us something that actually matters—Low Power Mode.
According to Apple, the new Low Power mode disables background features not needed for basic functionality, and in turn, provide up to 3 more hours of battery life. If that’s true, it’ll be a damn-impressive feat.
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To add the claimed three hours of battery life, you’ll need to enable the power-saving feature, which exists inside of your Settings app. You’ll now see a new option called Battery, which houses the Low Power Mode option, as well as stats for Usage and Standby power.
Once on, the Low Power Mode will disable the Mail app from fetching new emails, apps from refreshing in the background, motion effects, and animated wallpapers.
You’ll know Low Power Mode is on because the battery icon on your device will change color from black to yellow.
On Apple’s iOS 9 preview page, they also mention other ways they’ve improved battery life by making “the entire operating system, apps and key technologies” more efficient.
One such feature uses the ambient light and proximity sensors so that your screen stays off when your iPhone is face down on a table, regardless of the notification.
Apple claims that iOS 9 adds an hour of additional battery life, just on its own, without Low Power Mode enabled, which is great news for those of us whose iPhones can’t even last an entire day without multiple charges.
Theoretically speaking, iOS 9 can extend your battery life by four hours, but I’m skeptical because all of that additional battery life can exist only under certain ideal conditions (on Wi-Fi, not on a phone call, with many services disabled).
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