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PSA: Switching from the Facebook app to Safari can boost iPhone battery life by up to 15%

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If your iPhone battery struggles to make it through a full day, and you don’t want to add an ugly hump to your device, Guardian tech writer Samuel Gibbs has found that deleting the Facebook app and using Safari instead can boost battery life by up to 15%.

Gibbs spent a week comparing battery usage when using the app against a week using Facebook’s mobile site in Safari, finding that he averaged 15% more remaining battery life at the end of each day. He recruited a bunch of others to repeat the experiment, with similar results reported.

A simple tip means that you don’t even sacrifice much convenience by doing so …


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Are you seeing the reported hit in battery-life since upgrading to iOS 7.1? [Poll]

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iOS 7 battery charging dead

We know you like iOS 7.1, but with a lot of chatter about reduced battery-life, and the only test so far based on a small sample and having results falling within the margin of error, we thought it would be useful to get a sense of how prevalent the issue might be.

We recognize, of course, that there are a huge number of variables involved in battery-life. Even if your phone usage is reasonably consistent, a single extra phone call or a bit longer spent browsing the web can account for the relatively small differences most are reporting. A poll is not going to amount to a scientific study, but a decent sample size should at least give a reasonable indication as to the scale of any issue … 
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iPhone 5s battery capacity 10 percent up on iPhone 5, 5c up 5 percent

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AnandTech dug into the FCC filings for the new iPhones to reveal that the iPhone 5s battery offers approximately 10 percent more capacity than its predecessor, while the 5c battery offers a more modest 5 percent gain. That’s a different size battery (5.96Wh vs 5.92Wh) than we’d seen in supposed 5s prototypes … 
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Review: Otterbox Defender iON powered iPhone case

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGule4qJaM0

As I mentioned in my review of a couple of wood cases, I’m not normally a case kind of guy. I’ve never quite seen the point of paying a premium for something beautifully designed and then hiding it away inside a case.

However, a cycling holiday from the Netherlands to Denmark in which my iPhone would be used for both photos and video suggested that at least a temporary change of policy might be in order. Videoing while cycling always carries the risk of an unintended phone-road interface, and using it with the screen on a lot during some long days might also be pushing the battery-life …
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