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Low Power mode will turn your iPhone 6 into a cross between an iPhone 5 and 5s, show benchmarks

One of the new features we highlighted in iOS 9 is an innovative new way to help your iPhone battery make it through a long day. When toggled on, Low Power mode automatically kicks in when your battery level starts to get low, reducing the clock speed of the CPU as well as cutting some background activities.

MacRumors ran some tests in Geekbench 3 to measure the performance reduction when Low Power mode was activated, and found it to reduce the performance of an iPhone by around 40%. This would mean that your iPhone 6 would end up with performance somewhere between that of an iPhone 5 and an iPhone 5s.

Apple tweaked the description of Low Power mode in iOS 9 Beta 2.

Low Power mode temporarily reduces power consumption until you can fully charge your iPhone. When this is on, mail fetch, background app refresh, automatic downloads, and some visual effects are reduced or disabled.

The previous text indicated that motion effects and animated wallpapers are disabled. The battery icon turns yellow when Low Power mode is engaged, and it’s been suggested that battery life could be extended by up to three hours.

In addition to helping you get more from your battery, iOS 9 also helps you make the most of your storage capacity.

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Comments

  1. Angad - 9 years ago

    *iPhone 6, not Phone 6.

    • Zac Hall - 9 years ago

      Thanks, pouring more coffee now. :)

      • irelandjnr - 9 years ago

        Phone is coming.

      • Andrew Messenger - 9 years ago

        Phone is here.

      • Zac Hall - 9 years ago

        Phone is online only and backordered for 2 months. :)

  2. beyondthetech - 9 years ago

    Android simulation mode!

  3. jramskov - 9 years ago

    It would be nice if you could manually enable it.

    • William Hook - 9 years ago

      You can – the toggle can be found under Settings -> Battery in iOS 9’s betas. It’ll also prompt you to turn it on when you get the 20% and 10% low battery warnings, and it’ll automatically turn off when the phone gets to 80% while charging.

    • cbn42 - 9 years ago

      You can!

  4. Mark (@MarksTehTwitz0r) - 9 years ago

    “One of the new features we highlighted in iOS 9 is an (>) innovative (<) new way to help your iPhone battery make it through a long day. When toggled on, Low Power mode automatically kicks in when your battery level starts to get low, reducing the clock speed of the CPU as well as cutting some background activities."

    How is this innovative? Please explain lol. Trowing around words like this gets me semi-mad and sad. Don't be biased, just don't!

    Anyway, I was serious about the question. What exactly is innovative about this low-power mode?

    • rettun1 - 9 years ago

      Because the meaning has changed, since it is used so often. Sort of like “amazing” and “unbelievable.”

      • proudappleuser - 9 years ago

        I literally died of laughter reading this.

    • Anders Lund - 9 years ago

      I agree – I have the same option on my Windows Phone and I know a lot of Android phones have different ways of extending battery life, when needed. Maybe not all the same things happens between the different OSs, but calling it “innovative” is a bit of a stretch.

  5. prius3 - 9 years ago

    I still don’t understand if this is a setting that you enable once and then the phone will run in low power mode when a specific battery % charge has been reached (e.g. 20%), or if you have to toggle the option each time and possibly run the phone “slow” all the time if you so wish…

    • Andrew Messenger - 9 years ago

      You can—

      A) enable it any time manually or
      B) enable it when one of the low power alerts pops up

      • hiksfiles - 9 years ago

        I think the question was to know if, while toggled on and a battery sitting at say 75% charged, the phone is still being throttled down.

        I don’t understand either… let’s put it on the language barrier! ;)

  6. Charlypollo - 9 years ago

    Oh wow… Apart from the low cpu speed, I actually have all those options disabled in order to save battery on my iPhone 6. And I get around 7 hours of usage time…

    So this mode is actually useless to me.

    • guacho8 - 9 years ago

      Don’t think so, I believe there is a lot more going on that we don’t know yet, I think this a great addition ..

  7. Noah Elisha Worden - 8 years ago

    My friend has an iphone 6 she tried regular and she tried low power mode didnt work is there a way you can help with this solution?

Author

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Ben Lovejoy

Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer and EU Editor for 9to5Mac. He’s known for his op-eds and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review. He also writes fiction, with two technothriller novels, a couple of SF shorts and a rom-com!


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