The Silent Battery Drain
By default, iOS attempts to ensure that your apps are instantly ready the moment you launch them. It achieves this using a feature called “Background App Refresh.” Even when your iPhone is locked and sitting in your pocket, the operating system routinely wakes up your installed apps, allows them to connect to the internet, download new content, and go back to sleep. While this makes your social media feeds load slightly faster, it is a massive source of passive battery drain. If you are struggling to make your iPhone battery last until the end of the day, you must disable this background activity.
How to Turn Off Background App Refresh
You can enforce a strict “on-demand only” policy for all applications via the General settings.
- Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
- Scroll down and tap on General.
- Tap on Background App Refresh.
- At the top of the screen, tap the master Background App Refresh button.
- Select the Off option from the list.
Frozen Apps
The change is absolute and takes effect instantly. The iPhone will completely sever background network access for every third-party application on the device. Your apps will continue to function normally, but they will remain completely frozen in the background until the exact second you tap their icon on your home screen. When you open the app, it will take an extra second or two to download the latest data, but your daily standby battery life will improve significantly.