Cydia Tweak Alerts You When Your iPhone is Fully Charged

By Cody Lee on May 11, 2011

Jailbreak tweaks are a dime a dozen these days. There seems to be one of these iOS extensions for nearly everything, from uploading photos to Facebook to sharing your music on Twitter.

And in case you needed an app to give you a heads up when your iPhone battery is completely charged, Cydia has you covered there too. Full Charge Alert is a tiny tweak in the jailbroken App Store and I’ll give you 3 guesses what it does… Read More

 

Has your Battery Life Improved in iOS 4.3.3?

By Kickstar13 on May 9, 2011

Ever since Apple released iOS 4.3, many iPhone users have been reporting a noticeable decrease in battery life from iOS 4.2.1. While further releases tend to help battery life a little bit, users state that their iPhone battery life still doesn’t last as long as it did on iOS 4.2.1 and earlier.

Apple released iOS 4.3.3 earlier this week, and in addition to rectifying the infamous location tracking bug, the update was also supposed to bring battery life improvements. We conducted a similar poll a few days after the release of iOS 4.3.1, and the poll results still showed that iOS 4.3.1 battery life had not improved.  Read More

 

Auto Location Will Automatically Turn the iPhone’s Location Services On and Off

By Alex Heath on Apr 25, 2011

Are you still a little paranoid about the iPhone location-tracking file? Are you afraid that Apple or your carrier is tracking your every move?

Lucky for you, there’s a new jailbreak tweak called Auto Location that automatically toggles your iPhone’s Location Services on and off. When you’re not using an app that requires GPS, Auto Location will turn the iPhone’s Location Services off. When you open an app that requires Location Services, Auto Location turns it back on… Read More

 

The Wi.U, Because Every Smartphone Deserves a Smart Charger

By Cody Lee on Apr 24, 2011

Chalk this one up to another interesting innovation involving Apple’s iPhone. We’ve shown you the 360-degree lens and the dual sim case, now let me introduce you to the Wi.U. It’s the smartest portable battery charger you’ve ever seen.

The Wi.U case pairs the iPhone with the battery charger through the device’s 30-pin connector. The charger has the ability to detect when your iPhone battery is getting low, and will automatically start charging it up… Read More

 

Apple Looking to Build Rechargeable Battery Pack

By Alex Heath on Apr 2, 2011

According to a recent patent, it appears that Apple is interested in making its own external, rechargeable battery pack. There are plenty of portable batteries for the iPhone on the market already, but it looks like Apple might introduce a new charging cable with its own rechargeable battery.

A future charging cable from Apple could supply multiple charge cycles when disconnected from a power source… Read More

 

Has Your iPhone Battery Life Improved in iOS 4.3.1?

By Kickstar13 on Mar 29, 2011

Now that you’ve had a couple of days with iOS 4.3.1, for those of you that updated, we’re wondering how the latest OS is going for you so far.

When iOS 4.3 was released, there were several bugs/issues reported by the iPhone community in the new OS, one of the major ones being poor battery life. At the time, a good amount of early iOS 4.3 adopters attributed the poor battery life to auto-lock issues, causing the screen to stay on for hours at a time. The problem seemed to be affecting only iPhone and iPod Touch 4G owners. Read More

 

iOS 4.3.1 to Improve Battery Life?

By Sebastien Page on Mar 23, 2011

As we reported last week, iOS 4.3 comes with serious battery drains for some users. While I haven’t updated my iPhone 4 to 4.3 yet (I need my unlock), I can tell that the battery on my iPad 2 4.3 isn’t that great at all.

The guys over at BGR got their hands on a 4.3.1 build and were didn’t see anything new in there, besides the fact that battery life seems a bit better. They didn’t conduct any kind of scientific test on it so it’s hard to verify if battery is indeed better… Read More

 

Battery Issues May Be Another Reason to Stay Away From iOS 4.3

By Cody Lee on Mar 16, 2011

Here at iDB, we’ve certainly warned you of the dangers in upgrading to iOS 4.3. Until today, that warning was only meant for jailbreakers. Well, it looks like even stock users have a reason to hold off.

Several iLounge editors are reporting severe battery drain in their iDevices, after upgrading to iOS 4.3. Their experiences coincide with users across several Apple Support threads, dedicated  to this very topic…

Read More

 

iPhone 4 Gets Nearly Double the Battery Life of Some Android Phones

By Cody Lee on Mar 11, 2011

One of the biggest things I’m concerned with on my smart phone is battery life. What good is a wireless phone if it always needs to be plugged in? With some of my older iPhones (iPhone 2G, 3G), it was a major issue. But since I’ve gotten my iPhone 4, it’s never really been a problem.

I’ve had Android and Blackberries for work phones in the past, and I can honestly say the iPhone 4 is the best when it comes to battery life. Well it looks like my experience are in line with most everybody else’s, as cnet test results confirm that the iPhone is top dog…

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$500 ZAGGsparq Giveaway Winners Announced!

By Alex Heath on Feb 26, 2011

Earlier this week, we announced a giveaway of 5 ZAGGsparq mobile chargers amounting to $100 per unit. We reviewed the ZAGGsparq, and the folks at ZAGG decided to give us five ZAGGsparq’s for a giveaway to our readers! That’s a total value of $500. Not too shabby.

Winners of the ZAGGsparq giveaway have been selected. Congrats to the five lucky winners!

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The iPhone 5 Rumor Roundup

By Alex Heath on Feb 19, 2011

Rumors regarding the next iteration of the iPhone have been flying left and right. If you’ve been following the rumor mill, you know that there’s a lot of potential innovations to be implemented into Apple’s next iPhone.

Will Apple release several different iPhone models at once? Will the next iPhone be considerably smaller than its predecessors? Will Apple release the iPhone 5 on all carriers with a universal baseband?

These, among others, are all questions being asked about the next iPhone. Let’s examine the rumors and try and make sense of it all…

Read More

 

Apple Planning to Improve Battery Life By Increasing Cell Density

By Kickstar13 on Feb 19, 2011

With newer, more powerful dual and quad-core processors being introduced, these processors require more and more energy to operate. Apple realizes this and is looking into possible resolutions for better battery life while maintaining the same slim and sleek profile the iPhone 4 currently has.

Cupertino has filed a new patent with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office titled “Increasing Energy Density in Rechargeable Lithium Battery Cells,” which does just that… Read More

 

Delta Airlines: iPhone Friendly

By Alex Heath on Dec 15, 2010

Delta Airlines, the world’s largest airline, has been making great strides to stay relevant and continue providing helpful services to its customers. They have the largest fleet of WiFi-enabled planes, and they are now the first airline to start rolling out official charging stations in their airport terminals.

The technological traveler is always worrying about the state of their device’s battery life before they board for a long plane trip. iPhones haven’t exactly been known for their outstanding battery life.

Normally, one would have to scour the far corners of an airport gate to try to find an open outlet to get a last minute charge. Last week, Delta Airlines started installing charging stations for all kinds of devices in the gates of 19 major American airports…

Read More

 

Fix: iPhone Battery Drain After Jailbreaking and Unlocking

By Sebastien Page on Dec 3, 2010

As we reported earlier this week, some of you who have recently updated your baseband to 06.15.00 to jailbreak and unlock have been facing battery drains issues. The problem doesn’t actually come from UltraSn0w or RedSn0w, but from the hacktivation process, for those of you who have hacktivated instead of activating the phone with an official carrier.

The issue comes from iOS 4.1 and 4.2.1 which constantly look for valid push certificates, either via wifi or your data plan (Edge or 3G). This runs down you battery and may even cause your iPhone to overheat. If you didn’t hacktivate your iPhone but simply activated it with an official carrier (ie AT&T in the US), you shouldn’t have any problem.

If on the other end you did hacktivate your iPhone, you might be experiencing the battery drain issue. Fortunately, there is now a fix for it… Read More

 

iOS 4.2 Improves iPhone and Carrier Efficiency with “Network Controlled Fast Dormancy”

By Alex Heath on Dec 2, 2010

With the recent release of iOS 4.2, Apple has joined efforts with Nokia to make smartphone carrier signaling more efficient. The Nokia Siemens Networks recently did a test to show that iOS 4.2 supports a relatively new and unadopted technology called “Network Controlled Fast Dormancy.” That may sound like a mouthful, but what it actually means isn’t that hard to understand.

Nokia already implemented this technology earlier this year, but Apple has been the first smartphone platform to support NCFD since Nokia. Based on Nokia and Apple’s combined market share, Apple’s adoption of this technology now puts NCFD-supported devices into the hands of more than half of the people buying new smartphones around the world…

Read More

 

Customize Your iPhone’s Battery Alerts with PowerAlerter

By Alex Heath on Dec 1, 2010

Sometimes, getting a battery alert at 20% on your iPhone isn’t enough.  For those of us that want more control over our battery alerts, there’s PowerAlerter.

PowerAlerter is a Cydia tweak that gives you full control over visual, audio and haptic notifications for your iPhone’s battery. With PowerAlerter, you’ll never have to worry about forgetting to plug your iPhone into the charger again…

Read More

 

Conserve Your iPhone Battery with ScreenDimmer

By Guest Author on Sep 4, 2010

Apple promised better battery life with the iPhone 4 but let’s face it, it still falls short. But then again, depending on how you use it, a full charge can last anywhere from just a few hours to a couple of days (I’m being very generous). I’ll admit I’m a heavy iPhone user. It’s useful and I like it and being a heavy iPhone user obviously taxes the battery. I run very few things in the background to conserve battery life but I want more conservation. Read More

 

Extend Your iPhone Battery Life With Auto3G

By Sebastien Page on Aug 30, 2010

Auto3G is a new jailbreak application that aims at extending your iPhone battery life by automatically turning off the 3G radio when you lock your iPhone, and automatically turning it back on when you slide to unlock.

This simple app allows you to always have the speed of 3G when you need it, without draining your battery when you’re not using it. Auto3G will add a new icon to your springboard from which you can choose the 3G timeout settings. Read More

 

10 Ways to Save Your iPhone 4 Battery Life

By Sebastien Page on Jun 29, 2010

The iPhone 4 battery is supposedly 20% better than the 3GS and I still can’t go one full day without having to plug my iPhone in. I realized that I’m not the only one having this battery issue so I figured I’d post a few tips to maximize the iPhone battery life.

  1. Make sure you kill those apps that are running in the background for nothing
  2. Turn off wifi if you’re not using it (Settings > Wi-Fi and set Wi-Fi to Off)
  3. Turn off 3G if you don’t need it (Settings > General > Network and set Enable 3G to Off)
  4. Turn off Push Notifications (Settings > Notifications and set Notifications to Off)
  5. Turn off Bluetooth (Settings > General > Bluetooth and set Bluetooth to Off)
  6. Turn off Push Email (Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Fetch New Data and set Push to Off)
  7. Fetch new data manually (Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Fetch New Data and tap Manually)
  8. Go through a full charge cycle each month (charge the battery to 100% and completely run it down)
  9. Turn off vibrate
  10. Auto-adjust Brightness (Settings > Brightness and set Auto-Brightness to On)
  11. Optional: turn your iPhone 4 off (just kidding)

Do you have any other tip to add to this list? Feel free to share your tips by adding a comment.

 

iPhone 3GS A Month Later. Still A Lot Missing

By Sebastien Page on Jul 20, 2009

It seems it was yesterday that I unboxed my iPhone 3GS for the first time. Of course it was love at first sight. It is fast and elegant, but now that I’ve been using it for a month, I notice there is still a lot missing to make it the perfect phone.

Copy/Paste is Clunky

Woohoo, the iPhone finally has copy/paste. It only took Apple 2 years to implement this basic feature… The reality is that they did a terrible job. I think copy/paste on the iPhone is clunky and intrusive. Now everytime you touch your iPhone screen, you have this annoying popup asking you if you want to select/copy/paste. Apple products usually are about amazing user experience and copy/paste for the iPhone is a big fail. Read More