Skip to Content

TUAW Tips: Maximize battery power for GPS apps

by Steven Sande Feb 17th 2009 at 6:00PM

You know from reading a lot of my earlier posts that I am a real fan of iPhone GPS apps. I regularly use RunKeeper, TrailGuru, and Geocaching to keep track of my wanderings or find geocaches, but I've found that those apps usually suck my iPhone batteries dry very quickly.

Jason at FitnessKeeper let me know that one of their forum users, Valter, had tweaked various settings on his iPhone and was able to get a tremendous amount of battery life while still keeping both the iPhone's A-GPS and EDGE connection active. Those are the requirements for most GPS apps. What were Valter's secret settings?
  • Wi-fi: off
  • Push: off
  • 3G: off
  • Bluetooth: off
  • Brightness: set at minimum (Note - I also turn off Auto-Brightness)
  • iPod: off
Your mileage may vary, but the RunKeeper forum users found that they were able to improve battery life drastically. One reader had 70% of battery capacity after a two hour run with RunKeeper tracking his run, while Valter's personal tests showed 50% capacity after a 2 hour 45 minute run. For other GPS apps like Geocaching, your battery life will most likely be less as brightness will need to be set so that you can actually read the screen.

What are your optimum iPhone power settings for uses other than GPS apps? Leave a comment below.



View Tags

Related Stories

Categories

TUAW Tips iPhone

You know from reading a lot of my earlier posts that I am a real fan of iPhone GPS apps. I regularly use RunKeeper, TrailGuru, and...
 

Add a Comment

Sign in »
*0 / 3000 Character Maximum

25 Comments

Filter by:
nirmal

thanks for letting us in on this incredible iphone "secret" ....

February 18 2009 at 11:13 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Nikax

I really like TrailGuru...when it works. Problem is, it only work about half the time, the rest of the time it just sits there thinking I'm not moving. No idea what that's about. Urban environment.

February 18 2009 at 3:43 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Dano

In other words - run it like a Motorola RAZR.

February 18 2009 at 1:54 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Michael

GPS Kit (http://www.garafa.com/GPSKit/Home.html) has a new update to 3.0 which includes a function to turn off the iPhone screen completely as soon as it is put inside a pocket (determined by the ambient light sensor) and turns back on as soon as put outside. (See also http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=287909017&mt=8)

Didn't check the added battery time you get with this - but at least the short test of the feature looks very good.

That said: I've never regretted the money I spend for that paid app, it just great and getting even better with free updates.

February 18 2009 at 6:18 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Valter

I'm the guy that post these settings on RunKeeper forum.
I know that these informatons are useless for most of you, but I think they are useful for people at RunKeeper. Most of us are runners and, no, cannot use a car charger, unless you have a very long wire!
I'm simply training for a marathon and, since a long run takes more than 3 hours, leaving default settings will results in having the iPhone out of charge in the middle of the run.
http://www.runkeeper.com/pub/act/yoslZ67xk4NzSv8nntLF/map

Valter

February 18 2009 at 5:11 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Dave

Honestly, this post simply validates what myself and some others have said about the quality of material on TUAW as of late.

No offence intended Steve, I know you're doing your job and that news has been slow lately, but the truth is that this tip is fairly obvious to all but the most inept person. And I would hazard a guess that most inept people are too inept to even know a technical blog or forum when they see one.

February 17 2009 at 11:14 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to Dave's comment
Michael Rose

Dave, believe it or not, this is not obvious to many -- and there are readers of all levels of technical sophistication here.

February 18 2009 at 1:21 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Gray_hat

Michael, while I understand that there are people who read this blog who do not possess extensive knowledge of electronics, I would hope that such readers would posses at least basic faculties of logic.

If one cannot conjecture that by turning things off battery life can be extended, I am not sure that they can be helped in any reasonable manner. Some are even labeled in settings identifying that they consume more power when enabled.

'Enable 3G', 'Push', and 'Fetch'-some of the biggest battery consumers-have such labels. Brightness is probably the most obvious of all, in that the brighter something is, the more energy it uses.

But in the end, I guess I am saying that I find that the point of some of these posts is near non-existent, much like the list of reasons behind me writing this comment.

February 18 2009 at 9:38 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Dorv

My Tip? Car charger. Done.

February 17 2009 at 10:59 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
3 replies to Dorv's comment
kivers21

He ran for 2hrs and 45 minutes? I feel like I'm gonna die after 45 minutes.

February 17 2009 at 10:30 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
David

further proof that TUAW has gone to poop. Any other obvious tips? Perhpas you should vomit out another useless iphone story. its called the unoffiicial APPLE weblog. if you're gonna report on the iphone 98% of the time at least report on interesting things. how bout the possibility of the new matte black finish on the 3G? Engadget figured it out, why can't you?

February 17 2009 at 9:23 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to David's comment
rvinny

ditto.
Can't you recycle some old Mac tips or something - or rename this the iPhone blog. Ask TUAW is the only thing worth reading these days.

February 18 2009 at 3:14 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
tommyt

too bad the GPS is kind of worthless since there isn't turn-by-turn yet.

February 17 2009 at 9:07 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Buy an ad here

Hot Apps on TUAW

Tweets

© 2012 AOL Inc. All Rights Reserved.