Batterylife Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Having Flash installed on your MacBook can reduce battery runtime by 33%

by Michael Grothaus (Nov 4th, 2010)

As if Adobe Flash didn't have enough going against it already. Now it appears that, according to tests done by Ars Technica, having Flash installed on your laptop can reduce your battery runtime by a third. Ars Technica was running battery tests on the new 11-inch MacBook Air. With the Flash player ...

Multitasking in iOS 4 is not a magical sparkle pony

by TJ Luoma (Jun 14th, 2010)

As we wait for iOS4 to be released, I think it's important to try to help folks keep reasonable expectations for what iOS 4 will and won't do, especially as it relates to "multitasking." Apple has to take some of the blame for this hype, especially when it's listed as the #1 feature of iOS 4, ...

Confirmed: "Not charging" iPad does recharge

by Erica Sadun (Apr 8th, 2010)

When TUAW reader Gregory P. wrote to us yesterday, claiming his "Not charging" iPad was, in fact, charging, I admit I was pretty skeptical. After all, the new iPads have been widely reported to be incompatible with USB hubs and lower-power USB ports. Gregory claimed to have charged up his new iPad ...

Dear Aunt TUAW: What's the low down on battery packs?

by Erica Sadun (Jan 14th, 2010)

Dear Aunt TUAW, Boxcar is killing my battery life (at least, that's what I'm guessing -- I love Boxcar, but since I began getting 20+ notifications a day, I'm seeing the battery drain quite a bit faster). What kind of battery pack can you recommend to help my poor iPhone stay online and ...

10.6 falsely reports 'service battery?' ... I think not

by Josh Carr (Sep 24th, 2009)

Over the last couple weeks, I've been going back and forth with readers who truly believe that Snow Leopard is reporting battery errors when they have a perfectly good battery. There's even a substantially large thread in Apple's Discussions forums about this topic. I've been notified of that thread ...

Singing the iPhone battery blues

by Megan Lavey-Heaton (Jul 7th, 2009)

"My iPhone's been draining awfully fast since I installed 3.0," I commented to a fellow TUAW blogger just a few days after the release of the iPhone 3.0 firmware. At first, I wanted to think it was my phone. But, my iPhone 3G wasn't even 90 days old at the time of the observation and I'd been able ...

Ask TUAW: Recovering pictures, updating Facebook, iPhone battery life and more

by Chris Ullrich (Feb 25th, 2009)

Once again, it's time for another edition of Ask TUAW: the place where we try to answer all of your Mac and Apple-related questions. This week we're taking questions about recovering pictures from corrupted compact flash cards, Twitter for the iPhone, extending iPhone battery life and more. As ...

TUAW Tips: Maximize battery power for GPS apps

by Steven Sande (Feb 17th, 2009)

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 ...

Wanted: An iPhone power miser app

by Steven Sande (Aug 28th, 2008)

While Guy Kawasaki might be able to get 36 hours of standby life out of his iPhone 3G, many of the rest of us are struggling with having enough power to make it through a day. Mike Davidson, CEO of Newsvine in Seattle, came up with a great idea for any iPhone developers in the TUAW audience. He'd ...

iPhone 3G extended battery options

by Steven Sande (Jul 17th, 2008)

Fellow propeller-head and all-around nice guy Joel Evans over at Geek.com let me know that they had published a short post about a couple of iPhone 3G extended battery options. Since the 3G has a tendency to suck battery power like a vacuum powered by a Pratt & Whitney PW-4000 jet engine, ...