14 DAY TRIAL // If you’re unhappy with the current longevity of your iPhone’s battery life, you might want to hold off switching to Android because, come fall 2013, iOS 7 promises to make things better in this department.
iOS 7 comes with a lot of aesthetic pleasantries but also with a bunch of under-the-hood optimizations that keep the phone from taxing the CPU and battery.
For instance, Multitasking in iOS 7 not only knows when to update your social networks with the latest news and messages from your friends, it also updates all your apps with all the latest bug fixes and new features, automatically, and in the background.
The new iOS schedules updates during “power-efficient times,” as Apple itself puts it. For example, when Google publishes a new version of its YouTube app and your device is on and connected to Wi-Fi, it’ll instantly download the updated YouTube to your device.
This way you don’t have to move through different screens, tap buttons, and wait for the progress gauge to fill up. And, best of all, that App Store icon will never show a red badge again.
Another power-saving feature is Control Center.
That’s right. Although Apple doesn’t market Control Center as such, it too works to reduce power drain on your iPhone or iPod touch.
The reason is simple too. Instead of having to navigate to the Settings app and then browse endlessly to find those On/Off toggles for Airplane mode, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Do Not Disturb, all you do is swipe up and tap once.
The screen brightness slider is also there, allowing you to dim the lights in a second when your battery is running low. Everything is much easier to access in iOS 7, so you’ll waste less time performing actions (with the screen on).