How to speed up your iPhone or iPod Touch and save battery
Is your iPhone or iTouch lagging or running slow? Is the battery seemingly nonexistent?
An inevitable part of owning a iPhone or iTouch is the eventual speed reduction after continuous use, as well as the rapid draining of the battery. This can fool many people into thinking that their devices are too slow, are old, their batteries are dying and must be replaced, and they must upgrade right away. Fear not- save time. money, and grief with these tips on how to speed up and save battery on your iPhone or iTouch!
Delete running apps from the multitasking tray
Saves battery and speeds up
Whenever you open and close an app, it is usually left running in the background, which can drain away speed and batteries.
Double click the home button, hold one of the apps until it wiggles, and then delete all the apps by clicking on the red minuses. -Note that this DOES NOT delete the actual app !!
You can also download an app from the app store which can help manage your RAM.
Upgrade to 5.1.1 (iOS)
Battery and Speed
The battery and speed on 5.1.1 is considerably greater than 5.01's.
Turn off Wifi or Data
Saves battery
Your device uses up battery when the Wifi and Data are left on, even when you are not actively using it. If you are, say, in a signal-blocked place such as a building, airplane, or specific place where you KNOW you cannot get signal or Wifi, turn them off.
To turn off Wifi, go to the Settings>Wifi>Turn off.
To turn off Data, go to Settings>General>Network>Turn off Cellular Data.
Reduce screen brightness
Saves battery
This one is pretty obvious- a brighter screen will require more energy from the device and will drain more battery.
Go to Settings>Brightness>slide it to the half way mark for the best balance between brightness and battery use
Leave it ringing
Saves battery
Or dead silent. Your phone requires a bit of battery each time to vibrate. Unless you are in a place where it is necessary to vibrate your phone, leave it on ring or completely silent.
Use the ring switch on the side of the iPhone to switch vibration on and off.
Jailbreak it!
Saves battery and speeds up
By jailbreaking your device, you can personally edit how your device performs using specific tweaks and packages. This can let you speed your device up.
Add packages such as Speedintensifier to speed up your device, and packages such as SBsettings to allow easy access to phone utilities. See my Top 10 Cydia Tweaks and Packages article for more info.
Turn off some notifications and widgets
Saves battery and speeds up
In iOS 5, you can pull down from the top of the screen to activate the NotifcationCenter. Here, you can check all your missed notifications, the weather, time, stocks, etc. Having too many in the NC can slow down your phone and drain battery from constant updates.
Go to Settings>Notifications> Switch OFF all apps which you don't need notifs on.
In the same place,remove specific widgets which you do not use or need, like the Stocks widget.
Reboot device
Helps with everything
Many times a simple reboot is all it takes to refresh your device.
To reboot, hold the top and bottom button at the same time for 10 seconds until the device turns off and the Apple logo appears.
Don't forget that if you are running a tethered jailbreak, you must re-run Redsn0w !
Restore Device
Last resort
This is your last resort method to use. It will almost always work, and you can restore from your backup to get all settings, emails, data, calendars back. Just be sure to sync before you restore !
To restore, plug into iTunes, Sync, and press restore. If you have a custom firmware, be sure to select that firmware by holding Shift+Restore for Windows, and Command+Restore for Mac.
