Phone Charging Myths: Lifespan, Idle Apps and More

In parts one and two of this multi-part blog series, we’ve gone over a number of myths that have formed surrounding phone batteries and charging. As technology in these areas has changed rapidly over the last couple decades, a number of unfortunate misconceptions have begun to crop up. At FixIT Mobile, we regularly set our customers straight on these areas when they come to us for battery or charger-related phone repair concerns. Having the wrong information about your charger, battery or related themes may cause you to take actions that will damage the battery and cost you money sooner than you should ever be dealing with these concerns. Today’s final entry into our series will go over a few more of these myths to be sure you avoid as you care for your phone’s battery.

Idle App Closing

Another modern misconception that’s understandable due to recent history is the one that you must close all apps you aren’t currently using to save battery. For some time, this actually did save battery.

Recently, however, Apple executives and others in the space have clarified this theme for their newer models. Closing idle apps doesn’t actually save any battery life – in fact, force-closing idle apps may lead to using more battery life when you have to re-open them. The only time apps should be force-closed is if they have frozen or become unresponsive; otherwise, just leave them idle and they will not impact your battery.

Battery Lifespan

When it comes to battery lifespan, the primary mistake is viewing it in terms of a number of years or months. This is not correct; rather, what matters for a battery’s long-term life is its number of charge cycles.

A charge cycle, as you may have guessed, refers to each time you discharge 100% of the phone’s battery – even if you don’t bring it all the way down to 0% at any point, as we discussed earlier in our series. If you use only 50% of your phone’s battery on consecutive days, then, regardless of how much you re-charged it during that time, you’ve used only a single charge cycle in that period. Most iPhones have a lifespan of about 400-500 cycles, though this can vary significantly between specific models.

Replacement Batteries

Several years ago, when iPhone users discovered performance issues due to weak batteries, Apple put out $29 battery replacements meant to solve this issue. However, these only tend to work for batteries underperforming due to being below capacity – in other cases, you’ll need to spend a bit more for a full replacement battery rather than one of these discounted versions. For more on phone battery and charging myths debunked, or to learn about any of our computer repair, tablet repair or other device repair services, speak to the staff at FixIT Mobile today.