While the functional features of most sophisticated smartphone apps are excellent and varied, many of them cause an excessive phone battery drainage. In what follows, readers will be acquainted with a few actions that can improve the energy performance of mobile applications.
Are you in the habit of downloading plenty of free gaming apps and using multiple GPS-powered apps on your smartphone? If yes, chances are high that you also tag along your phone charger – wherever you go. While it is not possible to make the battery of a smartphone last for 2-3 days, a better app-management strategy can certainly reduce the extent of power-drain from your handset. To bring down the excessively high power-consumption of mobile apps, these actions would be effective:
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Choose apps with failover parameters – There are many mobile applications that integrate with the built-in Bluetooth settings and/or the GPS features of a smartphone. Before you install any such app, make sure that it has proper failover parameters – i.e., the additional phone resources which it uses get automatically turned off, as soon as the app is closed. You should not have to manually turn off the GPS/Bluetooth every time.
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Avoid having too many free apps – Although the ratio of free apps to paid apps created by almost any mobile application development company in India is on the higher side, you should not download too many of the former. Free applications typically have fairly large numbers of advertisements, the display of which can cause battery drain. A selective choice of paid apps will protect your phone from such risks.
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Set the intervals at which push-notifications are to be sent – Do you really need the default email or Facebook app in your mobile to send new notifications after every 10 minutes? In all probability, you don’t – and hence, it makes sense to set the interval at which the apps should search for new mails/notifications at around half an hour (or even slightly longer). The strain on the phone battery would be eased.
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Take advantage of data caching – If the smartphone apps you are using are primarily web-based, this is a viable way to lower battery wastage. Instead of having to communicate with the mobile server every time, find out if and how you can cache data within the applications. Clearing app cache is often not necessary (unless, of course, you have exchanged confidential personal information through it).
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Get rid of unused apps – Thanks to the ongoing rapid growth in mobile app development in India and overseas, you have literally millions of applications to choose from, at the online stores. While there is no harm in trying out most new apps once, you need to uninstall (and not simply leave unused) the ones that won’t be of much use in future. If you are an Android handset user, consider rebooting your device after uninstalling redundant apps.
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Adjust the display settings of apps – Those who are fond of mobile gaming are surely familiar with applications with interesting app development graphics, and a bright display. What isn’t generally appreciated is that, such additional display brightness can cause the phone battery to get exhausted sooner. Change the display settings to a more optimal level, and make sure that the screen automatically dims if you do not interact with an app for a minute or so.
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Consider making partitions in mobile apps – Cloud offloading has been tested to be an effective technique to partition smartphone applications that have relatively high energy requirements. While launching and operating on a partitioned app in the cloud network, you can rest assured about more economic battery usage.
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Check the FPS of gaming apps – FPS refers to frames-per-second, and a very high count can cause your phone to ‘die’ in less than a couple of hours. In general, the FPS figure for any application should be set at around 25-27. The sophisticated video apps launched by Android and iPhone application development companies generally have their FPS in this range.
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You do not need location-tracking at all times – Give your phone GPS a break at times, particularly when you are at home or in a familiar neighborhood. Along with automated wi-fi network detection, GPS services can have a serious effect on the longevity of phone battery, if you do not bother to turn it off from time to time. This, in turn, also implies that you should not go for multiple apps with GPS requirement (even if they have failover features).
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Remember to close apps – With navigation features and multitasking becoming increasingly easier on new-age smartphones, there is a growing tendency among people to leave apps running in the background – even when they are not being used. A news-ticker application would be a classic example in this regard. If you wish to protect the battery against overuse, you need to actually close the apps you have finished using, for the time being.
The backend mobile app designing themes used often also have an impact on the general energy-efficiency of applications. Irrespective of whether you are using a Blackberry phone, an Android device or an iPhone/iPad, you should be aware of the way in which the effect of every app on the phone battery can be checked. Use apps on your smartphone in a ‘smart’ manner – and do away with the hassles of having to charge your handset after every few hours!
Hussain Fakhruddin
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