What kind of iPhone usage burns battery?

October 26, 2009 8:08 AM

iPhone battery life: I'm flying across the Pacific tomorrow with a 2 year old and a 5 year old. They are iPhone fiends (god help them), but I need to know if there is a huge difference in battery consumption between the education apps they usually play ("Find the sheep"..."Baaaa") and videos. I suspect that videos will use up battery life longer than these really simple apps, but I'm not sure. Anyone know?
posted by zachawry to technology (15 comments total)

(Not exactly answering your question but) what airline are you flying? It might have the USB port in the seatback in front of you so you can keep it plugged in.
posted by meerkatty at 8:10 AM on October 26 [1 favorite]

As noted above, all the planes on I've flown on recently have had a USB port you could plug your phone into.
posted by chunking express at 8:12 AM on October 26

Wow! That would be awesome. United.

That would mean I wasted 75 bucks on an external battery, but so what....
posted by zachawry at 8:22 AM on October 26

I don't know what lucky (or non-coach class) planes the other people are flying but I've never had a usb or any power on my flights to and from Japan.

My iPod touch's battery seems to be fine for the flight playing music, but I don't do games/videos. I would suggest getting one of the battery operated chargers to keep with you just in case. I have one that takes 2 AA's and seems to work good and only cost about 10 bucks. I bought mine here in Osaka though so I don't know what kind of options you might have in your area.
posted by sleepytako at 8:27 AM on October 26

Planes vary a lot, and airlines are slow to retrofit older ones. United is rather... well, cheapskate about things, in my experience. At least, I groan when that's the carrier I get. Maybe I'm a snob.

You're looking at only about four hours of videos, tops, and probably more like three unless it's a very shiny new 3GS, which I hear lasts longer. Games are similarly power-sucking, especially if they are of the 3D animation type. If "find the sheep" is one of the many logic/clicking "board" types of game, though (where the screen stays quite static for the most part) the battery will last longer.

But either way, hope for a USB port. Even if you don't have one in your "class" of seating, you can always ask a flight attendant to find you a port somewhere, charge your phone for 30 mins, and bring it back. I've done that.

Also, carry both a usb cable and the power adapter bricky thing for it, in case there's a coffee outlet in the bulkhead, but not a USB port anywhere. It's also easy enough to find vacuum cleaner outlets in most airport departure lounges, where you'll be sitting for an hour anyway.

(Hint: look behind the plants!)
posted by rokusan at 8:34 AM on October 26

Alot of planes, even the older ones, have dc ports. If you have a regular cigarette plug charger, you should be fine.
posted by TheBones at 8:43 AM on October 26

Turning down the screen brightness does help.
posted by Idcoytco at 8:54 AM on October 26

Geez, $75 for an external battery? I have several of these and they work great (although, for iPods (not iPhones) you can't charge and use the device at the same time, which seems to render it a lot less useful for use with an iPod).
posted by iknowizbirfmark at 8:57 AM on October 26

Your best bet is going to be to buy a backup battery pack for the iPhone that you charge up and plug in to it for extra juice. I imagine you'll be glad you did later on.

However, ways to minimize battery usage:

1) Put the iPhone in "Airplane Mode" - this turns off all of the wireless stuff, cell phone functionality, etc. It can be found in the "Settings" screen.

2) Also in the Settings screen, turn down the brightness as low as you can while still making it comfortable to look at. If the flight is at night, or the plane is rather dark, you can get away with turning this wayyyy down. When playing games, the 2 big killers are the processor churning to crank out graphics (especially 3d stuff) and the fact that the backlight is on constantly so that you can see what you're doing. Turning down the brightness is the one of these two things you can control.

3) If you stick to music, you'll use less power than most if not all games. While I can't back it up by fact, I feel I can also make an educated guess and say that video probably takes less than games. Generally the process of decoding music and videos has been worked on enough that they try to minimize the processing horsepower required, and thus power consumption.


As long as you find a reasonably priced iPhone battery pack (check ilounge.com for reviews on various options), I think you should be good for the flight, and if it's not terribly expensive, you'll likely be glad you had it around at some point in the future.
posted by twiggy at 8:58 AM on October 26

Power options for non-US carriers are not common. It's best to check prior to the flight.

This site

http://www.seatguru.com/index.php

is supposed to have all of the relevant information, but it has failed me in the past - so in addition, you might want to check with the airline directly.

Also with some of the older US carriers which provide 12V DC, you may need an adapter in addition to the standard cigarette plug charger...I recently stopped carrying mine and of course found my self in a seat with the old style plug.

One more thing we've done. If you are taking a laptop with you, it works well on a long flight to top off the kids video players...
posted by NoDef at 10:11 AM on October 26

I use one of these battery packs. Double-A batteries are available everywhere and can be had for much less than all the proprietary solutions. A 4 pack of AAs has served well enough to last from Vancouver to Seoul, followed by a five hour bus ride, about 30 hours on my last big trip.

To work with an iPhone, you'll need a power to USB adapter also, but the whole rig should do you for not much, at all.
posted by bonehead at 10:11 AM on October 26

By the way, I really don't like the single battery packs. Brookstone sells these in their airport shops. They don't work nearly as well as the Energiser ones.
posted by bonehead at 10:14 AM on October 26

Yeah, it's safer to not rely on the airplane providing any power amenities. I got a gum external battery, which is like one of those mentioned above. It's great. Worked to top off both my and my wife's iphone on our flight to Greece from Boston. We both were watching movies and playing games or listening to music. I got the larger one, which would top off an iPhone 3 times, I think.

Plus, since it just has a USB plug on it, you can use it with any kind of device that charges from USB. And since it charges via USB itself, that means that you can charge it from your iPhone wall charger and plug your iPhone into it and charge both at the same time.

With any of these types of solutions, you'll get more mileage out of the battery if you charge your phone while you are not using it.

The best thing about a battery pack like this is that it's usable in almost any location. I like the kind that connects with a cable instead of just connecting to the bottom of my phone as I find that kind too bulky.
posted by reddot at 12:48 PM on October 26

Turn the brightness way down. Turn off all transmitters. Turn off wifi. Turn off location services. Turn off email push.

I bought one of these at Fry's just the other day and it seems to work well. At least, it has charged the battery on my iPhone 3G one time. Unless the sale ended last week, they are currently on sale for $10 after rebate [$16 before] at Fry's. Even at $16, you can buy four of these for your $70.

Caveat: recharging the thing itself seems to be really really slow. Charging the iPhone is not terribly speedy either.

Nthing bringing the regular charger so you can sneak charging in whenever you see an outlet.
posted by chazlarson at 6:30 PM on October 26

In my experience, video uses less power than games, applications, etc.

Be sure to turn on airplane mode, turn down screen brightness, turn off wi-fi, etc. as other posters have suggested.

I have a couple of the Duracell Instant USB chargers that I use. I fly to Germany a few times a year and they've come in quite handy on 8 hour + flights.
posted by jzb at 10:26 PM on October 28