mdolla: 9 Cool Apps That Are Draining Your Phone Battery

Smartphones are hardly ever used as phones anymore. They are now mini computers which we carry about everywhere and do everything with. The number of tasks we can perform with our phones keeps increasing every day. We text, play games, surf the Internet, stalk our crushes, shoot videos on the devices, and stay on several social media sites all day. These are all cool things which I am sure most of us cannot last through a single day without doing. However, we need to have enough battery power to perform these fun tasks.

Running out of battery power while doing something important can be very frustrating, so we put together a list of apps that are draining your phone’s battery power. Check them out so that you can be mindful and manage your phone battery power accordingly.

Facebook

This is an addiction for millions of people. The degree of addiction to Facebook might vary, but it is easy to recognize. Many people are constantly glancing at or glued to Facebook on their phones throughout the day. Social media is cool for keeping up with friends, keeping in touch, meeting new people, and even getting those annoying game requests, but using your Facebook app all the time is a great way to bring your battery life down to 10 percent before noon. You should make a schedule and login only at the appointed times to check on updates. That way, you won’t stay on Facebook all day. This will help reduce your addiction and save your phone battery.

Games

Yes, we are all guilty of this! I bet you have all had times when you’ve been in the waiting room somewhere or just out of things to do, and you whipped out your phone and headed straight to Clash of Clans, Subway Surf or Candy Crush to pass the time. Although moving up the scoreboard and beating your online friends might be fun and fulfilling at the time, these gaming apps with their cool graphics and online connectivity exert heavy use on your battery. If you intend to save your phone’s battery power and general battery life, then you should get a gaming laptop and use that instead. This would drastically minimize your gaming activity on your phone.

Screen brightness

I am pretty sure that most of you have figured this out already. Though a bright screen makes it easier to see what you are doing and easier to watch movies, you should be aware that keeping your screen’s brightness all the way up is killing your battery. When it’s not absolutely necessary to keep the screen brightness at the max, decrease brightness!

Enabling Bluetooth

There are some Bluetooth accessories and gadgets, like portable speakers or wireless headsets, which we connect to our phones for convenience and to enhance our productivity. After use, you should always remember to disable your Bluetooth. It’s not exactly the worst battery drainer, but it’s a waste to have your Bluetooth enabled when you are not using it.

Virtual Private Network (VPN)

This is all the rage today. I know this because I have a Virtual Private Network (VPN) on my gadgets, and most of my friends do too. For privacy or for other reasons, most of us make use of VPNs on our computers, and for some reason, we use them on our phones too. Just like most apps, a VPN stays connected in the background and drains your phone’s battery. I know VPNs are indispensable to some of us, so you are probably asking right about now: what’s the solution? I have a simple solution so you can save your battery. Only turn it on when you need to use it, and just like with Bluetooth, turn it off when you are done.

Location services

If we didn’t enable GPS or location-based services on our phones, some of us would be lost. It is routine for many people to use these tools to locate places like hotels, concert venues, restaurants, and lots more. This makes GPS and Google Maps some of our favorite phone apps. However, if you have your GPS and other location-based apps enabled all the time, they might drain your battery until you don’t have enough battery power left to get to your destination. Thankfully, Google Maps allows map download for offline use, which helps conserve battery and data.

Spotify

Music is the food of the soul, and we all love to feed our souls and light up our days with music. This is why we enjoy Pandora, Spotify, and other music services. Unfortunately, Spotify happens to be one of the biggest battery killers. Those long hours of lovely listening are great and all, but your battery power won’t last three hours if you continue with the habit.

Snapchat

We know what’s going on when you hold up your phone at a great party to capture all the booze and fun going down before typing about how awesome your Friday night is. Chances are that you’re on Snapchat and you’re trying to make us normal boring mortals jealous of your cool life by sharing some great stories. Well, you should tone it down a little or you are going to have a dead battery soon. This is because the camera and location-based service you enable while you use Snapchat take up lots of battery power.

Netflix

Binge watching entire seasons of “Orange is the New Black” or “House Of Cards” on Netflix over Wi-Fi is all fun and interesting until you get the low battery notification. Netflix is a handy video-streaming service you can enjoy anywhere. It offers lots of interesting movies, but none about how to replenish battery power in emergencies. Thanks to the data usage and HD playback, this service sucks battery power like a child with a juice box. Please, for your own sake, you should use Netflix on a TV or laptop, not on your phone.

Featured photo credit: Lulu Chang via digitaltrends.com

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