6 easy iPad tweaks to boost your battery life all day

iPads typically last about 10 hours of screen-on time, but many models lose up to 10% of their battery life per day in standby mode. There are tips to help extend autonomy without radical sacrifices in usability.

SlashGear writes about it.

Turn on Airplane Mode and Low Power Mode when not in use

If you use your iPad for a few hours a day and it sits idle the rest of the time, it's a good idea to turn off wireless modules. Airplane Mode from Control Center turns off Wi-Fi, cellular, and Bluetooth with a single tap. Energy Saver reduces refresh rate and brightness and limits background processes, including push notifications. If you don't plan to use your iPad for a week or more, turn it off.

Limit background app refresh

Most apps are given permission to run in the background by default — to send notifications, update content, etc. Over time, this turns into dozens of "eaters" of resources. Apple has been emphasizing for many years: forcing applications to close does not save battery, the same applies to the iPad. Go to "Settings" — "General" — "Background App Refresh" and turn off everything that does not require constant updates.

Use dark mode (on OLED)

The iPad Pro M4 has an OLED screen for the first time: individual pixels are completely turned off, so black color does not consume energy. In the dark theme, some applications in tests reduced consumption by several times, up to two-thirds. It works specifically on OLED, there is no benefit on LCD models. Most applications support dark mode, and the "black" theme (with deep black) gives the greatest effect. In "Settings" — "Display & Brightness," you can enable "Automatic" or set your own schedule for switching between light/dark themes.

Disable any unneeded features

There are many features on the iPad that are easy to do without:

• Handoff ("Settings" — "General" — "AirPlay & Continuity") — if you do not transfer tasks between Mac and iPad, disable it.
• AirDrop — set "Receiving Off" in "Settings" — "General" — "AirDrop" or via Control Center so that the device does not keep constantly ready.
• Standard "Mail" does not have push for Gmail and uses "Sample" at intervals, which wastes battery. If you are willing to check manually, change "Fetch New Data" to Manually in the "Mail" settings.
• Geolocation — disable access for those who do not need it constantly ("Settings" — "Privacy & Security" — "Location Services").

Keep to the 40-80% rule

Battery wear is a common cause of poor battery life. Lithium-ion batteries benefit from being kept in the 40-80% range. This is especially true for iPads, which many people use for years (the expected lifespan is up to seven years), and replacing a battery without AppleCare is expensive.

The new iPad Pro M4 and iPad Air M2 have an 80% charging limit, and for other models, you can create a Shortcuts shortcut that will notify you when the battery drops to 40% or reaches 80%, so you can connect/disconnect the charger in time.

Check your battery usage to diagnose the issue

In the "Settings" — "Battery" section, you can see 24-hour/10-day usage with details by application, active and background screen time, a graph of charge level, and consumption by hour. This will help you identify the "culprit" of a fast discharge — often it is a rarely used application with a lot of activity in the background or a poorly optimized program. Restrict its background permissions, disable power-intensive options, or delete it and replace it with a more energy-efficient alternative.

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