Keeping My iPhone 6 Alive Without Replacing the Battery

If you have an older generation iPhone, you’ve likely felt the effects of a lithium-ion battery nearing the end of its lifespan. If you’ve update to iOS 11.3 or higher, apple enables “performance management”.

According to a support article, in cases that require more extreme forms of performance management (i.e. my iPhone), the user may notice: longer app launch times, lower frame rates while scrolling, backlight dimming, lower speaker volume, gradual frame rate reductions in some apps, and/or apps refreshing in background may require reloading upon launch.

Umm, check.

Per another support article, your iPhone battery is designed to retain up to 80% of its original capacity at 500 complete charge cycles. Well I’ve had mine since 2015, so 3 years of charging, at 1 charge per day, brings me to 1,095+ charges. Yep, it’s barely hanging in there.

Because I’m stubborn, I’m doing what I can to prolong the battery life without actually replacing the battery. Eventually I’ll have to give in and visit an apple store, but until then, here’s what’s helped.

Make UI events less resource intensive #

General > Accessibility > Reduce Motion > Reduce Motion (on)

General > Accessibility > Reduce Motion > Auto-Play Message Effects (off)

General > Accessibility > Increase Contrast > Reduce Transparency (on)

Disable auto-brightness #

General > Accessibility > Display Accommodations > Auto-Brightness (off)

Turn off bluetooth #

Disabling it from Control Center will only disable it temporarily. Disable it from Settings to make it stick.

Free up storage #

Delete unused apps. Then install Google Photos, and once your photos are done backing up, delete them locally.

Turn off background app refresh #

General > Background App Refresh (off)

Turn off location services #

Privacy > Location Services, then set individual apps to Never or While Using