What to Do If Your iPhone Freezes [iPhone Q & A]

This post is part of the iPhone Q & A series, where I address iPhone-related questions that readers email me. I am not able to get to all questions, but I will occasionally answer one and post it here.

Casey writes:

What to do if my iPhone freezes? I was just switching between facebook & safari with the double-click trick, and my iPhone screen got stuck/froze. I would just take out the battery with my old phone when it froze, but that’s not possible with this phone. Do you know what I should do? I’m not good with technology. Thanks.

Sometimes the iPhone gets a little worked up and freezes up. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it is not obvious what to do. Since iPhone’s battery is not removable, you can’t simply take the battery out and put it back in.

It’s not clear what makes the iPhone freeze, although it’s likely overuse of RAM, due to running too many apps at once. My Macbook has never frozen in the year I’ve owned it, but with the iPhone’s small size, it’s no surprise that it sometimes has a little trouble handling heavy workloads.

What to Do if Your iPhone Freezes

Simply restart your iPhone by holding the home button and the sleep/wake button at the top of the phone simultaneously. After several seconds, the phone will restart and display the silver Apple logo. That’s it. Now you know what to do if your iPhone freezes.

Feel free to email your questions via the contact form.

7 Tips to Conserve iPhone Battery Life

iPhone Battery

When I asked my readers what iPhone improvements they wanted to see in 2010, lots said better battery life was among their iPhone wishes. Understandable. My fully-charged iPhone battery rarely makes it through the day.

But the problem is not that the iPhone has a weak battery, it’s that when you’re constantly browsing the web; checking Mail, Twitter and Facebook; and running iPhone app after iPhone app, OF COURSE you’re going to drain the battery.

If you want to run the most powerful mobile device on the market, you’re going to have to accept a heavy toll on your battery life. You can’t have it all.

Nevertheless, there are things you can do to conserve your iPhone battery life. Here are 7 ways to make your iPhone battery last a little bit longer. Some of these solutions may prevent you from using your iPhone to its full potential, but all are great for those times when you are running low on battery and you want to make sure your iPhone makes it through the day.

  1. Turn OFF the “Ask to Join Networks” feature. By constantly searching for a nearby Wi-Fi network, iPhone places a heavy burden on your battery. You can tell it not to look for available networks by turning OFF “Ask to Join Networks” in Settings under Wi-Fi. You will still be able to join available Wi-Fi networks manually.
    iPhone Join Networks
  2. Lower the screen brightness. The lower the brightness, the lower the demand on your battery. To lower the iPhone’s screen brightness, go to Settings >> Brightness.
    iPhone brightness
  3. Turn off Notifications. If you have enabled Notifications, your iPhone is constantly searching for updates from certain apps. For example, Facebook notifies me when someone posts on my wall, Twitter notifies me when someone mentions me, and the Words With Friends game notifies me when it is my move. Turning off notifications under Settings >> Notifications will save you lots of battery.
    iPhone notifications
  4. Turn off the data Push and Fetch features. Under Settings >> Mail, Contacts, Calendars, the Push and Fetch features instantly send new data to your iPhone (Push) and search for it at periodic intervals (Fetch). For example, Google Calendars pushes new calendar items I’ve added from my computer onto my iPhone instantly, and the iPhone’s Mail app can be set to fetch new mail every 15, 30 or 60 minutes. Turning off Push and setting Fetch to “Manually” will save you some precious battery life.

    iPhone push & fetch data

  5. Shorten the Auto-Lock time. You can set your iPhone display to turn off after 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 minutes of inactivity, or to never turn off. By having your display auto-lock after 1 minute, you are ensuring that your display is off more often and thus using less battery. Go to Settings >> General >> Auto-Lock to set your preferred auto-lock time.

    iPhone Auto-Lock

  6. Disable 3G. 3G uses more battery than Wi-Fi or EDGE, so if you can afford to turn it off in times of low battery, using EDGE or Wi-Fi instead will prolong your charge. To disable 3G, go to Settings >> General >> Network and toggle the button to the OFF position.
    iPhone disable 3G
  7. Enable Airplane Mode. Enabling Airplane Mode in Settings will disable all network connections, including your cellular signal, 3G, EDGE and Wi-Fi. It is a drastic move, but if you’re low on battery and all you want to do is listen to some music or use an app that doesn’t require an Internet connection, then Airplane Mode is a good idea. Also, if I don’t have access to my charger overnight, I’ll put my phone on Airplane Mode while I sleep, leaving my phone turned on so I can wake up with an alarm.
    iPhone Airplane Mode

My prediction is that iPhone’s battery will always seem “weak,” no matter how hard Apple tries to improve it. They will introduce the next iPhone and it will no doubt sport a better battery, but it will also feature powerful new capabilities that will drain that battery. Did you really think you could run those killer augmented reality apps without killing your battery life? But the tips noted above will help you conserve battery life when you need it the most.

How do you conserve your iPhone’s battery life?

iON Mobile Power Bank: Backup Battery for iPhone [Video Review]

iON Mobile Power Bank

The iON Universal Mobile Power Bank by FSP Group is a credit-card sized rechargeable portable backup battery for iPhone and other devices.

FSP Group sent me an iON Mobile Power Bank a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve had the opportunity to test it out briefly with my iPhone 3G S.

Contents

The iON Universal Mobile Power Bank is $29.99 as of this writing. You can purchase it at the FSP direct site. For the price, you get:

  • The USB-powered iON Mobile Power Bank
  • 2 adapters — one for charging your iPhone or iPod Touch and the other for other USB-powered devices
  • A carrying pouch with two compartments — one for the battery and one for the cables

iON Mobile Power Bank contents

Watch my video review of the iON Universal Mobile Power Bank below:

Overview

Pros

  • It’s portable. You can extend your iPhone battery life anywhere you go.
  • It’s small. It’s about the size of a credit card and weighs only 50g.
  • It provides several additional hours of battery life to your iPhone – depending on how you use it
  • It’s got a nifty carrying pouch with two compartments for the battery and cables.

Cons

  • When the Power Bank is plugged in via USB, the charging indicator lights are on the underside of the device when it’s laid flat. In the future, could the USB input and the charging indicator lights be placed on the top of the device?
    Update: FSP Group has informed me that they have resolved this issue for the next edition of the iON battery: “We have modified the design for the 2nd generation iON power pack, and it’s now facing up after plugging in to the laptop USB hub to charge.”
  • The adapter and cable are a bit bulky. Could they be simplified so as not to take up so much pocket space?
  • The adapter head is made of plastic. Could it be made of metal like the iPhone adapter?

Additional Power Specs

According to FSP Group, this is how much power you can expect to get out of your iPhone, iPhone 3G and other devices (image below). The battery extension for the 3G S is not specified, however this review is based on using the iON Mobile Power Bank with my iPhone 3G S.

Addition power provided by iON Mobile Power Bank

I hope my readers and FSP group will benefit from this review. These are just my initial impressions of the iON Mobile Power Bank, so please share YOUR experience with this or any other iPhone backup battery in the comments.


iON MOBILE POWER BANK FOR iPHONE

Buy on Amazon: FSP iON C2200 PB4 Power Pack
Manufacturer: FSP Group

Apple Upgrades iPhone Battery and Display

iPhone Side View

Steve Jobs announced today that the iPhone’s battery life will now last through 8 hours of talk time, as opposed to the 5 hours that was originally announced at Macworld.

Additionally, the iPhone battery will endure 6 hours of Internet use, 7 hours of video playback and 24 hours of audio playback. If you leave the phone on standby: 250 hours — that’s more than 10 days.

“iPhone’s battery life is longer than any other smartphone and even longer than most MP3 players,” said Jobs in a press release.

Apple also upgraded the iPhone’s uppermost display layer, changing it from plastic to glass in order to make it more scratch-resistant.

The news of the iPhone upgrades raised Apple shares, which were already at an all-time high, by $3.37, to $123.87.

iPhone Testers: iPhone is Slippery, But Battery is Long-Lasting

A source who tested the Apple iPhone supposedly told MacScoop “as a sole negative point, that the material used on the device’s case makes it feel even more slippery than the iPod and will probably require the purchase of a protective skin or case so as to avoid unintentionally dropping it.”

That’s one point about the iPhone that never crossed my mind. More of a reason to buy yourself a nice iPhone case, like maybe the Proporta iPhone case I like a lot.

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