How To Save Battery Life With An iPod Touch.
Since winning an iPod Touch in a contest a few months back, it has been one gadget I couldn’t live without. Ok, if it was an iPhone, I’d be even happier, but by Jailbreaking version 1.1.2, I did get a few of the missing features the Touch should have had-like mail, weather etc. (If anyone knows of a safe way to Jailbreak 1.1.3, let me know-there seems to be controversy over how well it works, not to mention Steve Jobs’ announcement of charging people $19.99 for upgraded features back in January). Other than my complaint on the lack of features, the major issue has been battery life. Through trial and error, I determined how to conserve battery life-which most would think, “wait until the battery has drained and charge fully, or keep it turned off when not in use.” Wrong. Sure, this works with cell phones, but the Touch is a little different.
One day I turned the Touch on, after not using it for approximately 3 days, and found the battery was in the red. I had charged it 3 days prior, while syncing a few email addresses and songs. I promptly plugged the USB cable into the port, left it alone for 8 hours, and sure enough, fully charged. I listened to a few songs, turned if off and the next day turned it on again. The battery was below half-life. What was causing this? Some USB ports are not powerful enough to handle the charge power the Touch needs, but I knew this wasn’t the case for me. (I do recommend buying a dock if you can-this is on my list of things to buy when I get money-it would be so much easier-be forewarned though, the Touch may need a special doo-hickey-yes a technical term, to fit in some docks because of size differences). This is what I did in order to save battery life-in fact it has lasted 5 days with the battery indicator barely moving.
1. Turn off Wi-Fi. Unless you’re using the email app, or downloading songs from iTunes, the Wi-Fi feature will drain the battery faster. Even though my router is in the same room, the little Touch has to work extra hard for some reason to keep the wireless signal.
2. Charge the battery but keep the Touch on while doing so. When I had charged the battery in the past, I would turn it off, which is what most do- don’t. Trust me on this.
3. Once the battery is fully charged, go to Settings > General > Auto-lock and set it for no more than 3 minutes. I have mine set at 2 minutes. Auto-lock is like sleep mode on a PC-it conserves battery life without turning the device off.
4. Leave the Touch on. Yes, you read that right. Leave it on and let Auto-lock save the battery life. I’ve figured out by turning the Touch off and back on uses more battery power than it should. Try it for yourself. Let the battery go down to the halfway mark, turn it off and leave it off for a few hours. Turn the Touch back on and yes, you’ll see an almost fully charged device. Play a few songs or leave it on for 30 minutes and watch the battery meter go even lower.
I’m waiting for the battery to hit the half-way mark on mine before charging again, before I charge to full capacity. As I said, after 5 days the indicator has barely moved and I listen to music and use Safari quite a bit. If you’ve experienced the constant battery drain on the Touch, try these tips and they should work-they did for me.
What is it with Apple that they can’t seem to get their iPods’ battery life be at par with other music palyers? Nevertheless, I’m still a huge iPod faen…I dunno why. And that amkes me uber jealous of your iPod Touch win. I have to wait three more months before I can save up enough for one. Is it worth it?
Thanks for this info.
hailie’s last blog post..Best identity theft protection with LifeLock
Is it worth the price? I would wait a little while and let the prices go down. I have the 8GB version which is what, $299? Something like that? In 3 months time the price could drop $100 so I would definitely wait. It really is the iPhone without the “phone” and a few key features which is why so many jailbreak the Touches.
#2 & #4 are both pretty weird in my opinion. What is the difference if it is on or not when you are charging? Shouldn’t it fully charge no matter what?
And when you turn off the iPod shouldn’t that conserve the battery?
Too weird, but I trust you!
Ya know, I don’t know. Like I said this was all tested by trial and error with my own Touch- other Touches may not have the issue of the batteries not keeping a charge. One would think it would work as a cell phone, let it lose most of the charge and rejuice fully. But just turning ON the Touch takes up a lot of battery power. I haven’t researched to see if there is a reason why- it could be just mine, it could be a faulty USB connector etc.
i will try your tips to save battery..this is good!
Wow! I did not know that. I will try ofcourse.
Ziphone reportedly can jailbreak 1.1.3 straight out of the box
pujutengineered’s last blog post..Inner Health Meets Outer Beauty for Ultimate Beauty
What do you mean by keeping it “on”? Do you mean sleep mode?
I haven’t noticed much battery drain on my iPod – at least not as noticeable as you… but then again, I’m always on it, with wifi or listening to music so I always thought the drain was natural…
I have successfully jailbroken 1.1.3 using ipodtouchmaster’s method. However, summerboard won’t work for me and when I try to load new themes, it crashed on me and I had to do the whole thing over again. I jailbroke 1.1.3 twice to make sure I didn’t miss a step but I still had to restore it. I’m not going to touch 1.1.3 again until it gets more stable…
mariam’s last blog post..Knockoffs – should they knock it off?
Sorry it’s taken me a few days to get to this comment because Akismet caught it for some odd reason-
Yes in sleep mode. You have the option to “lock” the Touch which puts it into a sleep mode of sorts. I didn’t notice the battery drain until I had it turned off for a few days and then turning it on- watching the load time for the screen to show and for the iPod to find the wireless connection took longer than usual and that’s when I noticed the battery meter was in the red. Everything I wrote in the post has worked for me- like I said it could be my iPod too.
I’m waiting for 1.1.3 to become stable too. I’ve read quite a few forums where people have lost everything including the ability to even use the iPod after jailbreaking it. Too many people jumped the gun I think because there are several jailbreaking methods and each have caused problems.
Thanks Beth for the help with the I pod Touch. I have only been using it for about a week and the battery level was awful.
We figured out that we need to turn off the Wi-Fi but the battery still barely lasted 6 hours of just listening to music (with plenty of pause time ).
Now I have it plugged in and have the sleep mode set. Thanks for your help because I love it so far but the battery life was seriously pissing me off. Thanks for the help !
Will manually putting it in sleep mode affect anything (simply pressing the sleep button once) or should I ALWAYS let auto lock take care of it?
The touch has surprisingly good battery life even without these tips, but thanks. I’m able to watch several movies on the go with a full charge.
i dont understand y apple cant use the same batteries as the y use in the ipod nano like 2/4 generation
I have just recieved my ipod touch, and I love it. I got the software update, and am enjoying mail, and itunes and such. I am actually typing this from my ipod. I do have a tip, however. Whenever exiting an application, such as safari, hold the home button for about 5 seconds. This actually exits the app, instead of just switching to the home screen, thus saving battery.
Happy multitasking!
It works who ever made this tip they should have a website all with tips
My Ipod touch has gone completely dead and now I can not get it to charge at all.. Can’t even turn it on to charge.. any help