11 iPad Battery-Saving Tips

Apple claims that the iPad boasts a 10-hour battery life. However, between the retina display, blazing 4G LTE speeds, and Infinity Blade, among other things, it can be hard to get the kind of battery life you’d really like!

Don’t worry! Increasing your battery life is easier than you might expect. Using the following tips, you will be able to max out your battery life in no time.

Reduce Screen Brightness

Do you really need your iPad at full brightness in a dark room? Reducing the screen brightness on your iPad is perhaps the easiest way to extend your iPad’s battery life. Better yet, it could nearly double your battery life – especially if you are powering that gorgeous retina display.

You can adjust your screen brightness by entering the multitasking menu, swipe right and adjust the brightness slider. Or, you can go to Settings > Brightness & Wallpaper and adjust your brightness there.

Turn Off 3G/4G

Unfortunately, in order to have fast Internet on the go, you will need to sacrifice precious battery life. Especially with the new iPad boasting 4G LTE services, batteries are being drained faster than ever. That being said, you should disable these functionalities whenever they are not needed in order to maximize your iPad’s battery life. You can easily do so by going to Settings > Cellular Data and disabling the respective services.

Turn on Airplane Mode

If you know you don’t need any sort of wireless service (4G, 3G, or Wi-Fi), you can simply disable all of these features at once by turning Airplane Mode on. No, Airplane Mode doesn’t turn your iPad into an airplane, but it does save you a lot of battery.

This wireless mode is great for when you are in areas that don’t have (free) Wi-Fi, like airplanes, cruise ships, or even long car rides if you have the Wi-Fi-only iPad. To enable Airplane Mode, go into Settings and switch Airplane Mode on in the top left corner. Once enabled, an airplane will appear in the top left corner of your screen.

Turn Off Bluetooth

Another simple way to save battery is to disable Bluetooth capabilities on your iPad. After you have finished work with your Bluetooth peripherals, go to Settings > General > Bluetooth and make sure that you switch the setting off.

Not only will you conserve battery, but you will also not have to worry about disabling your iPad for an hour due to accidental key presses (trust me, it has happened before).

Disable Location Services

Location services do take a toll on your battery life as your iPad will constantly be tracking your location. Luckily for you, disabling location services is as simple as a click of a button. You can disable location services completely by going to Settings > Location Services and switching the slider to its off position. Or, you can keep location services enabled for apps like Maps or Find My iPhone and disable it for anything you don’t need. Hey – can someone remind me why Draw Something needs my location?

Fetch Data Less Often

Sure, the fact that new email is pushed to you every 15 minutes is cool, but it most definitely isn’t necessary. Plus, fetching (and pushing) data requires your iPad to run extra processes which will make for a shorter battery life. To adjust your settings, go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars and go to the Fetch New Data tab. There you can adjust your settings accordingly – maybe instead of fetching mail every 15 minutes, you can fetch it every hour.

Less Push Notifications

Similarly, Push Notifications are battery hogs because they constantly push more data to your iPad. Besides, many push notifications are not necessary; many developers use them solely for the purpose of getting you to open their app. By going to Settings > Notifications, you can select which applications are able to send push notifications to your iPad and which aren’t.

This also allows you to view more important notifications, like new Messages, without having to search through a sea of useless notifications. To ease this process, simply disallow notifications when prompted after opening an app for the first time.

Auto-Lock Sooner

Though it is convenient to be able to leave the room and come back to a ready-to-use iPad, leaving it on and idle is not the best way to spend those precious hours. Chances are, you probably have auto-lock on your iPad set to the 15-minute setting or never. I myself am guilty of this charge, as I have my iPad set to auto-lock every 15 minutes.

Changing your auto-lock settings can be done in 3 taps – Settings > General > Auto-lock. There, you are able to make your iPad lock every two or five minutes. Though it may not seem like a big deal, this little tweak could add hours to your iPad’s battery life.

Sleep/Wake Less

Seemingly negating our last tip, sleeping and waking the iPad more than it needs to be also causes your iPad to lose battery. However, this is only if you sleep/wake the iPad incessantly or without purpose.

That’s correct — testing out how well your new Smart Cover works isn’t exactly the greatest idea if you’re stretched for power. The constant switch between sleeping and waking will cause much stress in the iPad itself, which, in turn, causes the battery to run down quicker than you’d want it to.

Run a Complete Power Cycle

Batteries do need proper maintenance in order to make the most out of them. That being said, if you use your iPad on a daily basis, you probably charge your iPad everyday regardless of the battery percentage. Though it is tempting to keep your battery at 100% all of the time, it really is not the best thing for your battery.

To keep your battery healthy, it is important to run your iPad all the way down to 0% battery and charge it all the way back up to 100%. Doing this once a week is recommended, but running this cycle once a month will suffice.

Use High-Intensity Apps Less Often

Yes, I know it is a stretch to tell you to hold off on your Infinity Blade addiction, but less playtime makes for much more battery. Labor-intensive processes like 3D gaming in apps like Infinity Blade or streaming HD video drains your battery faster than you could name the app you are using.

I realize that it is a bit strange to discourage the use of some of Apple’s most highly advertised iPad features, as these are features that everyone wants to take advantage of. Of course you are able to utilize these functionalities, however, if you’re trying to save battery, these are functions that are best used sparingly.

Conclusion

Hopefully you have learned from this little tutorial and seen how easy it is to maximize your iPad’s battery life. Your iPad’s battery life will improve tremendously even by using just a few of these tweaks. So sigh no more — your iPad will make it through the day!