In today’s era, smartphones have become an important part of our lives, and iPhone users often face a big problem – quick battery drain. If your iPhone also runs out of charge quickly, then the reason for this may be some unoptimized or useless apps installed in your phone. After testing and research with many users, we found that some specific types of apps drain the iPhone’s battery the most. If you remove them or control their usage, then the battery life can be improved a lot and you can use your device for a longer duration. These are proven results and you should be aware of them. Let’s take a look…
1. Third-party apps: secretly eat battery in the background
Third-party apps are those apps that are created by developers other than Apple, often cause the most damage to the iPhone’s battery. This is because these apps do not follow Apple’s strict guidelines and keep running unnecessary activities in the background. For example, some social media apps constantly track your location or keep running in the background under the pretext of sending notifications.
Many users tested that when they deleted Facebook, Instagram and some other third-party apps, their iPhone’s battery life improved by 20-30%. If you don’t want to completely remove these apps, go to Settings and turn off Background App Refresh and turn it off for non-essential apps.
2. Gaming apps: High graphics and processing power eat up battery
Gaming apps, especially those with high-end graphics and real-time multiplayer functions, drain the iPhone’s battery quickly. These apps use the processor and GPU to full capacity, causing the phone to heat up and drain the battery quickly. In many cases it has been found that kids download gaming apps on their devices every week and after 3-4 weeks you suddenly find that you cannot find the backup and the reason is that there are dozens of gaming apps in the phone you need to check and delete them.
A test found that playing games like “PUBG Mobile” or “Genshin Impact” for just 30 minutes drains 25-40% of the iPhone’s battery. Also if there are a dozen of lite games, then in background they all will consume battery too and you won’t get full day battery. So, if you want to save battery, use less gaming apps or play in low-power mode. Also, close the app completely after finishing the game, as many games keep running in the background.
3. Fitness and health tracking apps: Constantly use sensors
Fitness apps like Strava, MyFitnessPal, or HealthifyMe help you take care of your health, but are they also taking care of your battery? Most health apps constantly use sensors to track step count, heart rate, and location, which drains the battery quickly. Even if you have a smartwatch connected with your iPhone, you will notice your iPhone is struggling to full day backup.
One user reported on Apple forum that health app drained my iPhone battery fast on iOS 14. Battery used to drain from 100% to 70% in 8 hours, and again drained to 30% in same time. So he decided to delete the apps and after that his iPhone’s battery life improved significantly. Another iPhone 16 user also confirmed on Reddit that I have removed the fitness tracking app from my device, and now the battery output is quite better. Earlier my iPhone 16 was giving 9-10 hours of battery backup, but now I’m getting 12-14 hours of backup. So, if you use these such health based apps, go to settings and turn off unnecessary permissions such as location and background app refresh or better delete them.
4. Unused apps: Keep running in the background without any reason
Do you have apps on your phone that you haven’t opened for months? These apps can also drain the battery. In iOS, some apps check for updates or send notifications in the background, which affects the battery.
You can check which apps are using the most battery by going to the battery section of the iPhone. If any app is consuming battery even without using it, delete it immediately.
- To identify unused apps – Go to: Settings > Screen Time > See All App Activity.
- Now check for the apps which you have not used for past 3-6 months.
- Tap on the app and remove it from the device – this way you can save storage too!
Apart from that, you can also manually check each and every app. I personally also prefer the manual way and using this way I check what apps are useless. Example: Last month I deleted finance based or news based apps like Money Control, TOI, Angel One, Upstox. I also removed some learning based apps.
5. Food and taxi apps: Location tracking consumes battery
Apps like Swiggy, Zomato, Blinkit, Zepto, Ola and Uber constantly track your location to provide you better service. But this also means that these apps constantly use GPS, which drains the battery faster.
Experts suggest that after using these apps, close them completely and set the location permission to “While Using”. If you do not use these apps frequently, it would be better to delete them.
Apart from that, the purpose of these apps are same and based on services in your area keep any 1 in your device. Example: Swiggy, and Zomato serve same purpose, so keep any 1 app in your device. Same rule for taxi cab apps, use only 1 app and same for quick commerce apps. By doing this, you will have limited apps on your iPhone, and this will consume less battery… which means you will get more backup from your device than usual.
Conclusion: Increase battery life with a little caution
To preserve battery life and performance of the iPhone, just deleting apps is not enough. You have to manage background app refresh, location services, and notifications. Also, keep installing new updates of iOS, as Apple improves battery optimization in every update. Last, check your phone for once in a month… and whatever is useless just remove it from your device. Unnecessary apps are like garbage, so it is best to clean the device time to time.
If you follow these tips, your iPhone will last longer than before and you will not have to look for the charger again and again. By deleting these apps you can get 20-30% more battery backup which is enough to keep the phone running.
