Tech sites are always yammering on about hacks. I myself have been guilty of hack proselytizing from time to time. But I am here today to tell you that this is, if you are an iPhone owner, the one true hack for you. It takes 15 seconds to do and has markedly improved my phone experience. And by “improved,” I mean it has made it easier for me to keep my phone alive longer. Which has probably worsened my quality of life. But, hey, my phone didn’t die!
Here’s the deal. Your iPhone has a genuinely useful setting called “low power mode.” In low power mode, your phone’s brightness decreases, your emails stop fetching unless you refresh your inbox, your iCloud Photo Library stops automatically updating, and your phone defaults to an auto-lock after 30 seconds. Basically, it starts doing as many things as possible to save your battery life. If your phone is anything like mine — read: The battery decided that it didn’t want anything to do with this Earth after about ten months of use — it spends a lot of time in low power mode.
Low power mode can be accessed via Settings. This is too many taps to get to something I use almost daily. Instead, you should tweak your control center — the module that appears when you swipe up from the bottom of the screen — to include a low power mode icon. This will also take a few taps, but think of all the taps you’ll save later.
Step 1: Head to Settings and look for the Control Center icon.
Step 2: Tap Customize Controls.
Step 3: You’ll see two lists. On labeled “INCLUDE” and one labeled “MORE CONTROLS.” Scroll down until you find the icon for low power mode and tap the green plus sign next to it.
That’s it. Thou shalt need no other hacks but this one.
