The iPod touch is a multimedia powerhouse. From its traditional music player features to playing video, accessing the web, and running all kinds of games and programs from the App Store, it's a terrific mobile device. But, all that great stuff requires a long-lasting battery.
Apple rates the iPod touch's battery as offering 36 hours of music or 6 hours of video playback on one charge. But sometimes you need more juice and less charge. So, if you're looking for ways to get the most life out of your iPod touch battery, try these 10 tips.
1. Turn on Auto-Brightness
The iPod touch's built-in light sensor can be your ally in extending the battery life of your touch. The when auto-brightness is turned on, the sensor will automatically adjust the brightness of the screen based on how much light is nearby. This means that in brighter settings, the screen will be dimmer, using the ambient light to aid seeing the screen. In this way, auto-brightness can help extend the life of your battery.
Find it in Settings -> Brightness
2. Reduce Screen Brightness
You can change the brightness of your screen. Needless to say, the brighter the screen is set at, the more battery it requires. Keep the screen more dim to conserve more of your battery.
Find it in Settings -> Brightness
3. Keep WiFi Off
Unlike the iPhone, the iPod touch can only connect to the Internet when there's an open WiFi hotspot nearby. Because of this, iPod touch users are less likely to drain their batteries by trying to connect to the web all the time. Some may keep WiFi turned on at all times in hopes that an open hotspot will appear, but that's a sure way to drain your battery life and will only work well in some places. So, unless you’re using WiFi right now, keep it turned off.
Find it in Settings -> WiFi
4. Turn Off Location Services
The iPhone has a GPS device built into it for extremely accurate directions and other location data. While the iPod touch offers location data, it's not using GPS, and thus isn't quite as powerful or accurate. In fact, the iPod touch's location services require WiFi to be enabled to work (and we just talked about WiFi, right?). Still, using these location services, your touch can offer you an approximate location and walking or driving directions, among other features. But, since it and WiFi need to be on simultaneously to work, if you’re not using Location Services immediately, and don’t plan to right away, turn them off and save some power.
Find it in Settings -> General
5. Turn Data Push Off
The iPod touch can be set to automatically suck email and other data down to it or, for some kinds of accounts, have the data pushed out to it whenever new data becomes available. Of course, both features require the iPod to be connected to a network via WiFi, something we've already established drains battery on its own. When you add this second feature, you're draining even more power. So, unless you're waiting for a super-crucial email, turn push off to extend your battery’s life (though with push off, you’ll need to set your email to check automatically or do it yourself).
Find it in Settings -> Fetch New Data
6. Fetch Email Less Often
The less your iPod touch accesses a WiFi network, the less battery it uses. So, set it to check your email accounts less often. Try checking every hour or, if you’re really serious about saving battery, manually. Manual checks means you’ll never just have email waiting for you, but you’ll also stave off the red battery icon.
Find it in Settings -> Fetch New Data
7. Auto-Lock Sooner
You can set your iPod touch to automatically go to sleep - also known as Auto-Lock - after a certain amount of time. The sooner it sleeps, the less power it uses. Try setting Auto-Lock to 1 or 2 minutes ot save the maximum juice.
Find it in Settings -> General -> Auto-Lock
8. Turn off Equalizer
The iPod touch has a built-in equalizer feature that dynamically adjusts the adjust of the music its playing to increase bass, decrease treble, etc. Because this adjustment happens on the fly, it requires extra battery power. Turn it off to save battery. Turning it off means you'll end up with a slightly modified listening experience - and the battery savings might not be justified for the true audiophile - but for those hoarding battery life, it's a trade worth making.
Find it in Settings -> Music
