iOS 17 introduces many new features that provide convenience and enhance the iPhone experience. However, some default settings may not suit every user’s needs or preferences. Turning off certain settings can help optimize your iPhone’s performance, battery life, and privacy.
Battery Optimization
The latest iPhones have a new Battery Health Charging Optimization setting under Battery in Settings. This limits charging to 80% which reduces wear on the battery. While you may get less battery life per charge, it will maintain battery health over long-term use.
Go to Settings => Battery => Battery Health & Charging and turn on Charging Optimization. If you need full charges occasionally, you can easily toggle this setting on and off.
Reduce Background App Activities
Apps running tasks in the background can drain battery unnecessarily. Go to Settings > General => Background App Refresh and turn it off for apps that don’t need it.
Social media apps in particular use background refreshing heavily. Disable it for apps like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok to save battery life.
Turn Off Location Services
Location access in the background drains battery. Go to Settings => Privacy & Security => Location Services to see which apps use your location and limit them.
Turn off location access completely for apps that don’t need it. For essential apps like Maps, limit location access to only when the app is in use rather than always.
Disable Unneeded Widgets
Widgets update in the background which consumes power. Remove widgets you don’t use often from your Home Screen and Lock Screen.
To edit widgets go to Home Screen => Long press => Remove Widget. Only keep essential widgets active.
Lower Screen Brightness
Lower screen brightness significantly improves battery life. Go to Settings => Accessibility => Display & Text Size and reduce the brightness slider.
You can also turn on Auto-Brightness so brightness adjusts automatically based on ambient light.
Turn Off AOD (Always On Display)
The Always On Display keeps the screen on to show basic info like time and widgets. While convenient, this drains battery over the course of a day.
Go to Settings => Display & Brightness and turn off Always On to disable AOD and save power.
Disable Unneeded Siri Features
Hey Siri detection and Raise to Speak use battery since Siri is actively listening for triggers. Limit Siri features if you don’t use voice commands often.
Go to Settings => Siri & Search to turn off any Siri features you don’t need.
Limit Notifications
Frequent notifications wake up the screen and use battery. Go to Settings => Notifications to disable notifications for apps you don’t need alerts from.
Turn Off Unneeded Radios
Disabling unused radios like cellular data, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth saves power if they are not needed. Use Control Center to quickly toggle them off.
Privacy Enhancements
Disable Location-Based Suggestions
Location-based suggestions use your location data to provide relevant information in apps like Maps, Weather, and more. To limit location tracking, turn this off by going to Settings => Privacy & Security => Location Services => System Services and disabling Location-Based Suggestions.
Turn Off Significant Locations
Significant Locations tracks frequently visited places for providing location-based suggestions and traffic data. Disable this by going to Settings => Privacy & Security => Location Services => System Services => Significant Locations => Turn Off.
Limit Analytics Data
Analytics data may contain usage patterns and hardware/software details. While supposedly anonymous, some privacy risks exist. Go to Settings => Privacy & Security => Analytics & Improvements to see options for limiting analytics data sharing.
Review App Privacy Permissions
Apps may collect more data than required through privacy permissions. Go to Settings => Privacy & Security and review permissions for Contacts, Photos, Camera, Microphone and access to various sensors. Revoke any unnecessary access.
Conclusion
Optimizing your iOS settings by turning off select features can provide benefits like improved battery life, reduced data usage, and enhanced privacy. However, balance these gains against losing out on potential convenience and functionality from iOS 17’s new capabilities. Monitor your battery usage and adjust settings accordingly to find the right balance for your needs.