iPhone battery question

[cojak]

After a good few years, my trusty iPhone 8 reduced its battery life to less than half a day so I took the plunge and bought an Apple refurbished iPhone 12 Mini (I considered an Android for all of 45 minutes). It doesn’t have a ‘button’ so I had to briefly research how to do things without one.

One of those things is shutting down apps that have been just moved out of the way/on stand-by, as I discovered that apps like Reddit are power-hungry and I’ve been my managing battery life on the 8 by closing them once I’ve finished using them.

While researching this I was alarmed to discover that Apple recommends NOT closing apps as doing so affects battery life. So I’ve stopped closing them, but I can’t help but think that keeping open tens of apps isn’t a great idea either.

Can anyone confirm whether closing apps is a good/bad idea?

[northernladuk]

I seem to remember reading something on this years ago and it said it's similar to an old skool strip light. The power drain is when the light (phone) is actually doing something. In the lights case it needs a lot of current to ignight the spark to like the bulb. Leaving it on uses minimal power. To turn it off and then back on again in certain period of time is actually using more power to re-ignite the spark every time. On the light thing it's a pretty long period before it becomes efficient to turn off. The same could be said for old filament bulbs but power drain on turn on isn't quite as much and minimal drain for LEDs so flicking them off for shorter periods is better.

The article said the drain on the phone for you to have the screen open, do the task, the phone to exectue and then get to a steady state using less power than when the app was running in the background wasn't worth it unless the app is going to be off a long time.

Just had a quick google and it appears that is still the case.

EDIT : I'm not an apple user but do see the scare news about new iOS releases draining batteries on older phones and lots of theories that apple do this on purpose to drive people to upgrade. If there is even a hint of either then there isn't much you are going to be able to do about battery drain if you are buying an older model surely? It appears to be designed that way.

[Lance]

Can anyone confirm whether closing apps is a good/bad idea?

I don't bother unless they crash.

FWIW I had an iPhone6 with a smashed screen. At this time the iPhone 10/11 (can't recall exactly) was out. So the 6 was no spring chicken.
Took it to the Apple store and paid them £160 I think for a 'new' iPhone 6. They will do this for a supported model if they have stock. The 'new' one had far more battery like. So they do wear out, but that's not a good conspiracy theory.

[cojak]

I don't bother unless they crash.

FWIW I had an iPhone6 with a smashed screen. At this time the iPhone 10/11 (can't recall exactly) was out. So the 6 was no spring chicken.
Took it to the Apple store and paid them £160 I think for a 'new' iPhone 6. They will do this for a supported model if they have stock. The 'new' one had far more battery like. So they do wear out, but that's not a good conspiracy theory.

Thanks Lance, I might well do that with my 12 mini (which I love, it’s not a huge lump) when it goes. My 8 was dieing a natural death as far as I’m concerned.

[WTFH]

I've a 13 mini (replaced my Original SE which was too old for updates and battery life was under 2 days with bluetooth & wifi on). I occasionally close apps, but it's more when I'm looking for something and realise there are 10 open in the background. I also try to re-boot it about once a month as I feel that switching IT off and on can be a useful thing.