iPhone Battery Assassins: 6 Shocking Habits Silent Killing Your Phone

Take a look around you. How many iPhone batteries do you see left at less than 10% before they are plugged in? I bet more than you can count! As we navigate through an increasingly busy life, it can be tempting to feel like our iPhone batteries are invincible. But the reality is, these tiny powerhouses aren't invincible at all. Whether it’s that annoying habit of needing to constantly scroll through your favorite social media feed, repeatedly using your GPS to get around or binge-watching those addictive shows on Netflix, these behaviors are actually doing a lot of damage to your iPhone’s battery. Are these behaviors more detrimental than you ever could have imagined?

Don’t feel guilty about not knowing! After all, who hasn’t fallen victim to assuming their iPhone can put up with anything, from operating at sweltering summer temperatures to putting off those dreaded software updates? Ignoring the specific needs of our phone's battery has slowly become second nature for so many of us. And it's a common oversight that's silently shortening the lifespan of your device. But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn – it’s not too late to reverse these habits and give our phone a healthier life! Here are the top 6 common mistakes we all unknowingly make that could be killing our iPhone battery (and what you can do to avoid them).

1. Not Letting Your iPhone Go Completely Dead

There’s a myth that if you let your iPhone battery completely drain before plugging it in to charge, it will make the battery last longer. This couldn’t be further from the truth – many iPhone users believe that letting their phone battery go completely dead is good practice to get them running back to top efficiency. In reality, it’s just not true!

Lithium-ion batteries (the ones inside your iPhone) don't follow this charging model. Completely discharging this type of battery before every charge can cause extra wear & tear. As batteries naturally have so many charge cycles embedded in the hardware, they'll almost surely be impacted by an 'exhausted' battery charge every time. A recommendation worth keeping in mind? Giving your phone some nice gentle midnight recharges instead. Avoid letting it go completely empty – a good time to start your gentle midnight charging habit can actually be that one consistent 20% battery warning point you usually try to reach every day.

2. Speed Charging Mistakes

There’s a common misconception that charging speed should come first – if your phone died during rush hour with only enough time for a fast charge before it runs out again the next minute, you’ll almost certainly start reaching for any opportunity to bump up charging speed. Sometimes high-traffic high-power sites do it, why can’t your house?

It turns out, however, that rushing the charging of an iPhone battery by sticking to 'fast charging stations' whenever you charge does harm – of course there will always be days where those last-minute fixes just aren’t possible and this isn’t about absolutely boycotting every last bit of the whole technology that offers fast-charging on go options. But avoid any of these third-party chargers if at all possible by sticking to the one Apple comes with when you get your iPhone. Your batteries may not be taking optimal advantage of the efficiency this kind of speedy device uses under normal operations.

3. Playing Resource-Heavy Apps for Long Periods Without a Break

Apple's world-class operating systems play well into this 'consistent user experience.' Each iOS update rolls with fresh upgrades and new visuals making everything feel cool again and your fingers doing just the right swipe patterns that everyone has gotten accustomed to - you must also handle them carefully because playing heavy app sessions keeps pushing data services every second and iPhone hardware to complete that task while consuming so much battery that still quickly brings your phone's battery to a low level when those addictive high-performance applications are left active for long hours.

4. Ignoring Updates and Not Maintaining Your Device

Each iPhone device you would have had uses its specific lithium-ion model batteries that have a positive association for having good long lifespan. When still new or already upgraded, like new iOS software, taking immediate action that adheres to best practice will help safeguard this fresh battery as new from rapidly degenerating further. As tech usually goes quickly – especially with rapid releases, updates, and newer devices rolling out many technology upgrades all occurring almost daily – remember sticking to best practices about iPhone update maintenance in avoiding the mistake of overusing our devices means safeguard regular device reboots and ensuring a perfect experience that prolongs overall device survival significantly in helping to check under the hood to give room for great iPhone maintenance tips.