When you first get your hands on this little beauty, the first thing you want to do is maximize the Apple iPhone, iPod Touch's (or iTouch for short) functionality. You turn on all its features of your iPhone and play with it constantly. However, the iTouch becomes a noTouch if the battery conks out on you, and it is now common wisdom that one of the least endearing qualities of the iTouch is a tetchy battery.
Check out some of these suggestions to extend your new best friend's battery life so you don't have to recharge so often. Many of these suggestions also work for many MP3 players, and the iTouch's big brother the iPhone.
1. Keep your iPhone, iTouch cool. Exposing it to heat such as leaving it in your car during the summer will reduce your battery's functionality and overall longevity more than anything else. The ideal temperature range for most iPods is as near to 72° Fahrenheit as possible.
2. Reduce the brightness of the iPhone, iTouch LCD screen as much as you are comfortable with. Better yet, turn on the Auto-Brightness feature, which automatically changes the intensity of the screen depending on the ambient light.
3. Keep your WiFi (especially if there's no hotspot), Bluetooth, Location Services (which depends on WiFi to work) and other built-in radio technology off when not in use because that drains battery in the background. If push comes to shove and you need to surf the Internet, use WiFi in lieu of EDGE.
4. Always upgrade your software for iTouch as it becomes available as it includes ways to improve on the battery's performance, so download the latest patches.
5. Conserve your cache. When you use the fast forward or play uncompressed songs such as WAV or AIFF files, you access the iTouch's harddisk more often because it needs to fill the cache for skip-free playing which means it needs more power. Make up a playlist so you don't need to keep searching for your favorite tunes and have songs that come in AAC or MP3 format because these are compressed files and take less energy to play.
6. Lock the touch screen when not in use to avoid activating some features while lying in your purse or pocket unheeded and draining your battery to oblivion. Using the Auto-Lock feature makes it easier to do this part. You may also want to use the hold switch.
7. Turn push mail off unless you are waiting for a really important email and you're staying put in a WiFi hotspot for just that reason. The push mail feature does not work unless it's connected via WiFi so keeping it on all the time is just one other way to hurry on your battery's demise.
8. By the same token, retrieve mail in reasonable batches rather than every few minutes, because accessing the WiFi frequently increases the wear and tear on your battery.
9. Some applications are really a drain on your battery, so if you can play movies and games on another gadget, reserve your iTouch for mostly listening to music.
10. For the collector but not a user, make sure you charge your iPhone, iTouch at least once a month otherwise your battery will just die of neglect.
11. An ingenious way invented to extend the battery life of your iPhone, iTouch is to purchase an external battery that can be used instead of the built-in battery for those times that total portability is not necessary. A good quality battery extender such as the IMP500 extends the battery life in one charge by as much as 4 times, and it is not much bigger than the iPhone, iTouch itself.
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