Five ways to save space on your iPad or iPhone

The  iPhone and iPad devices from Apple all come with limited amounts of hard drive space. Depending on how much money you spent when you initially purchased the device, you’ve got somewhere between 8 gigabytes and 64 gigabytes of room to play with. This may seem like a lot, but when you consider that new desktop and laptop computers typically ship with 500 gigabytes of storage or more you realize just how quickly this space can fill up. Luckily, there are always a few tricks you can employ to save up hard drive space on your iPhone or iPad without just upgrading to a bigger (and more expensive) model of your device.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               1. Back up on iCloud

Apple introduced their  cloud storage service, iCloud in 2011. If you bought a recent iPhone or iPad, you should have iCloud integrated on your device. You can make use of iCloud to make backups online to make room for more content on your device.

2. Stream v/s Save media

Use an Internet connection to stream videos and songs instead of downloading them. While it is tempting to take all of your favorite movies and songs with you on the go, you don’t necessarily need to if you’re in range of an Internet connection or have a data plan. Applications like Netflix for movies, Hulu Plus for television shows and Spotify for music allow you to access this content solely using your Internet connection without downloading anything to the device. Note that these services do require subscriptions, and some of them charge a monthly fee.

 3. Purchase v/s Rent media

Rent movies from iTunes instead of purchasing them. Purchasing a movie or television show downloads the content directly to your device (or to your computer) permanently. Renting a movie or TV show episode only downloads the content until you view it, at which point it is deleted. Renting is also cheaper, and will save you more than just space in the long run if you’re the type of person who likes movies but will only ever watch them once.

 4. Synchronize necessary files only

Only sync the content you want when you want it. The same thing goes with movies – it doesn’t make any sense to sync your entire movie collection if you only watch a particular film once every few months. Leave that content on your computer and only sync the things you plan on watching or listening to in the immediate future.

 5. Make regular backup to computer

Manage the photos you take and the videos you capture. While photos don’t necessarily take up a lot of space, the high definition videos that the iPad and iPhone are capable of recording do. While it’s great to walk through our daily lives with a camera always at the ready, this content can quickly take up a lot of space that is best used for other things. Think about transferring your data regularly to your computer to avoid data from accumulating on your iDevice.                                          

10 tips to extend / save iPad battery life

Being a proud owner of an iPad, I have noticed that with every major release of iOS, the iPad battery life seems to worsen. With all the bells and whistles that comes with each iOS version, this will obviously consume more of your battery.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Thankfully, there are ways you can tweak your iPad in order to save battery irrespective of which iOS version you are using. I have compiled below a few steps that I take ( and you should too! ) if you want to extend your iPad battery life.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Save iPad battery life

1. High temperature exposure

Do not expose your iPad to extreme temperatures such as leaving it on a hot, parked car. Keeping it at room temperature (between 0-35 degrees Celsius) is recommended  by Apple.

2. Dim your screen

Reducing the screen brightness of your iPad will reduce the battery consumption. Use the slider to increase or decrease the brightness of your screen so that it is easy on your eyes. I usually set it to the lowest value possible.

Tap Settings > Brightness & Wall paper and drag slider completely to the left to reduce screen brightness.

3. Turn off music equalizer

Using features like your music “EQ”or browsing through your media library can drain your battery faster than you think. Most of the time you would not use the music “EQ” feature. Turning it off is a good way to make your iPad battery last longer.

Tap Settings > Music > EQ and set it off.

4. Turn off Wi-fi

With your Wi-fi set to “On”, it makes your iPad search for available hotspots in the nearby region. If you are not going to use the internet at your current location, you might consider switching off this feature in order to save your iPad’s battery.

Tap Settings > Wi-Fi and turn it off.

5. Auto-lock screen sooner

The auto-lock feature makes your iPad’s screen go into sleep mode when you are not using it. Turning it on will cause less strain on your battery.

Tap Settings > General and set it to 2 Minutes.

6. Limit app notification

Certain application, mainly social networking or game app such as Facebook can push notifications to your iPad, even when you are not actively using the app. While push notifications keep you up-to-date with your social activity, it can run down your iPad’s battery with all these ‘polling’ for notices.

Tap Settings > Notifications and remove unnecessary app in the Notification Center.

7. Turn off location services

Location services allow you to locate your position geographically on a map by communicating with GPS satellites or WiFi hotspots. If you are not in need of such a service, you better turn this off to extend your iPad battery life.

Tap Settings > Location Services to turn it Off.

8. Disable “Fetch” for email

I have my iPad set to “fetch” my emails every 15 minutes. This is great if you have the habit of checking your email several times per hour ( like me :D ). However, if it’s not important to check your inbox that often, you better turn off that option to extend your iPad battery life.

Tap Settings > Mails, Contacts, Calendars > Fetch New Data and turn off “Push” .

9. Keep Bluetooth off

The iPad Bluetooth allows you to listen to music via a wireless, Bluetooth-enabled headphone or play games with a nearby iPad. You can also use it to connect an external keyboard. However, Bluetooth technology works somewhat similar  to the Wi-Fi, it keeps searching for nearby Bluetooth-enabled devices actively in the background. Turning this option off, will eventually contribute in extending your battery life.

10. Buy external battery

If you can’t trade off the above features to save your iPad battery, you can consider  replacing your current battery or buy an external one from mophie. DealExtreme is an excellent source if you are looking for cheap batterries.

And finally, if the above tips still do not help to conserve iPad battery life, you might consider upgrading your iPad and take advantage of a more powerful battery.