With the release of OS X 10.9 Mavericks, Apple has taken great pains to incorporate new features that appreciably improve the energy efficiency of the Mac. Of particular importance to notebooks – the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air – is that by taking advantage of new technology, battery life under Mavericks can be extended considerably.
Sep 13, 2016 The debug navigator in Xcode includes an Energy impact gauge, which provides a high-level overview of energy usage as you test your app. Consult this gauge regularly throughout your app’s testing cycle to assess your app’s energy impact and identify potential problem areas up-front. Nov 06, 2013 In the upper system tray in your Mac, there is a battery icon that shows how much battery you have remaining. There's a new section labeled Apps Using Significant Energy. If there are any apps listed here, these are the ones that could potentially be draining your battery faster. With the Duke Energy app, you’ll be able to easily manage and view your accounts anywhere, anytime. Current features of the Duke Energy app allow you to:. Easily log in. Using your Duke Energy account, you’ll be able to log in once and have options to set up either Touch ID® or Face ID® to easily access your account. View and pay bill.
Additionally, starting with the new Intel “Haswell” processor, much of the energy-saving capabilities are major attributes of the processors themselves. Moving forward, and as Apple’s ratio of notebook to desktop Macs sales continues to rise, OS X – in conjunction with hardware – must remain heavily focused on extending battery life.
The Intel “Haswell” Central Processing Unit (CPU)
One of the ways that energy consumption reduction is accomplished basically amounts to having the power-hungry processor complete the same amount of work in less time, and maximizing the CPU’s low-power idle time. Simply put, if whatever the processor is working on does not benefit the user, either immediately or at a later time, it will be done less often, and if possible, not done at all.
App Nap – OS X Mavericks includes a new technology called App Nap that allows supported apps to consume very little energy when they are open but not being used. For example, App Nap might be used if an app is open on a desktop but is not currently being used, or if an app is hidden under other windows. App Nap completely suspends the app’s execution when this or other criteria are met, thus ensuring that the app does not periodically wake up to perform unnecessary tasks. The app wakes up automatically when the user either brings the app to the foreground or when the app receives a background event.
The Battery Status Menu: after a couple of seconds, it reports which apps are using significant energy
The Battery Status Menu – The Finder’s Battery Status menu in Mavericks includes a related option to monitor the current status of app energy usage. These options appear on Mac notebook computers, whether or not a power adapter is connected. Applications are listed and identified as ones which are currently using “significant energy.” In effect, via Battery Status, Mavericks wags a finger at energy-hogging applications. And, yes… Mavericks has fingers.
Not seeing the Battery Status menu? Go to Settings > Energy Saver and enable it via the checkbox at the bottom of the Settings panel.
Activity Monitor – Activity Monitor is a built-in utility pre-installed in every Mac. It’s located in the Utilities folder. You can get there via Go > Utilities in Finder. It can be used to view how running apps and background processes are using various resources on your Mac, such as the processor, memory, disk, network and now, overall energy usage.
We learned above that the Battery Status Menu can indicate apps that are guilty of using significant energy. Selecting one of the listed applications from the menu launches the Activity Monitor app. Upon opening, it switches to the appropriate Energy section so that the offending apps can be easily identified and energy consumption statistics analyzed.
Clicking the Energy tab in Activity Monitor presents each App’s and each process’ Energy Impact on the system
You can determine if an app is currently using App Nap by looking at the App Nap column next to the name of the app in the Activity Monitor window.
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Click Energy near the top of the Activity Monitor window to see how much energy is being consumed by open apps and background processes. It goes without saying that the amount of energy being used affects how much overall energy your Mac is using, and how long you can operate your notebook Mac with no power adapter connected.
Energy Impact – The Energy Impact section shown at the bottom of Activity Monitor’s window represents the total amount of energy used by all apps and other processes over a period of time. To determine how much energy is being used by individual processes, look at the number that appears in the Energy Impact column next to the name of each process. The lower the Energy Impact number, the less power the process is currently using.
The bottom area of the Energy section of the Activity Monitor utility displays graphical representations of Energy Impact data and battery usage
Battery Graph – On notebook Macs, there is a Battery graph at the bottom of the Energy section of the Activity Monitor window. This shows the battery's charge level over the past 12 hours. The sections of the graph with a green background indicate times when the Mac was receiving power from a power adapter.
Graphics Switching – Finally, Macs that support automatic graphics switching save power by using integrated graphics and switch to a higher performance graphics chip only when an app needs it. Activity Monitor shows 'Graphics Card: Integrated' when using integrated graphics, or 'Graphics Card: High Perf.' when using high performance graphics. To identify which apps are using high performance graphics, look for processes which list 'Yes' in the Requires High Perf GPU column.
In conclusion, as time goes on, we should see our favorite developers embrace the energy saving technologies into their apps. Apple now gives them the tools to make this happen. And, Apple gives us the tools to monitor compliance. By all means, if a few months pass by and our preferred apps are singled out as being energy hogs, then a little nudge or two to the developers via emails or a tweets may provide enough incentive to get with the program.
If your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad is losing battery life faster than normal, it could be the result of an app or service using more power than it ought to be. Thanks to 'battery shaming,' you no longer have to wonder about which app or service it might be, or try to quit them all just to stop the drain. Now you can see exactly what's using your battery life and how.
How to check battery usage on iPhone and iPad
Battery is at the top level in Settings, and Battery Usage includes providing a breakdown of how much power each app or service is using while on screen (foreground) and while in the background.
How to check battery usage in iOS 12
Checking battery usage in iOS 12 works the same way that it has for years now, but there are some changes of which you should be aware, such as the new battery readout.
How to check your iPhone's battery health
Since iOS 11.3, you've been able to check in on the health of your iPhone's battery. While batteries with more than 80% of their capacity left are still considered to be functioning well, those under 80% may be eligible for a replacement from Apple. Here's how to check on the health of your device's batter.
You'll now be able to see the maximum capacity of your battery relative to when your iPhone was new, as well as an indicator of the level of performance your iPhone's battery currently supports. Lower maximum capacities could lead to performance throttling through the iOS performance management feature.
How to understand battery usage
The screen lighting up, radios transmitting, and chips processing are the biggest single causes of power drain on your iPhone or iPad. That's why Apple shows you 'on screen'—the screen lit up—and 'background'—the radios and processors working when the screen isn't lit up.
Now, just because an app is using a lot of power on screen or in the background doesn't in and of itself mean there's a problem. For example, if you're reading Twitter or watching movies on an airplane, Tweetbot or Videos might show really high 'on screen' usage. Likewise, if you're downloading a ton of podcasts or streaming a lot of Beats 1, Overcast, or Music, it might show really high 'background' usage.
It's when the numbers don't match what you're actually doing that there's likely a problem. If you've barely opened an app and it's still showing a very high level of battery use, that's where your attention should go.
Looking at my screen, Tweetbot is really high but I use it a lot, and the background isn't out of proportion to screen time. So, for every minute I'm using it, it's taking less than a minute to complete actions and otherwise finish things up. Instagram is doing even better, using only a tiny fraction of the amount of time in the background as it does on screen.
Facebook, though, is the worst. It's using almost twice as much time in background as it is on screen, which is ridiculous. (That's not surprising—Facebook has historically been so callous about power consumption it borders on user hostility.)
How to understand the power usage readout in iOS 12
iOS 12 will come with breakdowns of your overall battery usage in the form of two charts. Just like the app-specific breakdowns, these charts can display information for the past 24 hours of the last 10 days.
The first is Battery Usage, which is pretty straightforward, though the chart actually changes based on the period of time for which you're getting information. When viewing your usage over the last 24 hours, you'll see how your device's battery behaved, the period of time over which it drained to a certain level, as well as when it started charging (denoted by a green lightning bolt icon at the bottom of the chart). When looking at the last 10 days, though, you'll get a day-by-day look at the percentage of the battery that you used. So if you, for instance, ran your phone's battery all the way down, charged it, then used it some more on a particular day, you'd see usage over 100%.
The other chart is all about activity. This chart shows you how much time your device was in use, broken down either by hour or by day. The activity chart uses a darker blue color to indicate activity that took place while your screen was on, and a light blue to indicate activity that took place while your screen was off. So if you only browse Twitter a little, but you listen to audio a lot while your iPhone is in your pocket, then you'll have a more activity taking place when the display is off.
How to reduce background activity on iPhone and iPad
You can only reduce an app's 'on screen' battery usage by reducing the amount of time you use the app. In other words, don't open it and it won't be 'on screen'. You can, however, reduce the amount of background activity an app is permitted.
Because iOS coalesces network and location requests, it's tempting to think turning off one or a few apps won't make much difference. Fewer apps—or no apps—asking, however, means far less to coalesce and ultimately fewer and shorter background requests.
Note that turning off background app refresh makes apps slightly less convenient. For example, if you turn off background app refresh on a messaging app, you'll still get notifications about new messages, but the app itself will only download new messages when you open it, and that might take a few seconds.
You can also prevent apps from using your location in the background.
Note that turning off persistent location means apps can't alert you when you're near a friend or there's a special offer nearby. It also means that can't track you wherever you are, all the time. You'll need to figure out whether convenience or privacy (and potentially power savings) is more important to you.
My recommendation is to turn off everything you think you don't need and then add back when and if it turns out you do need them.
How to force quit apps on iPhone and iPad
Some apps, again especially Facebook, have been accused of cheating on background access, however, so you might also need to try other mitigations. That can include 'force quitting' an app you think has gone rogue and begun consuming way to much power.
![]() Check Which Apps Using Energy Macbook Pro
Force quitting isn't something you should do often, because re-launching it again from scratch will consume more power and take more time as it updates in the foreground, but it is something you should know how to do for when you need it.
I'll confess to force-quitting Facebook and Skype semi-regularly. That's because, historically, they've been offensively bad at power management. I used to force-quit Maps and Google Maps after turn-by-turn navigation but they've both gotten much better at powering down over the last year or two.
How to reset your iPhone or iPad
If you can't figure out exactly which app or service is draining your battery but you feel like something isn't working the way it should be, you can escalate to full-on reset. Again, it's not something you should do often, and it's a total troubleshooting cliche, but once in a while it really can clean out bad bits and knock things back into shape.
Silver, gold, and rose devices will show a white screen with black Apple logo. Space gray devices will show a black screen with white Apple logo.
The nuclear option
If an app is really destroying your battery life and nothing you do seems to stop it, here are your last, best hopes for resolution:
Hopefully, bad apps will clean up their acts, and every update is a chance for them to do better. So if you do delete, make sure to check back every once and a while, and see if things have improved!
How to troubleshoot battery life on iPhone and iPad
If you think you have something unusual going on that might be adversely affecting your battery life, here's more help!
Update July 2018: Updated some information and screenshots, added information about iOS 12's new battery features.
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