Background App Refresh – Make the Best Use of Your Apps

The estimated reading time for this post is 5 minutes

Using your phone is a balance of enjoying your apps, getting the longest battery life, and managing your data usage. By taking a few minutes to adjust the settings on your phone you can do all of these at once!

One way you can make the most of your apps is by letting them work in the background using Background App Refresh. Your iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch can refresh apps in the background so they’re ready to go as soon as you open them, filled with the latest information.

About Background App Refresh

When you enable Background App Refresh, the apps get data before you open them, you don’t have to wait for apps to download information such as Facebook updates, weather forecasts, Instagram posts, Twitter trends and more. Your iPhone figures out when you use your apps, when you’re connected to Wi-Fi, and when your phone is charging.

The service, which began with iOS 7, is called Background App Refresh. This intelligent approach to apps is intended to give you the optimal app experience while conserving battery life and data usage while you’re away from Wi-Fi and a power source.

From Apple:

To save battery, apps running in the background refresh at certain times, like when your device is connected to Wi-Fi, plugged into a power source, or being actively used. iOS learns patterns based on how you use your device and tries to predict when an app running in the background should refresh. It also learns when the device is typically inactive, like at night, to help keep apps from refreshing when you’re not using your device. Apps can also schedule background refreshing based on your location.”

You may not need or want all of your apps to be refreshing in the background. Some apps you may use infrequently or don’t care about enough to use up battery life and your monthly data allotment. For those apps you can turn off Background App Refresh.

The choice is yours whether you want to allow your apps to refresh in the background. By taking a few minutes to adjust your settings, you can make the most of your apps, battery life and data usage.

Maximizing Battery Life

You can read many articles about how to preserve battery life on your iPhone. One of the first recommendations usually is to turn off Background App Refresh. But by doing that you’re also disabling a potentially useful feature of your phone and may actually be draining your battery faster.

With apps that you check frequently Background App Refresh can actually save you battery life and cellular data usage. Because this feature tries to figure out when your iPhone is plugged into a power source, when is connected to Wi-Fi, and what times you typically use the app, your iPhone will be updating the app under ideal conditions, which may be more efficient than updating the app every time you open it.

If your apps refresh when your phone is connected to Wi-Fi and a power source, rather than when you open them, you’ll be saving both battery life and cellular data usage. That’s the idea situation that Background App Refresh tries to achieve.

Take a few minutes to check which of your apps use the most battery life and cellular data. Then choose which apps you want to use with Background App Refresh enabled.

Check App Battery Usage

You can see which apps are using most of your iPhone’s battery life by going to:

Settings => Usage => Battery Usage

Wait a moment to see which apps are using the most battery life. You can see the list in order according to the last 24 hours or last 7 days.

Check Data Usage

You can see which apps are using the most cellular data.

[note] Note: Most cell phone plans limit how much cellular data you can use each month. You use cellular data when your phone connects to the Internet without using a Wi-Fi network. [/note]

To check which apps use the most cellular data go to :

Settings => Cellular

Scroll down to see how much cellular data each app has used during your current billing cycle. You can turn off cellular data usage for each individual app here if you find that an app is a data hog.

(I’m so glad I’m on an unlimited data plan!)

How to Turn Background App Refresh On and Off

You can turn Background App Refresh on and off for all of your apps or for each app individually. To control Background App Refresh go to:

Settings => General => Background App Refresh

You can turn the switch on or off for all apps at once. If you’re in a critical battery situation, turning this off can extend your battery life. Also be sure to turn this off if you’re traveling outside your home country and want to minimize your international data roaming charges.

You can turn the feature on and off for individual apps. With Background App Refresh turned on, scroll down to see individual apps. You can turn each of these on or off.

What Types of Apps Should Use Background App Refresh

By looking at the battery and cellular data usage you can manage your apps. Consider which apps you want to update in the background.

• Do you check Facebook often? Turn on Background App Refresh to save battery and data usage.

• Do you want your podcasts to be ready to go in the morning? Turn on Background App Refresh for your favorite podcast app. (Don’t miss: Overcast: My Favorite Podcast App Just Got Better!)

• Are weather updates important to you? Turn on Background App Refresh for your favorite weather app to have forecasts ready when you open the app. (See, Your 6 Best Weather Apps and Websites)

You can turn Background App Refresh off for an app and see whether you’re bothered by not having the app ready to go when you open it and whether the app then uses more battery life and cellular data without Background App Refresh.

Your Thoughts

Have you been managing Background App Refresh? What apps do you use Background App Refresh for? Have you ever been frustrated that an app wasn’t refreshing in the background? Let us know in the Comments section below!

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*iPhone app image (edited) courtesy of Steve Rhodes via Flickr and Creative Commons