5 apps which help you track your iPhone's battery life

One of the horrors of the smartphone age is running out of battery life. The SMRT recently installed charging points for mobile devices at four train stations.

Beyond charging on the run at train stations, what else can you do to keep from running out of battery? There are, literally, a battery of apps to help you track the battery life of your iPhones. We look at some of the most popular apps which pop up in the iTunes story when you look for "battery saver for iPhone" and do a quick comparison of functionality and interface.

Here is a run-down of five of the apps we tried.

Battery Doctor

Free from iTunes

This is the first app to pop up on the search and it is easy to see why it is popular. Besides being free, it is slickly and professionally presented. There is a short introductory section which tells you the app's various functions, including an option to boost your RAM and another which helps free up space on your phone.

Not quite sure what the latter function does, but there is an impressive animation on the screen when the cache clearing is at work and at the end of the scan, it does manage to find more space on my phone.

The app will also keep track of when and for how long you have charged your phone over a period of weeks in addition to the basic information about how much battery life remains in your phone.

After a comparison with other apps, this one gives you the most functions without actually making you pay for it.

Battery Life Magic

Free from iTunes

The second app to pop up in iTunes' App Store does not have such a nice interface. But it tells you instantly at a glance exactly how much time you have left for each application, whether it is YouTube/FaceTime or GPS navigation.

Unlike Battery Saver, however, there are no other functions to help you clean cache and sort out memory space.

Battery Life Saver

Free on iTunes

Nicely designed interface which greets you with a quick run-through of its functions, from finding out "Remaining battery time for what you do", to an "Optimizer" to clean up memory usage. This one gives Battery Doctor a run for its money, with additional functions which tell you which app consumes the most battery life and a Battery Life Saver which claims to help keep your battery healthy while it is charging.

There is also a nice list of 10 tips on how you can prolong battery life, with explanations on how and why the tips work.

Battery Saver Pro

Free on iTunes

This is a very basic app which simply presents information about how long battery life will last you depending on your usage of various phone functions. The first thing that pops up when you launch the app is a window asking if you want to download a free game. Very annoying. And this happens every time you start up the app.

Compared to the super slick interfaces for Battery Doctor and Battery Life Saver, this looks very plain. It does however have a lengthy list of 18 battery saving tips which explain simply why certain functions consume battery life and what are the implications if you change the settings.

If you don't mind the pop-up window and just want to get to the point, this is serviceable.

Battery Monitor Magic

Free from iTunes

Another app with an annoying pop-up advertising window - this one is a fullscreen ad for a game. But there is a nice touch on the home screen - the first item on the list tells you how long it will take to recharge your phone to 100 per cent.

The "More" button is misleading as it takes you to a listing of other apps by the company rather than more functions. If you want more functions, you will have to upgrade to the tune of US$9.99 (S$12.38).

This article was first published on July 23, 2014.
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