Your iPhone is slow and sluggish – and you’ve done everything you can to find solutions. You only charge it with Apple-certified accessories, and you might even have ditched your nightly charging habit in favor of something less frequent but more effective. That’s all great, but the apps you’re using could still do a number on your device and drag it at a snail’s pace.
The good news is that you can easily see which apps were slowing down your iPhone the most, so you can take charge of the situation.
“Open the ‘Settings’ app, scroll down and click on ‘Battery,’ scroll down and look for apps that say ‘background activity,'” says tech expert Daniel Neale, founder of Gadget Faqs . “If an app shows ‘Background Activity’, it means the app was using the CPU in the background. If this app has been consuming a lot of battery percentage, it means that the app has been using a lot of resources in the background. Apps can run in the background to make requests to servers, keep playing music, allow you to keep talking to someone, download newsstand content, get notifications, and update location.”
If you are beyond frustrated with your device, Neale suggests removing these four apps that can slow down your iPhone.
Music/Podcast Apps
“Music apps like Spotify, Apple Music and Youtube Music can of course run in the background, for example to play music/podcasts, but also to download new content,” says Neale. “In my case, Spotify was the app that was putting the most strain on my iPhone running in the background. As these apps download more and more content, they also require more storage space on the device. When iPhone is low on free space, it may cause iPhone running slower.”
Location-Based Apps
Apps like Google Maps are allowed to run many CPU-intensive tasks in the background, according to Neale, to keep your in-app location updated. “To prevent these apps from using power in the background when you don’t want them to, it’s important to make sure the permission in the Settings app isn’t set to Always,” Neale said. “I personally set it to ‘While using the app’. You can get here by opening the Settings app, scrolling down and clicking on the app and clicking Location.”
Newsstand Apps
“Kiosk apps are allowed to download content in the background,” Neale said. “You are also allowed to stay awake to receive notifications, which can drain iPhone battery and consume CPU power, causing iPhone to run slower.”
social media apps
And finally, the app you probably already suspected is slowing down your phone: social media apps like Facebook, Snapchat, and TikTok. “Social media apps can stay awake in the background to fetch new content, so they’re ready when you open the app, download new content, and use location services,” Neale said. “The location services of these apps can consume a lot of CPU, so it’s important to make sure the location permission is set to “While in use” in the Settings app.”
You don’t have to live in frustration because your phone is super slow. Keep track of the apps you download and delete those that no longer serve you and are known battery hogs to keep your phone running more efficiently.
