10 tricks to make your Apple products faster

Thursday, February 15, 2018

Ever since Apple has confirmed that it was reducing the speed of their older products (to increase the battery's performance), we've been thinking about preparing a list of tricks you can do to optimize the performance of your Apple products.  

Close completely your AppS

Did you know that when you close an application, it stays in the background and keeps consuming your phone's resources? We've already seen phones with around 50 applications running on it! If you want to take back these ressources, you'll need to kill your apps by following the se steps:

• Double-click on the main button of your iPhone/iPad;
• With your finger, slide to the top all the applications you're not currently using. You'll see these windows disappear (and your apps will be completely closed).

Reduce brightness

If you're having problems having your iPhone last all day without having to charge it, it's probably because the brightness is too high. To save your battery, reduce your phone's brightness by following these steps: 

• With your finger, start at the bottom of your screen and slide to the top (you'll see a window appear with lots of buttons);
• In the buttons, reduce the brightness (it's represented by an icon that looks like a sun) until your screen is darker, but that you're still able to read easily (for example, my phone has a brightness of around 20%).

We also strongly recommend you disable "Auto-brightness" (which will automatically increase the brightness when it's sunny). To disable it, you must: 

• Go in "Settings", then click on "General";
• Click on the "Accessibility" link;
• Then, click on "Display Accommodations";
• Finally, de-activate "Auto-Brightness".

Deactivate BluetootH

Bluetooth is really usefull when you want to listen to music or need to connect your phone to your car, but when your Bluetooth is activated and not used, it's using resources and lowers your battery life. Therefore, we recommend you deactivate Bluetooth when not in use. To do so, you must: 

• With your finger, start at the bottom of the screen and slide to the top (you'll see a window appear with lots of buttons);
• In the buttons, click on the "Bluetooth" button to de-activate it (you should see the Bluetooth icon disappear at the top of your screen).

Deactivate SIRI

Although Siri can be quite usefull, she also uses lots of your phone's resources. If you hardly ever use her, we recommend you deactivate it to get those resources back. You can deactivate Siri by following these steps: 

• Go in "Settings" and then click on "Siri & Search";
• Deactivate the "Listen for Hey Siri" and "Allow Siri When Locked" settings. You could always use Siri by pressing on the main button for a couple of seconds, but whe won't be listening to all your conversations to see when you need help.

Deactivate BACKGROUND APP REFRESH

Background App Refresh allows applications that weren't closed completely to keep updating themselves, even when they're not displayed. To gain some battery life (and resources), you should follow these steps:

• Go in "Settings" and click on "General";
• Click on the "Background App Refresh" setting and then, select "Off" to deactivate it.

Deactivate PHONE NOISE CANCELLATION

One functionality that greatly increased the quality of my phone calls was deactivating "Phone Noise Cancellation". Before deactivating it, lots of people had the impression that I was talking far away from the phone (even though I speak REALLY LOUD). That was caused by my phone trying to remove all the surrounding sounds of my kids playing, the TV or even my car. To deactivate this function, follow these steps: 

• Go to "Settings" and click on "General";
• Then, click on "Accessibility" and look for the "Hearing" section (you'll find it near the bottom);
• Deactivate "Phone Noise Cancellation".

ACTIVate REDUCE MOTION

By default, our phones use a bunch of animations and effects to increase our visual experience, but all that uses our phone's resources. To help increase the performance of your phone, follow these instructions:

• Go to "Settings" and click on "General";
• Then, click on "Accessibility" and you'll see the "Vision" section at the top;
• Click on the "Reduce Motion" setting and then, deactivate "Reduce Motion" in the following window.

REmove transparency

Another effect included in our phones is transparency. This setting uses of course some resources, but beware, deactivating this will change the look of your keyboard and some icons on your phone. To remove transparency, you'll have to: 

• Go to "Settings" and click on "General";
• Then, click on "Accessibility" (you'll see on the top the "Vision" section);
• Click on the "Increase Contrast" button and then, activate "Reduce Transparency" in the following window (contrary to all the other options, you have to activate this to increase your performances).

Deactivate LOCATION SERVICES

One setting that uses lots of resources is your phone's GPS. To gain battery life, we highly recommend you deactivate "Location Services" for all the applications that don't really use it (by doing so, you also prevent them on spying on you...) and keep it on only for your essential applications, and only when the app is running. Here's what you need to do to manage these permissions: 

• Go to "Settings" and then click on "Privacy";
• Click on the first button which should be "Location Services";
• In this window, you'll see a list of all the applications that ask for access to your phone's GPS. Make sure you look at each application and mark them as "Never" if you don't want to give them access, or select "While Using the App" if you want to give it access when you're using that specific app. 

REboot your phonE

Sometimes, just rebooting your phone will help gain back some speed. Don't forget, your phone is now more of a computer than a phone, so just like a computer, sometimes you need to reboot!