Your old iPhone might still have some life in it – so don’t upgrade just yet.
If you’ve had an iPhone for a few years, there are some clever tricks to make it feel new again.
Get an Apple battery swap
Your iPhone uses a lithium-ion battery, which has a limited lifespan.
Every time you discharge and charge your iPhone, you wear down its maximum battery capacity.
Over two years (or about 500 charging cycles), you’d expect to have about 80% of battery capacity left.
That means an iPhone that would’ve lasted for 10 hours of use would now only survive an 8-hour stint off-charge.
You can check your battery health by going into Settings > Battery and tapping Battery Health.
If your iPhone has a very low battery health and it’s dying too quickly, there’s an easy solution.
You can get an out-of-warranty battery replacement from Apple for $69. This is a much cheaper option than buying a new iPhone.
Update your iPhone
Updating your iPhone is a sure-fire way to quickly make your handset feel fresh.
You’ll get brand new features, some new interface designs, and a fresh set of iPhone wallpapers too.
And best of all: it’s totally free.
Just go to Settings > General > Software Update and upgrade in minutes.
If you find that you can’t update to the latest iOS because your iPhone is too old, that’s a big problem.
It means you’re not longer getting the latest security fixes – putting you at risk of hack attacks.
So a lack of software updates should be your cut-off for when to finally upgrade to a newer iPhone model.
Find the list of unsupported iPhones here.
Organize your apps
If you’ve had an iPhone for a while, you’ve probably got dozens or even hundreds of apps.
With app counts that high, it’s easy for your Home Screen pages to get out of control.
One trick is to simply hide Home Screen pages.
This means you can have a much tidier experience, while still being able to find all of your apps.
It’s all thanks to iOS 14’s App Library, which means having a Home Screen packed with apps is no longer necessary.
For a start, you’ve now got a permanent App Library if you scroll all the way to the right of your home screen.
This is where all of your apps are stored, and they’re automatically organized into their own categories.
So if you’ve got any apps on hidden home screen pages, they’ll still be visible in your App Library.
Hiding a home screen page is simple.
First, make sure any apps that you want to hide are stored on a home screen page you’re happy to hide too.
Then hold your finger down on the home screen until your app icons start wiggling.
Next, tap on the bubble with dots inside at the bottom of your screen – the one that shows which page you’re on.
This will bring you to a home screen view that lets you hide individual pages – by “unticking” them.
Once you’re finished, just click Done in the top right-hand corner.
These pages aren’t gone forever, and are perfectly preserved until the next time you want to unhide them.
Of course, you can also leave them hidden forever too.
You can still find hidden apps without going into the App Library.
Simply use the iPhone’s search bar (drag down) or ask Siri.
Also, consider placing any apps you have on the Home Screen into folders.
Drag them on top of each other to create categories, like “Games” or “Fitness”.
Make sure you’ve got all your apps updated too, for the newest designs and latest features.
To do this, go into the App Store, then tap on your profile picture in the top right.
Now scroll down and tap Update All to get the latest software versions for your apps.
Get a new iPhone case
This might seem silly, but it’s one of the best ways to instantly improve your iPhone.
If you’ve had an iPhone for a while, it’s likely got some wear and tear.
And you’ll have looked at the same iPhone color for a while too.
So to make it feel fresh, consider getting a nice slim case with a very different color and feel.
This will hide and blemishes, and instantly make your gadget feel new again.
And once you’re bored of it, you can just swap to something else.
This story originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced here with permission.
