Roger Fingas
Though Facebook has been trying to address power usage concerns through software updates, its main iOS app is still a drain on the iPhone's daily battery life, a report claimed on Monday.
During informal testing, an iPhone 6s Plus saw an average of 15 percent more life with the app uninstalled, according to The Guardian. The paper instead accessed Facebook's website through the iPhone's built-in Safari browser, while leaving Facebook Messenger intact. Testing spanned two weeks — one with the Facebook app installed and a second with it removed.
Similar results were recorded by other recruited iPhone owners, The Guardian noted.
For the main test, deleting the app is also said to have had the benefit of recovering some 500 megabytes of storage, including 111 megabytes from the app itself and the remainder in cache space.
Facebook's main iOS and Android apps have repeatedly been accused of consuming too much battery life, principally by operating in the background when they're not needed. When the issue came to a head in 2015, Facebook blamed the situation on bugs that were later corrected, but The Guardian's results suggest that fundamental problems remain or have resurfaced.
Battery life remains a concern with iPhones. The 6 Plus and 6s Plus can last a full day or more on a single charge — owing to larger batteries — but 4- and 4.7-inch iPhones are often close to empty by nightfall, and sometimes need midday top-ups, particularly if they're used for video, games, or GPS. Apple itself recently put out an official battery case for the iPhone 6 and 6s.
Charles Martin
Christine McKee
Oliver Haslam
21 Comments
Yep. Still don't allow their garbage on my stuff.
Has anyone tested the Facebook Paper app battery consumption? As much as I hate FB, the Paper app is not bad, but I don't have the main app installed. I'll just use the browser interface.
Messenger seems to be active in the background for hours per day, wasting battery. I make sure Messenger and Facebook have access to nothing that they keep asking for, such as contacts, photos, location etc.
Yep, that's Johnny Ive's OCD with thinness over all other considerations. The horrible camera bump on the 6/6s would be flush and the battery would have an extra 10-15% capacity if it was 1mm thicker. You'd be able to use the thing for its intended purpose for longer too, i.e. an actual smartphone, instead of a puck. But no, being microscopically thinner than the last generation is preferable to having more battery is apparently better in Johnny's eyes. /rant
I wish one of the phone manufacturers would release a phone with a huge battery
imagine an iphone 6s but double the thickness, and triple the battery life
i am quite sure that thing will fly off the shelves
not everyone wants a super sexy, super slim phone
some of us want to be able to use our smart phone for its intended purpose, all day, without having to switch off bluetooth and wifi and dim the screen etc