An Apple iPhone owner has tested his smartphone and conluded why it experienced rapid battery drainages.
German iOS developer Sebastian Düvel explained on his blog that after a normal workday his iPhone 4S had roughly 10 percent of battery life left. He touted himself as an iOS developer who knows the Instruments of Apple's developer tools; essential in benchmarking your own apps, distinguishing slow parts, and fixing memory leaks.
"Instruments is a performance, analysis, and testing tool for dynamically tracing and profiling OS X and iOS code," described Apple's Developer Library. "It is a flexible and powerful tool that lets you track one or more processes and examine the collected data. In this way, Instruments helps you understand the behavior of both user apps and the operating system."
According to Düvel, the top five apps that have been running on his smartphone for longest amount of time (from least to most) are SpringBoard, backboardd, UserEventAgent, DTMobileIS, and finally Facebook.
"That seemed a little much to me. I'm using Facebook quite often, but not like every minute of the day," noted Düvel.
The iOS developer then double-checked on Facebook's usage, but had Instruments indicate when the app was opened, closed, or placed in the background.
Düvel concluded that Facebook uses two components: Audio and Voice over IP (VoIP).
Apple's Developer Library explains VoIP as, "[VoIP] allows the user to make phone calls using an Internet connection instead of the device's cellular service. Such an app needs to maintain a persistent network connection to its associated service so that it can receive incoming calls and other relevant data."
Düvel, however, found the following tidbit important during his research.
Apple's definition added, "Most VoIP apps also need to be configured as background audio apps to deliver audio while in the background. Therefore, you should include both the audio and voip values to the UIBackgroundModes key. If you do not do this, your app cannot play audio while it is in the background."
Therefore, the Facebook app could be actively running despite being in the background.
In the end, his solution is rather simple, one perhaps many iPhone users already use: fully close the app by pressing the home button twice until the bottom bar displays apps. Next, the Facebook app should appear at the bar. Tap and hold the Facebook icon until an "X" appears, and tap on it. The Facebook app is officially closed, not deleted.
According to Düvel, he has noticed his battery life lasting longer.
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