Technologies

If You Want Your iPhone Battery to Last Longer, Turn Off These 3 Settings ASAP

Which is more important: Lock screen widgets, or better battery life?

The longer you’ve had your iPhone, the more you’ll notice that the battery doesn’t last the way it did when it was fresh out of the box. Over time phone batteries gradually degrade, robbing them of their ability to hold a charge. That doesn’t mean that you need to constantly charge your phone, or keep it in Low Power Mode though. By tweaking a few settings you can help your battery to last longer, even if it’s a few years old.

Whether you’re using your phone to get directions, stream music or send that one last text, the last thing you want is for it to shut down at the worst possible moment. Instead of scrambling for a charger or switching on Low Power Mode every few hours, take a minute to check your iPhone settings. Turning off a few power-draining features could be the fix your battery desperately needs-and it only takes seconds to do.

You can also keep an eye on your Battery Health menu — it’ll tell you your battery health percentage (80% or higher is considered good), as well as show you how many times you’ve cycled your battery and whether or not your battery is «normal.»

We’ll explain three iOS features that put a strain on your iPhone’s battery to varying degrees, and show how you can turn them off to help preserve battery life. Here’s what you need to know.

Turn off widgets on your iPhone lock screen

All the widgets on your lock screen force your apps to automatically run in the background, constantly fetching data to update the information the widgets display, like sports scores or the weather. Because these apps are constantly running in the background due to your widgets, that means they continuously drain power.

If you want to help preserve some battery on iOS 18, the best thing to do is simply avoid widgets on your lock screen (and home screen). The easiest way to do this is to switch to another lock screen profile: Press your finger down on your existing lock screen and then swipe around to choose one that doesn’t have any widgets.

If you want to just remove the widgets from your existing lock screen, press down on your lock screen, hit Customize, choose the Lock Screen option, tap on the widget box and then hit the «—« button on each widget to remove them.

Reduce the motion of your iPhone UI

Your iPhone user interface has some fun, sleek animations. There’s the fluid motion of opening and closing apps, and the burst of color that appears when you activate Siri with Apple Intelligence, just to name a couple. These visual tricks help bring the slab of metal and glass in your hand to life. Unfortunately, they can also reduce your phone’s battery life.

If you want subtler animations across iOS, you can enable the Reduce Motion setting. To do this, go to Settings > Accessibility > Motion and toggle on Reduce Motion.

Switch off your iPhone’s keyboard vibration

Surprisingly, the keyboard on the iPhone has never had the ability to vibrate as you type, an addition called «haptic feedback» that was added to iPhones with iOS 16. Instead of just hearing click-clack sounds, haptic feedback gives each key a vibration, providing a more immersive experience as you type. According to Apple, the very same feature may also affect battery life.

According to this Apple support page about the keyboard, haptic feedback «might affect the battery life of your iPhone.» No specifics are given as to how much battery life the keyboard feature drains, but if you want to conserve battery, it’s best to keep this feature disabled.

Fortunately, it is not enabled by default. If you’ve enabled it yourself, go to Settings > Sounds & Haptics > Keyboard Feedback and toggle off Haptic to turn off haptic feedback for your keyboard.

For more tips on iOS, read about how to access your Control Center more easily and why you might want to only charge your iPhone to 95%.

Technologies

This 3-in-1 Charger Is a Must-Have for Travelers, and It Just Hit a Record-Low of $95

Snag it for $45 off and charge your iPhone, AirPods and Apple Watch at the same time.

If you’re a frequent traveler, then you know that outlets are a precious commodity in places like airports and coffee shops. So why waste one on a single device when you can charge up to three at once? Right now, you can grab this seriously sleek Ugreen Magflow three-in-one foldable charger for just $95 at Amazon. That’s a $45 discount and the all-time lowest price we’ve seen. Just don’t wait too long, as this deal could expire at any time.

At just 7.4 ounces, this compact charging station is designed to be taken on the go. But despite its size, it still supports 25-watt MagSafe charging for iPhones, as well as 5-watt wireless charging for AirPods and Apple Watches. The charging stand also tilts up to double as a stand, and it’s equipped with 16 magnets to keep your phone aligned and securely in place. Plus, it’s got built-in protections against overheating, overcharging, short-circuiting and more to prevent damage to your devices.

Why this deal matters

This folding Ugreen charger is great for juicing up your devices on the go, and it’s never been more affordable. Plus, Ugreen makes some of the best MagSafe chargers on the market right now, so don’t miss your chance to grab one at a record-low price.

Technologies

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for Jan. 13, #1669

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle for Jan. 13, No. 1,669.

Looking for the most recent Wordle answer? Click here for today’s Wordle hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Wordle puzzle is a little tricky, and it might make you hungry. If you need a new starter word, check out our list of which letters show up the most in English words. If you need hints and the answer, read on.

Today’s Wordle hints

Before we show you today’s Wordle answer, we’ll give you some hints. If you don’t want a spoiler, look away now.

Wordle hint No. 1: Repeats

Today’s Wordle answer has no repeated letters.

Wordle hint No. 2: Vowels

Today’s Wordle answer has two vowels.

Wordle hint No. 3: First letter

Today’s Wordle answer begins with G.

Wordle hint No. 4: Last letter

Today’s Wordle answer ends with O.

Wordle hint No. 5: Meaning

Today’s Wordle answer can refer to a spicy Cajun stew popular in New Orleans.

TODAY’S WORDLE ANSWER

Today’s Wordle answer is GUMBO.

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle answer, Jan. 12, No. 1,668 was TRIAL.

Recent Wordle answers

Jan. 8, No. 1,664: BLAST

Jan. 9, No. 1,665: EIGHT

Jan. 10, No. 1,666: MANIC

Jan. 11, No. 1,667: QUARK

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

What’s the best Wordle starting word?

Don’t be afraid to use our tip sheet ranking all the letters in the alphabet by frequency of uses. In short, you want starter words that lean heavy on E, A and R, and don’t contain Z, J and Q.

Some solid starter words to try:

ADIEU

TRAIN

STARE

NOISE

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Jan. 13 #681

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Jan. 13, No. 681.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

It took me a while to figure out the theme for today’s NYT Strands puzzle, but once I did, I thought it was a fun one. Some of the answers are difficult to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: You need to chill

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Brrrr!

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

GONE, ABLE, TABLE, FOOD, TEEN, LEAF, GOOF, GOOD, SAFE

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers: