Technologies

Your iPhone’s Default Settings Are Secretly Killing Your Battery. Here’s the Fix.

If your iPhone battery is dying too fast, this guide will show you the three surprising features that are likely causing the problem.

If you’re sick of your iPhone battery dying before the day is over, stop blaming its age and start looking at your settings. While it’s true that all phone batteries get worse over time, living in low power mode or being constantly tethered to a charger isn’t the answer.

Your iPhone has a few key settings that are notorious for draining your battery in the background. The good news is, you can turn them off. Instead of watching your battery percentage plummet at the worst possible moment, you can make a few simple tweaks that will give you hours of extra life.

Before you even think about buying a new phone, check your Battery Health menu (anything above 80% is decent) and then turn off these three power-hungry settings. It’s the easiest way to make your iPhone battery last longer, starting right now.

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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

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Monday, Sept. 29

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Sept. 29.

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

Well, 4-Across threw me off right away today. I figured that sprinklers sprinkle «water,» but that word didn’t fit. Turns out I needed to think about what was actually receiving the water. Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? Read on. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Walgreens competitor
Answer: CVS

4A clue: What sprinklers might sprinkle
Answer: LAWN

6A clue: Assumed name
Answer: ALIAS

8A clue: Company whose round, red-white-and-blue logo is known as the «globe»
Answer: PEPSI

9A clue: Emanation from a hot shower
Answer: STEAM

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Expresses appreciation for a performance, say
Answer: CLAPS

2D clue: Kind of parking
Answer: VALET

3D clue: Express appreciation for a dating profile, say
Answer: SWIPE

5D clue: Org. whose round, red-white-and-blue logo is known as the «meatball»
Answer: NASA

7D clue: Virtual thing to «run,» for short
Answer: SIM

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for Sept. 29, #371

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for Sept. 29, No. 371.

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

There are five numbers in today’s Connections: Sports Edition. If you can figure out which four go together, you’ll have nailed the yellow category. If you’re struggling but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times. It doesn’t show up in the NYT Games app but appears in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Gridiron scores.

Green group hint: Athlete with a very long last name.

Blue group hint: Southern college towns.

Purple group hint: Vroom-vroom!

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Points that can be scored on one football play.

Green group: Associated with Giannis Antetokounmpo.

Blue group: SEC cities.

Purple group: NASCAR Cup Series champions, familiarly.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is points that can be scored on one football play. The four answers are 1, 2, 3 and 6.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is associated with Giannis Antetokounmpo. The four answers are 34, Bucks, Greece and MVP.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is SEC cities. The four answers are Athens, Fayetteville, Norman and Oxford.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is NASCAR Cup Series champions, familiarly. The four answers are Cale, Dale, Jeff and Jimmie.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Sept. 29 #575

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Sept. 29, No. 575.

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.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle is a super-fun one. Pretty easy once you figure out the theme. But 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: Chew on that!

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Blow a bubble.

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:

LINE, WINE, PUTT, MERRY, MINE, SPUTTER, TIME, TIMER, RITE, SUITE, SPUN, GREEN, SPEAR, WINTER, MINT.

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: