9 Essential iPhone Settings To Turn Off For Data Privacy & Extended Battery Life
1. Turn Off Unnecessary System Services
Open Settings>Privacy>Location Services>System Services (at the bottom) then TURN EVERYTHING OFF except the following:
- Emergency Calls and SOS
- Find My iPhone
2. Turn Off Significant Locations
Enter the Significant Locations option and turn it off. You can clear your recent locations here while you’re at it.
3. Turn Off Unnecessary Location Services
Look through the list and if you see any that say ‘Always’, think about whether you need this running all the time or just while the app is open. Stuff (the news app), for example, doesn’t need location all the time or when the app is open so turn that to ‘Never’.
4. Turn Off Personalized Ads
At the bottom of the same list (way at the bottom) select personalized ads and turn them off. Unless Apple is paying you for this, it’s completely unnecessary.
5. Turn Off Analytics & Improvements
Just above the Personalized ads, you’ll see ‘Analytics and Improvements’. These can all be disabled.
6. Turns Off Allow Apps To Request to Track
At the top, click on ’Tracking’. This is a dual-purpose item. This is what allows apps to track you and send your data to advertisers. If privacy is a concern this should certainly be turned off.
7. Turn Off In-App Rating & Reviews
Exit the privacy setting and head back to the main menu in settings. Under the privacy button, you should see the app store, click that. Once you are in there you will see multiple options but the one we are interested in is the ‘In-App Rating & Reviews’, switch this off.
8. Turn Off Push Mail
Go back one menu and select Mail then Accounts (this will only show up if the built-in mail app is installed)
Once you’re in this setting you will see ‘Fetch New Data’ options. Every 15 minutes is more than enough and prevents the device from constantly checking for new mail when there likely isn’t any.
9. Turn Off App Refresh
Back in the main menu, scroll up to general and select it. In there, select ‘Background app refresh’. This allows you to select apps you wouldn’t like updating endlessly in the background. Apps like News or Uber would be good to keep on if you want updates but things like games, video/photo editors etc don’t need this on.
