Being an iPhone user is often considered a privilege, but when it begins to lag on you, it can get really annoying, really fast.
When your iPhone begins lagging, it can be due to many reasons. From not having enough storage left to low battery life, all sorts of little things can contribute to an iPhone slowing down. However, something that can also make a slow iPhone worse are certain habits and the way you use it. Read more about three habits tech pros say you should avoid to keep your phone running smoothly below.
Women Are Swapping Their Boring Water For This Ice Pop Electrolyte Mix!
1. Keeping Background App Refresh On
When it comes to settings that you might not notice, tech pros would say you should keep on your radar is Background App Refresh, as it can drain battery life and slow down devices.
"Turn off Background App Refresh located in Settings, then General, then Background App Refresh for apps that you do not use on a constant basis," suggests tech pro Paul DeMott. "This feature allows applications to update the content in the background even when it's closed, which uses processing power and drains the battery all the time. Social media apps, news apps, and games are refreshing every few minutes, whether you need them or not. Disabling this for non-essential apps will free up CPU cycles and RAM that can be utilized by your active apps, making your device much faster."
2. Automatically Downloading Apps
Another iPhone habit that makes a big difference is letting your apps automatically download. It keeps things out of your control and has your iPhone working extra hard in the background.
"Automatic Downloads under the App Store settings is the third setting which slows down older phones," notes tech expert Mark Friend. "iPhones download app updates and other purchases quietly in the background, which competes with whatever you are actively doing. If you disable automatic downloads and prefer to decide when to update, your phone isn't balancing surprise download jobs while you're on your phone browsing or messaging. Over 100 deployments, we've watched our team see the same pattern repeat itself. Clean up those three areas and even an older iPhone feels much more responsive."
3. Never Clearing Your Cache
Something that people tend to underestimate is just how much data and files can be stored on their iPhones. It's important to keep these things in check, especially because when an iPhone's storage is full, it can easily slow down.
"iPhones are secretly building up large caches of temporary files, from your Safari, TikTok, Instagram, and Messaging apps," explains tech pro Steven Athwal. "These accumulate into several gigabytes over time, inflating your storage. When your phone's storage is tight, it struggles to run smoothly because iOS needs the space to run. Clearing app caches or simply removing unused apps can help your phone breathe and give it the room it needs to run smoothly."
