Probably the worst thing about smartphones, especially “wall-hugging” Apple devices, are the batteries. They’re the devil. Fully charged at 9am, close to gone by midday. But maybe that’s because you’re doing it wrong.
New smartphone application Normal has been developed to let you know which apps are draining your much loved battery.
Launched on iOS last month, the app is named after the developers’ initial research in determining the ‘normal’ battery life for electronic devices.
Adam Oliner and Jacob Leverich, who attended Stanford University, designed Normal at Kuro Labs using technology created at the University of California.
The app uses crowdsourced data from other users of Normal to offer personalised advice and track down those extravagant battery-draining apps. It will give you a list of which apps to shutdown first, and an estimated amount of battery time you will save.
Normal will also tell you how your phone’s battery rates compared to other users with the same model. Hence the name.
The big drainers are apparently Google Maps and Facebook, which by shutting down can potentially add three or four hours to your phone life. But Normal will give you a personalised overview for each device.
The price is $0.99, which is a bargain if you’re desperate to get the most out of your dwindling battery and are still 23 months away from a contract renewal.
It’s a good stop-gap until iOS 8 is released, which will reportedly tell you which apps are dragging you down.
The only downpoint is that Normal can’t run diagnostics on itself, meaning there’s no way to tell how much battery it’s draining from your phone. Unless you download another app-analysing app. And then another to determine the second app’s efficiency, and then another to … you get the idea.
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