HACKER Q&A
📣 devstein

Why Isn’t Low Battery Mode Always Enabled?


I assume there are background processes that Apple deems essential. Does anyone know what they are?

  👤 Someone1234 Accepted Answer ✓
Having more control would be welcomed.

The problem with Low Power Mode is that it "bundles" multiple battery saving ideas together. That isn't inherently problematic for the scenario it was designed for (<10% "lifeline" mode), the problem is that using it continuously would be impractical.

It controls:

- Slower 5G speeds

- Auto-lock forced to 30 seconds

- Lower display brightness, refresh rate, and disables some animations

- Suspends iCloud Photos sync. Auto app updates and downloads. Email fetch (non-push).

- Limits/disables app background refresh.

More info here[0]. I'd love centralized sliders in the battery tab to do all of these things individually (rather than needing to move all over the system, sometimes multiple pages deep). But ultimately giving more control, particularly of system internals isn't really Apple's style.

[0] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205234

👤 yuppie_scum
Try it and you’ll see.
👤 kleer001
Why aren't we always eating a starvation diet? Just enough calories that we don't die, but not enough to perform regular day to day actions like walking to the store, holding a conversation, or driving anywhere.