Which apps will drain your battery and data plan? Verizon’s got a list!

SUMMARY:
Verizon is now reviewing iPhone and Android apps, but not based on how fun or useful they are. It’s concerned about the resources they consume, which means Facebook and many popular games get docked.

Verizon Wireless may have shut down its own app store, but it’s not wiping its hands of app curation entirely. The carrier has started reviewing, rating and recommending Android and iPhone apps to its customers.

What’s interesting about Verizon’s approach is it isn’t making its recommendations based on how entertaining, useful or fun a particular app is. Instead a team of Verizon engineers is looking at each app’s impact on the phone’s battery life, its drain on a customer’s data plan and how loosely it plays with security and customer privacy.

Basically, Verizon is compiling a series of regularly updated recommendation lists. The first is a list of 20 apps available either for Android or iOS that Verizon claims deliver a “best in class” experience on smartphones and tablets. As you might expect, Verizon isn’t being entirely objective in its choices, but it never claimed to be. One of the apps is even Verizon’s own AppLuvr software, which recommends other apps based on what’s already installed on smartphones.

The second list applies a much more visible methodology, rating the top 25 free and top 25 paid apps in Google Play based on three criteria: security, battery consumption and data usage. The third set of reviews is essentially Verizon’s naughty list: 13 apps – all games – that will drain your battery or eat up your data plan at a rapid clip.

Verizon isn’t making any friends here among the game development shops. Enormously popular games like Halfbrick’s Fruit Ninja Free and OMGPOP’s Draw Something got bad marks because of their battery drain. Other apps like Facebook Messenger and eBay scored relatively high but were penalized because of their high data consumption.

That may come us a surprise to many users since Facebook and eBay wouldn’t appear to consume that much data, especially compared to streaming multimedia apps like Pandora and Netflix, which received the highest possible Verizon ratings. But what Verizon is likely highlighting here is the persistence of those two apps’ connections. While Facebook might consume only a tiny fraction of the data in a single hour than, say, a Netflix video stream, the social networking app is always running in the background – transmitting a constant stream of signaling traffic over the network and whittling away at your data plan.

Alcatel-Lucent recently analyzed the enormous impact Facebook has on mobile networks through that signaling traffic. On Nov. 15, the social networking giant updated its iOS and Android apps, precipitating a 60 percent boost in Facebook signal load on mobile networks, even though the number of new Facebook mobile users increased only 4 percent in the same time frame. Alcatel-Lucent now estimates that Facebook is responsible for more than 15 percent of all mobile signaling traffic and accounts for more than 20 percent of all network airtime.

Carriers have long implored developers to keep the constraints of mobile networks in mind and build more efficient apps. With these rankings Verizon could be upping that pressure, punishing developers who keep developing unnecessarily chatty software.

As you might expect, neither Facebook Messenger or the main Facebook app made Verizon’s list of “must have apps” (though eBay did). Verizon, however, named Facebook’s much more network-efficient Instagram photo-sharing app in its top 20. I doubt Facebook cares either way.

Any time a carrier produces a must-have list you should take it with a grain of salt, but I will give Verizon credit. It actually recommended Tango, an over-the-top voice, video and messaging app that competes directly with Verizon’s core voice and SMS services

via Which apps will drain your battery and data plan? Verizon’s got a list — Tech News and Analysis.

Apple Releases MacBook Firmware Update To Address Rare Battery Issue

new macbook pro 2012

Apple has released a new SMC firmware update for the MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air. “This update addresses a rare issue on some Apple notebooks where a battery that has accumulated more than 1000 charge cycles may unexpectedly shut down or stop functioning,” according to Apple. This applies specifically to older batteries, but the update is recommended for all MacBook models.

You can find this new firmware update in the Mac App Store or download it directly from Apple’s website.

Source: Apple Support

via Cult of Mac

Check The Battery Health On Your MacBook

Hey,

If you have a  MacBook Air or MacBook Pro  it will come with a battery. Battery life degrades over the life time of the battery. Although there isn’t much you can really do about it, other than trying not to cycle the battery too many times, you can keep an eye on it’s health. This allows you to buy a new one, or get it replaced at an Apple shop before there is so little charge left that always needs to be tethered to the wall. This post is going to show you a couple of methods to ensure you know how healthy your MacBook is running at.

Finding The Health

To find the health of your battery open up System Information in Applications > Utilities. Within the sidebar select Power from the Hardware section. This page will list all of the related bits of information  regarding the power supply to your MacBook.

There are two pieces of information that are of use, the charge remaining and the condition. If you have a fully charged battery the charge remaining in milli ampere-hour should be similar to the full charged capacity from fresh which is about 6000 mAh. If your laptop battery is starting to degrade this value will slowly never reach the fully charged battery value.

The second piece of information worth looking at is the condition parameter. There are three settings, Normal, Replace Soon and Replace Now. If the latter two options are appearing it may be time to replace the battery in your laptop. Apple has a guide on how to replace the battery in your laptop.

Finding out the battery power of your MacBook. Finding out the battery power of your MacBook.

Apps

There are other ways of getting the battery power of your Mac. One of the apps I recommend if iStat Menus. These have some of the most well designed menus which allows you to see a multitude of information. One of these is the battery life.

You can use iStat Menus to get your battery life.You can use iStat Menus to get your battery life.

If you want a free app, a popular app is Battery Health, this gives you the health of your battery in an easy to read format, plus it is free which is always good.

Conclusion

Battery life is important to your Mac. Keeping an eye on it isn’t that complicated, with a couple of free apps and a little bit of know how you can keep an eye on your battery life.

via Mac Tricks And Tips

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