The iPhone is a fantastic device, but every so often I’m asked what seems to be the only reoccurring issue users have: battery life. There are numerous sites that provide great advice on how to maximize your battery life, such as turn off the features you don’t use like Bluetooth or WiFi, limit push access to apps that don’t need it, and reducing the brightness of your screen. But what if you’ve done your best to maximize battery life but still come up shorter on battery life than you think you should?
The answer might be Carat (courtesy of a recent OSX Daily post), an app created by a team at UC Berkeley that does the detective work for you. The app scans your device’s apps and gives recommendations on what uses the most power and what you should do about it. The heavy lifting is done via cloud servers, the app merely gathers data and forwards it reducing its own power footprint. Carat singles out the apps it thinks are using too much power by design, and those that are doing so only on your device (suggesting that the app may have a bug). The app also rates your battery life and compares it to the average user.
This rather handy utility is free via the iTunes App Store. The makers do stress that it is in a constant state of revision, and that new features are forthcoming. Even without further refinement Carat offers a uniquely powerful tool to get the most out of your iOS device.
