We’ve all been there. That dreaded moment when we look down at our phone, press the Home button, and nothing happens. Nothing. Zip. Nada.
You think to yourself: “It’s only 1 PM. How can my phone be dead already?!” or “Great, now how am I going to procrastinate at work?”
Have you ever been playing Angry Birds on your phone and it all of sudden freezes up and you lose the level you’ve been trying win for the past ten minutes?
Whether it is in the office (even if you shouldn’t be on your phone) or on the bus ride home, no one wants their phone to lose its charge or freeze up randomly. It’s the plight of today’s modern world. We want our phones to do everything, but that’s when they stop running smoothly and start lagging. AnTuTu benchmark reports that the iPhone 7 Plus is the best in terms of performance. Maybe, that phone won’t lag till the new millennia begins.
The good news for phone addicts is that there are some easy ways to speed up your phone and keep it running forever. Follow these tips and you’ll never be phone-less again.
1. Get rid of those old games you don’t play anymore
We’ve all felt the urgent need to download a game (Angry Birds or Candy Crusher) and beat it immediately. No point in denying it. It’s okay. Let’s accept it and move on.
Those birds may be cute, but the drain on your smartphone battery and storage space the games create isn’t so cute. Gaming apps like these, and other unnecessary apps, not only use your battery life while you’re playing them, they can often keep running in the background even when you’re not defeating all those bad guys.
And you’re going to have less storage, which will slow down your phone, making it even harder to pass level 22.
What are you waiting for? Delete those old games you have taking up space on your phone and get out there to save the world in real life!
2. Please, for the love of your phone, update your software
Arguably (read: inarguably) one of the worst moments in all of our lives is when we pick up our phone and read the dreaded message:
There is one software update available. Would you like to update now?
Even the new iPhone needs to be updated in a few months. (Sickening, right?) It takes all but one second to click “Later” or “Not Right Now”. (It really won’t be, will it? I always click that button as an excuse to just make it go away.)
However, take some advice from the experts and just download the update already. Software updates come with some great things that keep your phone running smoothly until the next update comes.
3. Bid adieu to the background activity
Let’s do a little hands-on activity.
Pick up your phone. Check how many apps you have running the background. Is your WiFi on, even though there’s no chance of you finding free WiFi around? How’s that data chug going?
One of the first steps to admitting you have a phone performance problem is looking that problem in the eyes and saying, “I see you background apps. I’m not afraid to close you.”
Swiping up to make those apps go away and turning off unnecessary functions like WiFi and Bluetooth is going to give you a much smoother experience on your phone. Say bye-bye to performance hogs!
At least, until you turn them on again five minutes from now. *sigh*
4. Do some spring cleaning
Do you really need that video of the fireworks show from your cousin’s birthday party from five years ago or that once-hilarious meme you’ve had in storage for weeks and months?
Take some time and really do some cleaning up on your phone, similarly to what you do with your laptop/desktop. Even if you deleted the unnecessary apps from a couple steps ago, you probably still have tons of old photos and files that you can still throw out.
A little Smartphone spring cleaning is good every once in a while!
5. Give your phone some nap time
Our phones are just like us and by that I mean they get pretty tired if we keep them running 24/7. Unless you give them some “coffee,” i.e. plugging them in and charging them.
However, even charging isn’t enough sometimes. They need some “nap time” every once in a while, to keep running smoothly. Same as us. For your phone, a “nap” means turning it completely off for a few hours.
Hard as this may be, it’s time to turn off your phone if you aren’t using it for an extended period of time. Ever notice how your internet connection is faster after you haven’t had it on for a while? It’s the same concept here.
6. Go all the way and do a factory reset
If you really just can’t figure out what’s making your smartphone run at the pace of a seventy-year-old snail, you could do a factory reset. For those of you who don’t know, a factory reset is giving your phone a clean slate. That means resetting your phone completely by clearing off everything that is currently on it. Be sure to have all apps, music, photos, contact info backed up so that you can restore your phone afterwards.
Trust me, it sounds a lot scarier than it actually is. It’s the severest medicine you can give to your phone and it usually works!
7. Put away the bells and whistles
Unless you’re living under a rock in the flip-phone world, most of our phones have animations and fancy wallpapers to enhance our smartphone experience if we want them.
But do you really need to see goldfish swimming around in the background on your live wallpaper you just downloaded from Google?
If you’re really serious about speeding up your phone, it won’t kill you to turn off these fancy bells and whistles. Go to your phone’s Settings and from there, it will be easy to help your phone breathe a little easier.
Last Thoughts
It’s a smart idea to do a bit of analysis on your phone to determine which apps are using the most data, storage, or battery life.
To do this, just head to your Settings. From here, you can check on your favorite apps and see which ones you might need to cut ties with or at least distance yourself from. (RIP Snapchat!)
So you’ve deleted the hundreds of pictures of your dog on your phone, and even the latest version of Angry Birds, you should be proud of yourself! Give yourself a good digital pat on the back.
Your smartphone should be running a lot more smoothly now. Go over these tips every couple of weeks or so to make sure you keep your phone in tip-top shape.
Featured photo credit: via pixabay.com via pixabay.com
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