7 tricks to make your old iPhone faster again

Over the years, older iPhones become noticeably slower. But there are a few tricks you can use to increase the speed of your device. TECHNOLOGY BUTTON introduces them.

1. Free up storage space

If your iPhone is not performing as well as it was months ago, it can help to free the memory of unnecessary data. Delete apps from your phone that you are not using. Move or delete photos and videos in the cloud. To find out how much storage space is used on your smartphone, you can check the data usage in your settings. To do this, go to the “General” menu item  and then to “Storage”. Now you can see which apps and features are taking up the most storage space. There you can also see how much free space is left on your smartphone.

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2. Don’t update apps in the background

Many apps update their content on your phone in the background. An example of this is the Facebook app . The feed is renewed, for example, without you opening the app. You can disable such background updates and make your iPhone faster. To do this, go to your settings and then to “General” in the menu  . There you will find the item “Background update”, which you can deactivate. Alternatively, you can also decide individually when you want updates and when you don’t. You can also select apps from the list that should continue to be updated in the background.

3. Other video and photo formats

But: Not all iPhones can save photos and videos in this format. Only devices with the iPhone 7 or higher can capture media in HEIF and HEVC format.

4. Switch off automatic updates

Your iPhone can carry out updates automatically, but this has an impact on the performance of your device. You can therefore easily switch off this function: If you go to the menu item “iTunes & App Store” in your settings  , you can decide which updates should be deactivated in the automatic downloads area. Your iPhone will be a little faster again.

5. Update apps

Old apps sometimes slow down a system because they no longer work properly. So check in the App Store whether your apps on your phone have the latest update and update the installed applications if necessary.

6. Turn off GPS

Location services use more battery power. While we cannot recommend turning off GPS in general, the number of apps that use the location services can be contained. This can make your old iPhone a little faster. With iOS, you can better manage and control which apps access your location and when. This is also due to the fact that developers are no longer only  allowed to offer “always” or “never” as an option for locating the location in the apps . While using an app, you have the option to decide whether or not to consent to the location. To do this, go to “Data protection” in the settings and to “Location services” in the menu. There you can generally decide individually for each app whether you want to activate the location services. 

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7. Reboot

Sometimes our iPhone runs for days or even weeks. But everyone needs a break, even an iPhone. You should reward the stamina of your device by switching the smartphone off every now and then. A restart can work wonders and make your old iPhone faster and more powerful again.