Apple has just released the latest version of its mobile operating system, iOS 11. Some iPhone owners have noticed that following the update, battery life has taken a considerable hit. The iPhone's battery gets complaints at the best of times, but some users, ourselves included, have noticed it drop at a rapid rate.

If you’ve yet to make the move to iOS 11 yet, we recommend planning your update before you go to bed. By doing so, you’ll give your iPhone plenty of time to update everything overnight whilst plugged in with the least amount of hassle to you. Your iPhone will have power and no doubt a strong Wi-Fi signal to get everything synced while you sleep. 

If the horse has already bolted, so to speak, and you are still experiencing issues, there are a few things you can do to get as much juice out your iPhone as possible, including what's referred to as a nuclear option of restoring your iPhone as new. 

Give it a day or two

When you update the iOS software, it churns away in the background indexing all the information on your iPhone for Spotlight, so everything can be quick and easy to find. You won't be aware your iPhone is doing this, as it's an automatic process, but it will have a negative effect on battery life.

Wait a day or two after updating to see if battery life improves, as once the indexing has finished, it should go back to normal. If not, try these tips below.

Turn your screen brightness down

Sometimes you need your display to be nice and bright, but most of the time it's not necessary, especially indoors.

Slide up from the bottom of your home screen and toggle the screen brightness to as low as you can go. You can always ramp it back up if you need to see something specifically and then flick it back down.

Turn off background app refresh

You don't need every single app you've downloaded on your iPhone to be refreshing in the background so turn off the ones you don't need.

Unfortunately, this means going into each app individually to check if background refresh is on, but it will be worth it if you have your iPhone to order your Uber at the end of the night. Head into Settings and scroll down to see all the apps on your device.

Turn display Auto-Lock to 30 seconds

Most of us press the power button to check for notifications or the time, but it's easy to forget to hit the power button again to turn the display back off.

Making sure Auto-Lock is set to the shortest possible time, which is 30 seconds, to ensure your display isn't using power for longer than necessary.

Avoid constantly turning your screen on

As we said above, many of us have a habit of constantly turning our screens on even when we know we haven't had a message and we looked at the time two minutes ago.

Try and avoid turning your display on unnecessarily as much as you can. It sucks a lot of power, which you could use for more important things.

Turn on airplane mode when signal is weak

Searching for signal is one of the biggest power munchers so if you are in an area that has weak or no signal, consider turning airplane mode on or turning mobile data off.

Airplane mode is not ideal as it means you'll get no calls, messages or anything else coming through but it will save your battery and it can be done easily, swiping up from the bottom of the home screen.

Turning mobile data off will mean your iPhone will still receive calls and texts but it won't be constantly searching for 3G. To do this, head to Settings > Mobile Data and toggle Mobile Data off, or alternatively, access Control Centre and tap the mobile data icon. 

Turn location tracking off

Tracking location means your iPhone is constantly using Wi-Fi networks, Bluetooth and built-in GPS to pinpoint where you are, which obviously will use battery power.

If you aren't using a specific app that requires your location data to get you somewhere then turn it off.

Turn vibration off

Vibration alerts are useful, especially if your iPhone is on silent, but they require the use of the motor and that motor needs juice from the battery.

To do this, head to Settings > Sounds and toggle Vibrate on Ring and Vibrate on Silent off.

Turn off notifications

You probably don't need to be notified for absolutely everything that is going on. Yes, it's useful to get WhatsApp or Message notifications but do you really need to know when someone has commented on your new Facebook profile picture? Probably not.

Limiting the number of notifications you receive will help your battery life and maybe even your sanity. Like background app refresh, you have to go through each app individually. Head to Settings > Notifications and then start filtering through your apps.

Fetch email manually

It's useful to get emails as they are sent, but just because you get them straight away doesn't mean you have time to read them straight away.

Changing your email settings so you get them manually instead of your iPhone fetching them will help save your battery life. If you don't like the idea of entirely manual, change the fetch schedule to a longer duration such as hourly instead of every 15 minutes for example. To do this, go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Fetch New Data.

Turn Siri off

Siri is always listening. That means Siri is always using your battery. You can turn the Hey Siri feature off easily enough so it's worth doing if you're trying to save some juice.

To do this, go to Settings > General > Siri > Allow "Hey Siri" and toggle it off.

Check which apps are eating your battery

There are some apps that eat more battery than you would think. It's worth checking which apps you are using that are impacting your battery life the most so you are aware.

Head to Settings > Battery > Battery Usage. You can choose the last seven days or the last 24 hours. It's worth checking both to see if you can see a pattern or figure out which apps to especially avoid.

Turn off Bluetooth

We mentioned turning on airplane mode or mobile data off when you have weak or no signal, but it's also worth turning Bluetooth off separately.

You might not always be in a position whereby airplane mode is convenient but turning off Bluetooth on its own will still save battery. Swipe up from the top and toggle Bluetooth off from here.

Turn Low Power Mode on

If all else fails, Apple has a Low Power Mode that will reduce power consumption as much as possible. This mode will turn off background app refresh, Hey Siri, Mail fetch, automatic downloads and reduce visual effects.

To turn Low Power Mode on, head to Settings > Battery and toggle it on.

Restore your iPhone

It should only be used as a last resort, but if you find iOS 11 is draining your battery really fast, then you can restore it as new. You will need to download apps, enter passwords and card information again, and you will lose saved game and health data, but it will almost certainly improve your battery life.