Ex Apple genius bar employee, Scott Loveless, has revealed that the Facebook app for iPhone has a severe impact on the iPhone’s small, 1,560 milliamp-hours battery.
After receiving numerous complaints from users, Loveless decided to dig into the processes of offending iPhones, finding that the Facebook app repeatedly appeared in the processes list, even when not in use.
Loveless found that Facebook’s use of location services and the newly introduced background app refresh service (to check for news feed updates), resulted in the app increasing the load on the CPU, thus decreasing battery life.
When disabling background app refresh and location services, battery life apparently jumped from ’12 to 17 percent’ on the iPhone 5S with similar gains on older devices.
Loveless encouraged users to disable the app’s background app refresh function (Settings > General) as well as location services (Settings > Privacy) to save battery life.
He also proposed disabling push notifications (which wake the screen), restraining yourself from constantly checking your battery percentage and switching on Aeroplane mode in areas with poor reception.