Low Power Mode on iOS 9

"Low Power Mode" is a new feature that was introduced to iPhones in iOS 9. Enabling this mode reduces power consumption by reducing or disabling functions such as email fetching, background app refreshing, visual effects, and others. By default, Low Power Mode is turned off, and when your battery reaches 20%, you are given the option to enable Low Power Mode (and are offered the option again at 10% if you did not previously enable it). Upon charging your iPhone to 80%, Low Power Mode is automatically switched off. An official Apple Support description of Low Power Mode is available here.

Since I prefer to minimize the amount of time that my iPhone is tethered to a charging cable, I want to go as long as possible between charges. Therefore, I decided to see what would happen if I kept my phone in Low Power Mode all the time. You can do this by going to Settings > Battery and manually toggling Low Power Mode to the ON position immediately after charging your iPhone (in fact, you can enable it "Whac-A-Mole" style right after Low Power Mode is automatically switched off when your battery is charged to 80%).

Besides, after having used Low Power Mode repeatedly over the last year when presented the option, I could not perceive any degradation in performance so I saw little to no downside to running this experiment.

My methods are admittedly not very scientifically rigorous, but I compared my charging records from Battery Doctor in the month of January (when I was using Low Power Mode only when the battery drained to 20% or lower) with the month of February (when I was using Low Power Mode all the time). I believe that I practiced similar phone usage patterns and charging habits over these 2 months. Results are as follows...

• January: 10 charges over 30 days, average span = 3.0 days
• February: 7 charges over 23 days, average span = 3.3 days

In summary, although the difference is not large, my findings appear to confirm my perception that in some cases, I may have been able to squeak out an extra day without having to charge my phone which is really what matters most to me. Furthermore, since I cannot perceive any difference in performance between Low Power Mode and "regular" mode, I will probably continue to use my iPhone in Low Power Mode all the time.

Apparently I'm not the only one who has experimented with Low Power Mode 24/7. Here's another guy who shared his findings in a nicely written blog (much better than mine, especially if you'd like to see more granular data points on this topic): What If You Used iOS 9’s Low Power Mode all the Time? In any case, I hope this helps at least 1 more person squeak at least 1 more day between charge cycles. What do you think about Low Power Mode?

Downgrading to Office 365 on Windows 7

At work, we recently upgraded everyone's Windows 7 machines from Office 2013 to Microsoft's latest offering, Office 365. Everything was previously working fine in Office 2013, and although I understand that there are new features in Office 365, the "upgrade" comes at a steep price in my opinion. I am not referring to dollars and cents but rather in terms of a hit to my productivity. For example:

1) Launch Time. Office applications take longer to load in Office 365 than in Office 2013. I have not precisely quantified the difference, but it is palpable. I assume that this is a result of the applications being bloated with extra features and functions, none of which I am interested in using—I was perfectly fine with the "basics" in Office 2013 and even Office 2010 for that matter. Bring back the light weight and speed!

2) Complexity. Simple actions have now become a significant burden in terms of time and number of required clicks. In Word 2013, to save a document I would click File and then click Save As... to be presented with a dialog box. In Word 365, I click File, click Save As, then click Computer (there is a choice to save to one's local computer which I do 100% of the time, otherwise one can choose from a variety of cloud storage sites, none of which I plan to use), then click Browse (because it first shows a bunch of recently used folders). Only then do one get a Save dialog box. So what used to take 2 clicks now requires 4 clicks to different areas of my screen every time I want to save a document to my laptop. The same applies to a lot of other commonly used commands. Rather than bother me every time for something I am not planning to use, I wish there was an option to turn off all the cloud options to bring simplicity back to Office.

3) Instability. The issue that bugs me the most about Office 365 is that Outlook freezes repeatedly throughout the day (yes, I have tried repairing/reinstalling Office—twice, to no avail). Every few hours when I try to open an email message or calendar invitation or simply switch from Mail to Calendar view or vice versa, Outlook freezes and gives me a "Not Responding" message. Usually I switch to another application (other applications function normally while Outlook is not responding) or leave my desk to do something else (use the restroom, get coffee, etc.) for 1-2 minutes after which Outlook eventually "catches up" and starts working again. Quitting Outlook and re-launching it seems to temporarily prevent unresponsiveness, but after a few hours the issue invariably recurs. While the impromptu breaks are sometimes needed, usually they are disruptive to my train of thought.

Sometimes Outlook 365 never recovers from its unresponsive state, and I end up having to force-quit the application (through Task Manager > End Task).

This brings me to another pet peeve of mine. Upon force-quitting an unresponsive application, Windows boldly proclaims that it is checking for a solution to the problem:

Oh come on, Microsoft! Surely you jest! Not once have I ever seen a viable solution to a problem that your operating system claims to be checking for. Not for Outlook, Internet Explorer, or any of your other applications. NOT. EVEN. ONCE. Why do you offer a glimmer of hope that there is a solution to your application instability, when in reality there seems to be none?

While I'm sure that many people (at least dozens!) have welcomed the new version of Office into their lives, in my opinion, the "upgrade" to Office 365 has felt very much like a downgrade. If it were up to me (which unfortunately it is not), I would upgrade back to Office 2013. Obviously your mileage may vary, so feel free to leave a comment below.