Android users, if you want your phone’s battery to make it to day’s end, you should think about how to ease up on specific “performance-draining” apps. The annual report for AVG Technologies, the Amsterdam-based security software company was released on Thursday, which analyzed which of the Android apps placed the biggest demands on storage space, data use, and battery life.
So which are the biggest offenders? It should not be too big of a surprise that social media apps that encourage constantly staying connected with friends are at the top of the list, followed next by those that are heavy on video and then GPS data.
The apps’ ranking
Facebook is ranked as the number one performance-draining app that automatically runs when your phone powers up, while messaging apps like Snapchat earned the distinction of the top performance-drainer that users run.
The company findings were based on randomized, anonymous data taken from more than 3 million Android users around the globe between January 2016 and April 2016.
Interestingly, among start-up apps, Google Maps took second place, according to the report. AGI’s recommendation is to use the app’s ‘Offline Area’ feature that allows you to download complete maps to your phone therefore eliminating the taxation on your mobile data and battery life.
For the first time this year were a number of apps that included the Weather Channel App, Google Maps, Facebook Messenger, Blackberry Messenger, ChatOn, and Instagram app.
Pokemon GO battery
As for user initiated apps draining performance, Snapchat was number one, followed by Spotify and LINE. AVG found, overall, that the three apps most impacting Android phone resources were Google Maps, Snapchat, and YouTube.
Also compared to last year, Netflix appears to have improved its usage adequately to be removed from the performance drain list.
The hottest gaming app of the summer, ‘Pokemon Go’ had its debute too late for it to be ranked in this year’s report, but AVG experts believe it’s going to leave the competition behind. Even compared to social apps like Facebook games are the true phone battery leaches.
Their field test discovered that continuous catching and chasing of Pokemon potentially could drain an iPhone 6S Plus battery from 100% to zero in 70 minutes, while a Samsung Galaxy S6 lasted just a bit longer, 160 minutes.
Other battery-draining reasons
Other key trends in consumers’ app use were examined by The AVG App Performance and Trends Report and it found that the average Android user downloaded and installed 33 apps on their device.
Samsung is the dominant manufacturer of Android phones, with the Samsung Galaxy S4, S4 mini, S5, the SIII and Note II all making the list for most popular Android devices. Below these came the Sony Xperia Z3, Z2, and Z3 Compact.
You might be surprised if you are a Snapchat users that thinks their chats self-destruct forever, because this messaging app caches the encrypted data from the chats that are stored in their phones, so this information is still there after you have looked at the photos/videos that you thought were no longer on your phone.
For those of you that like to watch viral videos on your phone, it might also helpful to know that YouTube’s app takes up a large amount of storage space and it drains the battery.
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