Background App Refresh (and Strava, in this case).....

[redgtxdi]

I'm asking sports folks too but I'll word this a little differently here as I'd also like to hear Apple-folk opinions...........


I have Background App Refresh turned "off" on my iPhone. (6s running ios 9.0.2)

I also had location services turned off before I selected just a few apps to allow using it.....(Strava being one cuz it wouldn't work without it).

But then on my bike ride today it gave me....."Strava cannot track your activity while background processes are disabled".......(I didn't turn it on yet it recorded my entire ride just fine)

I'm still not 100% sure I understand exactly what "Background App Refresh" does anyway. Thus perhaps you guys can get more specific for me on these definitions:

Push
Fetch
Background App Refresh

.....I feel like for some apps these are almost the same thing just said 3 different ways.

TIA

 

[Tegeril]

Background App Refresh is a technology that allows applications to execute some code/requests in the background at optimal times when they are otherwise unlikely to impact performance of the device or contribute to significant battery drain.

So while an application can run for a few minutes after it has been closed to finish up work, BAR allows the application to run at other times as well, such as when plugged in and on wifi, or during a time when you are otherwise making network requests and it wouldn't need to power up the hardware all by itself.

It's likely that the message they presented to you is simply inaccurate and a catch all for both location services and background app refresh being disabled.

 

[Tegeril]

Push and fetch are terms more relevant to email within the scope of iOS. Fetch is a concept of periodically connecting to a mail server on a given interval and asking if it has new emails to download. Push works in various ways, but essentially the client (your phone) announces it supports (in the case of IMAP) IDLE and then the server can notify the phone when it has new content and not need to wait for the phone to check in with it.

 

[redgtxdi]

That's a big help!!!

Thank you for the quick reply!!

Most tips/tricks indicate this as a battery suck. Sounds like it's a very selective background process. I wonder if it really matters.

(I always leave fetch & push off just cuz I can't have interruptions at work & it's easier for me to check stuff when I choose to.....breakfast/lunch/quitting time, etc.)

 

[Tegeril]

Background App Refresh can still be a drain. Any additional contribution to background activity involves battery drain, and if the app you're using isn't mindful of its overall performance impact, running it and a few other bad actors throughout a given day using that API can still be notable.

I wouldn't suggest turning background app refresh off, but I would suggest trialing disabling it for certain applications that show up higher in the overall battery usage list that is available in Settings. You can see if it helps pull them down from their unfortunately high pedestal.

Push definitely can use more power. You can also set fetch to something like 1 hour+ just so you don't miss something because you forgot to manually check, but that is definitely another area where you can improve battery life that you're already doing.