The Battery-Saving Tips a Family Learned From Irene

In my suburban Connecticut neighborhood as well as other areas along the East Coast rendered powerless by Hurricane Irene, iPhones, Android phones and tablets were often the only means of connecting to the world beyond.

I got electricity back only last Sunday, a week after the storm. But Irene was a great teacher. I developed a number of power-saving strategies that I can use in other situations. And because battery power was so scarce, I was forced to identify the apps I truly needed, versus the ones that merely took up space on my devices.

The apps I relied on were Facebook, Gmail, SkyGrid and the weather-related apps, Weather+, MyWeather and the Weather Channel. (All are free on Apple and Android. Weather+ is Apple-only).

Games were more critical than I would have thought. They kept my children occupied at the height of their cabin fever, and the newest Apple hit, Jetpack Joyride ($1), quickly earned a place as the household favorite.

As Irene approached, SkyGrid, a customized news feeder, and the weather apps provided updates. People have for years been building home pages on Yahoo, Google and other Web sites with headlines from their favorite niche sites. SkyGrid reproduces that experience in a mobile format. The app’s user-friendly design and wide range of available feeds make it easier to build a customized page on your device than on a desktop computer.

When the app opens, the headlines load quickly and offer enough information for you to make a fast read-or-skip decision.

I appreciated that speed throughout the power failure, but also on the eve of the storm. Once all my back-up batteries were plugged in and the rest of the family was asleep in the one room that was outside the drop zone of falling trees, I opened SkyGrid for a final check of the news.

As the early reports of devastation in the mid-Atlantic states scrolled onto the screen, I knew our odd sleeping arrangement wasn’t paranoia.

The weather apps helped too, of course. I typically rely on MyWeather Mobile for forecasts and maps because it loads quickly and packs information into a more accessible format than the others on the market. But as the storm neared, I discovered that the Weather Channel offered more frequently updated maps, so I used that instead.

At 2:50 on Sunday morning, when the power failed in my neighborhood, our smartphone and tablet operations focused almost entirely on battery preservation. (We would regain electricity at around 8 p.m. the following Sunday.)

I reduced the brightness of every screen to its bare minimum, and, unless we were trying to call or text someone or use an Internet-related app, I put the phone into airplane mode. That prevented the phone from expending energy trying to maintain a cell signal.

I also closed music apps on the iPhone so they didn’t draw even a tiny amount of power by running in the background.

For Android, the process of shutting off your active apps is more complicated but more informative. Within the Settings section of some phones, check Battery Manager and Applications.

Before the storm hit, I turned on my Droid2 and, in Battery Manager, I saw that the Android System was responsible for 22 percent of my battery consumption, while the “Android OS” was responsible for 6 percent.

I then went to Applications, and from there looked up Running Services. I found a long list of apps I wasn’t using, as well as an option to close them.

I shut down Skype, eBay and others, and clicked back to Battery Manager to find the Android System down to 17 percent of my battery usage and Android OS down to 3 percent. Small differences, sure, but every minute counted.

During the power failure I relied on quick checks of SkyGrid for major news and Facebook for local news.

I know a few people who steadfastly refuse to “give into the pressure to join Facebook,” as they put it. But I am sure I knew well before them where my family could find hot showers and live electrical outlets. And the social connections provided a morale boost during the week.

Weather+ became my favored meteorological service. Unlike the more ambitious Weather Channel and MyWeather Mobile apps, Weather+ offers only a single-page view of the critical weather metrics for your area. Quick on, quick off, save the battery. That battery life was critical when our children were in the throes of video game detox. Jetpack Joyride, from the makers of Fruit Ninja, instantly leaped to the top of their list of favorite apps.

Yes, it resulted in an automobile joyride for the parents, because the car charger was often the only way to power up, but thanks to Facebook, we could at least point the car in the direction of a shower.

Quick Calls

If you have no musical training or instrumental expertise, but you own an Apple mobile device, you can still compose great music with TNR-i ($20), Yamaha’s reproduction of its Tenori On (which can cost more than an iPad ). …For those who never got enough of Tetris, a free version of the game is newly available on Android.

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Facebook’s revenue hits $1.6b

Facebook’s revenue soared to US$1.6 billion in the first half of 2011, according to a report by Reuters, as the world’s largest social network continues to expand ahead of its widely anticipated IPO.

The social networking giant posted net income of $500 million in the first half of 2011, according to “a source with knowledge of its financials.” Facebook has taken its user base to a whopping 750 million and has established itself as one of the biggest players in the display advertising world, TAKING one-third of all impressions served in the U.S. (more than Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, and AOL together).

The company founded by Mark Zuckerberg out of his dorm room in 2004 has grown into one of the internet’s most formidable firms. While its finances aren’t publicly known, information has occasionally made its way out.

Earlier this year, Goldman Sachs prepared a private share offering of Facebook to its clients, distributing some of the social network’s financial information. Those documents suggest Facebook earned $433 million on $1.2 billion in revenues during the first 9 months of 2010. While quarterly figures weren’t released, assuming Facebook’s sales were equal in every quarter, the social network made 800 million in the first two quarters of 2010. (Read Goldman Sachs Limits Facebook Share Offer To ‘Offshore’ Investors, Fears Breaking U.S. Law).

Goldman itself invested in Facebook, giving it an unofficial Wall Street-stamp of approval and a valuation of about $50 billion. Shares in Facebook trade on secondary markets where the valuation has been pushed above $80 billion. Markets expect Facebook to go public in the short-term, as its ever-rising number of shareholders puts pressure on regulators to ask management to release more financial information. The SEC requires any company with more than 500 shareholders to disclose its finances. (Read JPMorgan Starts ‘Social Media Fund’ To Invest In Twitter, Facebook, Other Public Companies).

Reuters cites sources expecting Facebook to go public in 2012. Facebook, which declined to comment, is facing increased competition from Google in the social sphere. The search-giant recently released Google+ which reportedly added more than 10 million members in its first two weeks to become the world’s fastest growing social network.

If the recent report is true, Facebook is proving that it is increasingly better at monetizing the opportunities it has made for itself, as Zuckerberg prepares his company to dispute the Google’s claim to the Internet’s number one spot.

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