iOS 9 uses new tricks to squeeze more battery life out of the phone you already own

Apple touted a number of flagship features of iOS 9 during its WWDC keynote, but the company is quietly focusing on squeezing more battery life out of the phone already in your pocket.

A session for developers titled “achieving all-day battery life” pushed that app builders need to be more conscious of how their code is draining the user’s battery and introduced new features to help catch battery thirsty apps.

One significant feature of iOS 9 that Apple hadn’t mentioned previously stops your iPhone’s screen from lighting up when it’s face down on a table. Until now, the iPhone would light up for every notification, regardless whether the screen was actually viewable or not.

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With iOS 9, Apple lets developers cutoff support for older iOS devices without 64-bit CPUs

With iOS 9, developers can cutoff younger devices in a way that was not previously possible. Although iOS 9 runs on every device that runs iOS 8, app developers are free to specify more restrictive compatibility requirements.

In fact, with iOS 9, developers can choose to make their apps exclude any non-64 bit architecture. This means all iPod touch models, all iPhones before the iPhone 5s and all iPads before the iPad Air will not be able to install apps where developers have required 64-bit CPUs.

Apple started using 64-bit CPUs with the A7 in the iPhone 5s, a 2013 device. Developers often complain about supporting older hardware platforms (such as the A5 which is very slow by modern standards) and so this option will offer a quick-and-easy way to simplify development.

If a developer enables this option, customers browsing the App Store with older devices will simply not see that app in the Store and won’t be able to download or install it.

The limit has little to do with the 64-bit support itself — binaries can be built that support both platforms. However, the processors are simply much more powerful than their predecessors which puts a lot of strain on developers to support both platforms well. Apple showed how GPU performance increased dramatically in the last two years with the 64-bit processors (above).

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Apple WWDC 2015: How to stream keynote live to iOS 9, OS X rumours

Apple WWDC conference opens on Monday, June 8 and and this is where the company will reveal iOS 9 for iPhones and iPad and OS X 10.11 for Macs. Here’s our quick look at everything that Apple is expected to release at WWDC 2015.

How to watch: Like with all Apple events, you will need an Apple device (an Apple TV, Mac, iPhone or iPad) to watch the live-stream of the Apple WWDC keynote. As Apple’s website, says users will need Safari 6.0.5 or later on OS X v10.8.5 or later; Safari on iOS 6.0 or later. Streaming via Apple TV requires second-or third-generation Apple TV with software 6.2 or later.

In addition to this, in a rare first, Apple has allowed AltConf to live-stream WWDC keynote and Platforms State of the Union sessions. Check out AltConf’s website here for more details.

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