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A really great yet simple app for your iPhone that is only 99 cents. If you are accustomed to the Activity Monitor tool for your Mac, this is essentially the iOS equivalent without the need to jailbreak your phone.

It has treated me brilliantly with my upgrade to the new iPhone 4s, in working out where my battery life is going. By monitoring the processes I can work out what are the memory intensive apps or processes, such as the bookmark syncing issue with iCloud. By looking at the processing weight you can work out that something is not right with that. You can find the app at : http://www.recessionapps.com/System.html

Paying attention to just a few commonsense pointers will pay off with a longer battery lifespan and battery life for your iPhone. The most important thing is to keep your iPhone out of the sun or a hot car (including the glove box). Heat will degrade your battery’s performance the most.

Some Terms You Need to Understand

“Battery life” means the time your iPhone will run before it must be recharged. “Battery lifespan” means the total amount of time your battery will last before it must be replaced.

iPhone Temperate Zone. Your iPhone works best from 32° to 95° F. You should store it in environments of -4° to 113° F. That’s 0° to 35° C and -20° to 45° C for the metrically inclined. Keeping your iPhone as near room temperature as possible (72° F or 22° C) is ideal.

Viewing Usage Statistics

• Usage: Amount of time iPhone has been awake and in use since the last full charge. The phone is awake when you’re on a call, using email, listening to music, browsing the web, or sending and receiving text messages, or during certain background tasks such as auto-checking email.
• Standby: Amount of time iPhone has been powered on since its last full charge, including the time the phone has been asleep.

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A great article from Daring Fireball to explain why people should not be disappointed with the iPhone 4S release.

Thoughts and Observations Regarding This Week’s iPhone 4S Event, Written Almost Entirely Before Wednesday’s Sad News, But Which the Time Has Come to Publish Because Life Goes On

What More Could You Have Wanted in a hypothetical ‘iPhone 5’ Today?

A 4-inch screen? What sign has Apple ever given that it will ever change from the one-size-fits-all 3.5-inch screen? Every single iPhone and iPod Touch ever released has had the exact same size screen.

Now, maybe you would prefer a 4-inch screen. Or maybe a 4.5-inch screen. And maybe someone else would prefer a slightly smaller 3.25-inch screen. That’s not how Apple rolls, especially with iOS devices. There is no doubt that some people would prefer a bigger screen. But nor is there any doubt that many other people would not. I wouldn’t. I like to see things get smaller, not bigger. Bigger is not necessarily better. Apple decided on the optimal size for an iPhone display back in 2006. If they thought 4-inches was better, overall, as the one true size for the iPhone display, then the original iPhone would have had a 4-inch display. It’s not like 4-inch screens are harder to make, or use some sort of new technology. If anything they’re surely easier to make, as the pixels are less dense.

One big advantage of a 3.5-inch display: with average-size hands, your thumb can reach any pixel on screen more comfortably while holding the phone one-handed. Judging from my email, many proponents of bigger screens — those who are disappointed that the iPhone 4S doesn’t sport a 4-inch display — see no such trade-off. Bigger is better, period, they say, and anyone who says otherwise is in denial that Apple is falling behind its competition. But by that logic, 5-inch screens would be better than 4-inch ones, and 6-inch screens better still. That’s silly. Bigger is not necessarily better for handheld/pocket devices.

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