App Review: Battery Go! by collegekidapp.com

We have all been in a similar situation watching something or browsing the Internet on your iPhone, when suddenly a battery warning pops up on the screen. You only have 20% of the battery left. You check your watch and there are still 2 hours left on your flight. Uggghh… Now, you begin to wonder how you can make that last 20% of your battery last. There is no real way to tell how long it will last, as the battery usage often depends on what you are doing.

Over the weekend, Battery Go! by collegekidapp.com was released in the iTunes App Store to help out with just such a situation. This app, simple as it is, gives you a snapshot of your battery charge and what it is capable of doing with what is left. There is not much to the app. It only really consists of two screens, but that seems to be enough to convey the needed information. When you launch the app, it pulls up a screen that shows the percentage of battery life left on a sliding scale. Underneath this slider, the app displays the amount of time you have for each of four functions on your device. These four things are web, phone, music, and video.  Obviously, on an iPod Touch, the values for the phone portion are always N/A.   If you want to know how much time you have at different battery levels, you can even move the slider right or left to find out.  When using this app, though, keep in mind that accuracy is only guaranteed to be within 5% of the actual levels.

I was curious to see what the values were at the ever annoying 20% and 10% battery remaining that my iPod always gives me warnings at. I was a little disappointed to find that at 10% the values all zero out and less than 10% it just says “Battery Life Dangerously Low.” I think that battery levels in that range are probably most likely to make you curious about how much time you have left to use your iPod or iPhone. You just have to remember to check the battery before it gets that low.

The second screen on the app is accessed through the small “i” in the lower right corner. This screen provides some simple tips for making your battery last longer. Many of them are similar to those given by our very own Rob in his post on improving your iPhone’s battery life. His tips include turning off things like the WiFi, Bluetooth, and 3G when they are not in use.  Battery Go! is a handy little app for figuring out what that little battery indicator in the top right corner really means in terms of use for your device.  It eliminates at least some of the guesswork.

Battery Go! is $0.99 in the iTunes App Store.

Developer’s Website: http://www.collegekidapp.com/