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Charging and powering off iPhone

Q: I have an iPhone 3GS and have 2 questions: First, when not in use does it harm the battery to keep the unit plugged in? Secondly, at night I turn it off completely; will this eventually damage the unit?

- John

A: Under normal use, regularly keeping an iPod or iPhone plugged in to a power source will not do any harm. The charging circuit in these devices is designed to shut off when a full charge is reached, after which the device simply runs from the external power source.

The only issue here is that you should not always leave your iPod or iPhone connected to external power, since in this case, the battery is not getting used at all. Apple recommends that you run your device off battery power for a few hours at least once a month to ensure that the battery is actually getting used. For the majority of iPod and iPhone owners this is not going to be a problem at all.

You can find a much more in-depth explanation of iPod and iPhone battery life and charging questions in our May 9, 2008 Ask iLounge column.

To answer your second question, there is nothing wrong with shutting your iPhone off completely at night either and this will not harm your iPhone in any way. There’s no need to turn your iPhone completely off at night, but there’s also no harm in doing so.

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Comments

I have a non-jailbroken iPhone 3G, and I use iTunes on an iMac, all running latest OS. If I were to say lose my iMac and my iPhone, and I have been dutifully doing regular syncs and backups, how do I restore all the Apps I have purchased? Thanks

By george on 10.25.09 at 11:59 PM

Goodday,i have the old apple ipod model A1112,it has stopped playing the tracks on it when u press the play button it flashes a green and orange light..i have formatted it and still the problem persists i hve also tried using the ipod updater but it reads filmware update failure.Can anyone help or do i hve to pack it up

By Eddy Steve on 10.26.09 at 01:50 PM

I purchased an iPod Touch 32 GB and upgraded from my IPod 3G. Since ITunes supports my whole faumily, I had to clear the authorizations to use my new iPod Touch, which was no problem.

However, shortly after, I recived an iPod Touch 64GB as a gift and sold the 32GB. I connected my new 64GB and sychronized it with my library. Now, many of the songs and audio books won’t play on the new iPod. I suspect it is because I’ve exceeded my authorization limit.

I understand that I can only clear my authorizatins once a year. How do I get my purchased songs and audio books to play on my new iPod?

Thanks in advance,

By Ed_5907 on 10.29.09 at 01:45 PM

i recently accquired an iphone 3G S and i wanted to know if using different computers to download itunes music and apps and things like that would harm or damage the device. . . please help!!

By gaby on 02.27.10 at 10:01 PM

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