Hunted down every tip and trick to conserve battery life, but still unhappy? Your ad-supported applications might be to blame. A NewScientist report states that up to 75 percent of the energy used by free versions of Android applications is taken up by ads and the tracking and uploading of data that come along with the.
Abhinav Pathak, a computer scientist from Purdue University, found that only 20 percent of the energy consumed by Angry Birds was for the game itself. Forty-five percent of the energy is spent “finding and uploading the user’s location with GPS then downloading location-appropriate ads over a 3G connection”. That connection can remain open for up about 10 seconds after the transmission is complete, accounting for another 28 percent of the app’s usage.
While this report is specific to Andriod phones, I have little doubt that this same issue plagues iOS devices as well. All the more reason to support developers and purchase the full versions of your favorite applications.
Via: John Gruber
