Battery Life

While it seems we can't live without our iPhones, they certainly have a habit of speeding through their batteries at inopportune moments. Though some Apple customers have vocalized feeling constantly at odds with the battery life of the iPhone 4S, there are a few things you can do to lengthen the life of any cell phone battery life. See our tips for prolonging your iPhone 4S battery life below.

• Lower your screen brightness — Just like on your laptop, you can lower the screen brightness on your iPhone to increase battery life. Just head to Settings > Brightness to adjust.
• Use WiFi where you can — Instead of downloading apps, making Google Voice calls, or browsing the web over your cellular or 3G connection, find a WiFi hotspot or use your home's WiFi network instead. This will keep your data charges down and will improve battery life since your phone won't be searching for a data signal.
• Block GPS tracking in apps — If you're using lots of apps that include automatic GPS location and tagging (a la Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter), your phone is working overtime to locate you. If you don't need to geotag your posts and updates, keep the GPS off.
• Turn your iPhone's "Fetch" and "Push" off — I have my iPhone set to "fetch" my data every 30 minutes and a ton of apps set to push new messages and alerts as they happen. This is great for keeping up with news and messages when I'm at home, but bad for your data and battery. To turn your "fetch" functions off on your iPhone, just go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, and Calendars > Fetch New Data > Manually. You can also turn off your email and calendar "push" from this screen. To turn off app "push" notifications, head to Settings > Notifications, then switch to off.
• Shut down apps often — Do you shut down your apps after you're done using them? If not, you're using up lots of battery by allowing those apps to run. To shut down apps after use, double tap on the home button to get to your app drawer. To close open apps, just hold down on one until you see the wiggle, then click on the "X" to shut down.

Have any tips of your own to keep your iPhone battery juiced up?

Most nights, I remember to turn my phone's ringer to silent before I go to bed, but there are nights that I forget and am inevitably jarred awake. Lucky for Android users, there's an app that will prevent that from happening, ensuring a restful night's sleep. SweetDreams allows you to apply certain settings on your phone to overnight hours — turn your ringer to silent, disable power-sucking WiFi and Bluetooth functions, and adjust any other settings that will be automatically restored at a set time each day.

The best part about this is that you can basically shut your phone down during the hours you know you'll be asleep, but don't have to worry about restoring the settings when you wake up. Even if you have an alarm set on your phone, just program SweetDreams to "wake" your phone before the alarm is set to wake you. A restful night's sleep and battery savings? Sign me up! The free app is available in the Android Market by searching for "SweetDreams."

That's certainly one question that stumps (and annoys!) this geek girl all the time. A recent piece in The New York Times hits the spot with a guide to increasing your gadgets' battery life. Among the article's suggestions are to turn off WiFi and Bluetooth functions, and check your "push" function at the door — it's a battery drainer for sure.

But I also have a few suggestions of my own. To find out what they are, just read more