Apple claims that iPhone 3GS offers up to 5 hours of talk time on 3G (12 hours on 2G), 5 hours of Internet use (9 hours on Wi-Fi), 10 hours of video playback or 30 hours of audio playback and finally 300 hours of standby time.

However, you might have observed significantly lesser battery life based on your usage pattern.

Apple has some useful tips on how to extend battery life of iPhone and iPod Touch.

So if your biggest complaint about the iPhone is that you need to keep recharging it regularly then you will find this article useful.

Here are some of the tips to extend battery life of iPhone and iPod Touch:

• Heat can degrade performance of your iPhone’s battery. So it is important to keep the iPhone out of the sun or a hot car (including the glove box).

• Set auto-Lock interval (Settings > General > Auto-Lock) so that your iPhone will turn off more quickly after a period of inactivity.

• Apple has also provided some tips to optimize your iPhone settings to extend battery life:

  • Use location services only when needed (Settings > General > Location Services).

  • Turn off push notifications (Settings > Notifications)

  • Fetch email or other data less frequently (Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Fetch New Data).

  • Turn off push mail such when you don’t need it (Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Fetch New Data and set Push to Off).

  • If you rarely use Wi-Fi or in a area where there is no Wi-Fi coverage then turn it off (Settings > Wi-Fi).

  • If you hardly use Bluetooth then turn off Bluetooth to save power (Settings > General > Bluetooth)

  • Turn on Auto-Brightness to allow the screen to adjust its brightness based on current lighting conditions.

  • Dimming the screen will also help in extending battery life.

  • If you’re on the plane or in an area where there is no coverage then use Airplane mode to increase battery life (Settings > Airplane Mode).

  • Turn off equalizer setting to song playback as it can decrease battery life (Settings > iPod > EQ).

  • As you might have noticed, you can use the iPhone for a longer time to surf the internet on 2G (up to 12 hours) as compare to on 3G (up to 5 hours). So you can turn off 3G to extend battery life (Settings > General > Network and set Enable 3G to Off).

• You can improve battery life by minimizing the use of iPhone apps like games as they prevent the screen from dimming and iPhone apps that use location services.

• Apple advices users to update their iPhone with the latest iPhone OS.

• You should also use the iPhone regularly for proper maintenance of a lithium-based battery. In fact, Apple advices users to go through at least one charge cycle per month (charging the battery to 100% and then completely running it down).

The tips are useful especially when you’re travelling and need battery life on your iPhone or iPod Touch for a longer time, or when you’re running extremely low on battery and want to save power as much as possible for something important.

I hope you find these tips useful. If you have a tip that you want to share then feel free to tell us in the comments.

[via Apple]