Google Denies That Google Now Excessively Drains Your Battery

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Posted May 2, 2013 at 11:05pm by Shalom Levytam

Google has issued a statement to Lifehacker denying that Google Now excessively drains the battery life of iOS devices.

Users have been complaining that Google Now via the Google Search app is killing their battery life. Some have taken to disabling Location Reporting for the app to resolve the issue.

However, Google disagrees with these reports.

Reports that Google Now drains battery life are incorrect. We understand people’s concern about seeing the Location Services icon stay on when they use Google Now. Many apps that keep the icon on actually do drain the phone’s battery because they require very accurate location. (For example a navigation app has to run your GPS all the time to keep you from missing your turn.) Google Now is built very differently: it uses cell towers and wifi hot spots for much lower battery impact.

We extensively tested Google Now on iOS for months and didn’t see reports of significant battery impact — we would encourage you to try it in the Google Search app for a few days and we don’t expect you to see significant impact on your battery. If you are seeing a problem, please do tell us (just tap feedback in the app settings). We take user feedback very seriously.

Have you experienced abnormal battery drain when using the app? Let us know in the comments. You can download Google Search from the App Store for free.

Google Denies That Google Now Excessively Drains Your Battery

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IluvmyI5 - May 4, 2013 at 4:24pm

Just disable location services for google and thats it, I disable siri and use google now thru activator an assign the home button, so now it acts like siri, it understand spoken instructions a lot better, but location services was draining my battery too fast

Pete - May 4, 2013 at 10:45am

It destroyed my battery life and offered zero benefit for where I live.

Darryn - May 4, 2013 at 7:57am

When I close the app that should be the end. But the GPS stays on evening after closing. What crap is that?

jeff - May 3, 2013 at 4:55pm

not as bad as google field trip. GPS locked on even after quitting the app or force quitting it. weird hack they are doing to track you.

Abdullah - May 3, 2013 at 2:28pm

Yes, it did. I disabled it yesterday! Just saw the article. I am iOS user for years and just noticed that my iPhone cannot complete a day without a charge

Jonathan - May 3, 2013 at 10:31am

Yeah right! Location services wouldn't stop on my phone! Had to stop it otherwise my phone bill would of been crazy $$$$$

Will - May 3, 2013 at 6:49am

I had issues with battery drain which were fixed when I removed the app i have a 4s

Shano - May 3, 2013 at 6:40am

I was experiencing the same problem, but I found out that GPS was constantly running in background and that, that was the main problem why my battery was draining so fast. So I went to settings and in location services turned off GPS for Google app, and now its everything fine. When I need GPS for Google now I turned it manually on and when dont turned it off. Problem solved.

Jonathan - May 3, 2013 at 4:52am

I'm experiencing the same issues. I'm not saying that my battery life wasn't bad before, but its not been better since installing Google Now.

RR - May 3, 2013 at 4:30am

Yes it drains battery, even the device is standby it runs in background, that's very bad... So uninstalled. Google agrees or not, but its fact & 100% true, device gets heat up & battery drains fast.

jgdpsu - May 2, 2013 at 11:55pm

+1 for battery drain with Google Now. Shut off location services for it and back to normal.

demesne - May 2, 2013 at 11:43pm

I do agree that its a battery hog and had resorted to switching off the location services for Google app.

Dan - May 2, 2013 at 11:21pm

I have to agree, battery does drain with google now. Perhaps Google "Later"

millerloser - May 2, 2013 at 11:08pm

and again samsung wins

Jasmer - May 2, 2013 at 11:28pm

Actually no. iPhone beats Samsung in every category. http://www.anandtech.com/show/6425/google-nexus-4-and-nexus-10-review/2

demesne - May 2, 2013 at 11:46pm

think that was meant as a sarcasm.

Sean - May 2, 2013 at 11:49pm

Right, let's compare a £239 phone with a £529 one... How about linking a proper Samsung handset. http://www.anandtech.com/show/6914/samsung-galaxy-s-4-review/4

Jasmer - May 2, 2013 at 11:55pm

If you look at user experience components (e.g. battery life, etc) every benchmark is won by iPhone. On the other hand, if you build a phone as big as a toaster, you might get it to be 3 nano seconds faster in a laboratory environment but of course your battery life will be terrible.