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Coffee50

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 23, 2015
872
485
I primarily use wireless CarPlay & was curious to know does using an app like Spotify drain battery fast that using Apple Music? I ask because I've read that using Waze is a bigger battery drain than using Apple maps, so I'm just curious if this applies to something like Spotify as well. (I have access & music on both)

Just curious if third party apps drain battery faster.
 

waw74

macrumors 601
May 27, 2008
4,697
965
Impossible to say on a global basis if third party apps use more battery.
Typically yes they all probably do, but depending on the type of app, and between the different apps in that category, the difference might only be a couple extra minutes of battery life.

apple apps are fine tuned to the hardware, the devs have access much lower down into software and hardware. Plus someone from maps can walk down the hall to the iOS team, and say "hey, if you give us this feature in the os, maps will use less power" (not actually that simple, but you get the point)

This also is very oversimplified, but apple only has iOS to focus on, while waze has iOS and android. Not to mention Apple has a couple extra dollars to throw at problems if they need to.
Waze is pulling traffic, and warnings, and making decisions about re-reouting. and it's probably watching a couple different routes at the same time.


for something like spotify, which isn't doing too much "thinking" and is just downloading and playing music, it should be close since they both function pretty much the same, just pull music from different servers.
also can depend on you audio quality setting, higher quality = more data = more power used by cell radio.
 
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