Free apps drain battery faster: study

Free mobile apps that use third-party services to exhibit ads drain battery faster, researchers at Purdue University, Indiana, discovered.

Computer scientist Abhinav Pathak and his colleagues monitored energy consumption by several apps, such as Angry Birds and Free Chess, and discovered that merely 10-30 per cent of the energy was being used to power the app's core function.

In Angry Birds, merely 20 per cent of energy is used to run the core functions of the game, while 45 per cent is spent on finding and uploading users’ location with GPS so that location-appropriate ads could be downloaded.

In one case, they found that 75 per cent of an app's energy consumption was spent to power

ads.

Mr. Pathak stressed that developers must take energy optimization more seriously while developing apps.

Belfast-based app developer Ecliptic Labs’ Director Chris McClelland said he was not stunned by the findings of the study.

Speaking on the topic, he said, "Advertising needs to connect to the server and send information about location. That just takes up so much battery. It seeps up the energy."

Free apps typically come with built-in ads so that developers can generate money without having to charge for the app download.