Could free apps be sapping your battery?

Study finds that free apps may drain up to 75% more energy than their paid counterparts

Omar Qudsi, Published 03/20/2012

It can be quite hard at times to make your smartphone battery last through the day, but based on new research, paying for your apps may end up preserving your battery.

According to a recently published study by Purdue University, free apps use 65%-75% more energy than paid apps. After developing eprof, an app that tracks the exact energy usage of applications, the researchers tested popular apps such as Facebook and Angry Birds on both the Android and Windows Phone platforms. Based on the application's energy profile findings, free apps use more energy due to the included advertisements and their attempts to pinpoint GPS location and download appropriate apps.

While the findings are still in their preliminary stages, the study blames poorly coded and inefficient apps for the problem, and also offers an alternative, optimized coding solution. The findings will be presented at the EuroSys conference in Switzerland next month, where they’re surely to gain much attention, and Microsoft has already taken steps to implement the research int their Windows Phone platform.