Free apps could possibly be draining your smart phone battery - study

If you've wondered why your smart phone's battery life seems short, free apps and the advertisements that include them can be responsible.

A study by researchers at Indiana's Purdue University found running one app can drain a battery in 90 minutes.

Using energy profiling software called Eprof, the researchers discovered 65-75 per cent of the energy utilized by apps downloaded for free of charge was utilized by third-party advertises, whose adverts pay for the product.

The study checked out the energy usage popular free smart phone apps, akin to the Angry Birds, NYTimes and CNN apps, on Android and Windows Mobile operating systems, and located only 10-30 per cent of the energy was used powering the apps' core functions.

Angry Birds, to illustrate, used only 20 per cent of the energy to run the sport, while 45 per cent of the ability was used assessing the user's GPS and downloading location-specific advertisement through 3G.