By now you probably know all too well that the GPS radio on your smart phone sucks battery juice almost as fast as ice melts in the middle of the Sahara. But if your phone is running Android 4.4 “Kitkat” there’s a simple way to keep using the GPS feature without draining your battery quite so fast.

Android 4.4 has a new “Battery Saving GPS” mode that can help extend your battery life considerably over what you’d get by enabling GPS in normal mode. In my opinion, this is one of the most useful enhancements to Android in some time.

Battery Saving GPS mode works by limiting the number of reference points the phone uses to pinpoint your location on the earth’s surface. Checking fewer reference points means the GPS radio works less, which in turn means less current is drawn from the battery.  [Read more…]