With the release of the (Invite Only) Google+ in the past couple of days, Google has been able to create a lot of Buzz (No pun intended to another one of the Google Projects).  Google+ is the latest attempt to go head-to-head with Facebook.

Tonight’s post concerns the 1st issue I’ve run into while playing with Google+.  I have an HTC Evo 4G that since I moved to an extended life battery (3.7V / 3500 mAh) lasts me 2 full days between charges.  That was until I installed the Google+ App on my phone the other day (It was the only app that I had installed in the past 2 weeks), and suddenly my phone lasted 5 hours on a charge.  So not realizing what was happening, I charged my phone, and again only 5 hours and I was out of charge again.

During the initial install, I didn’t make any changes, and installed using the default settings. So with the sudden and massive cut in battery life, I started digging and figured out the following

- There are 2 settings in the Google+ app that directly affect your battery life.

Once I made the following changes my phone’s battery life went back to what I was accustomed to.

1 – Open your Google+ App

2 – When you start your Google+ app, click on the Menu button on your phone. This will open the settings button.  Click on settings

3 – Once you are in the settings section, scroll toward the bottom and Uncheck the “Instant Upload” choice.  Once that is uncheck, click on the “Instant Upload Settings”…..

4 – This will open an additional Instant Upload Settings Options screen.  On here scroll toward the bottom again, and click and put a check on “Battery Uploads” choice.

These changes so far have not had any affect on my ability to use the majority of the features in Google+.  The only 2 things is that I now have to manually upload my pics to Google+ (Instant Upload setting) and I can only upload photos when the phone is plugged in and charging (Battery Uploads).  Of course, you can always uncheck the Battery Uploads choice, upload your pictures, and then check it again. If you choose to only check the “Instant Upload” setting, you get some of your battery life back but not all. In my case, it was 1 full day + 6 hours (approx.).

Of course this is a new App, for a project that was just released and is still in early beta and changes we can all expect that Google will be making changes to fix issues.