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Usable iPhone Memory is Shrinking

June 26, 2017

It seems like you can never have enough memory for your smartphone. It's not really a problem for Android users as you can add a memory expansion card. iPhone users aren't so lucky. There is no memory expansion capability for iPhone users, so you have to "guess" which model (amount of RAM) will meet your needs for the life of the phone. It can be extremely frustrating since you can't delete your old photos or uninstall the apps that you really use. Perhaps you're feeling that your available memory is shrinking at a much faster rate than in the past. That's because it is. The storage space on your iPhone simply doesn't go as far as it once did.

According to mobile analytics firm Sensor Tower, iOS apps have "bloated" up at an astounding rate and are, on average, 12 times larger than they were in 2013. Snapchat was 4 MB in 2013 and now eats up 203 MB of space. Leave it to Facebook to be "king of the fat apps." In May of 2013, Facebook consumed 32 MB of memory. Today it eats up 388 MB. Games are a bad offender too since the graphics requirements use a lot of space.

There is some good news for iPhone users. Apple's iOS 11 introduces a new file format that will cut down on the file size of photos and videos. In addition, iOS 11 will suggest that you remove apps that you haven't used for several months.

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