IPhone apps often use little memory, making them easy to download.
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The vast variety of utilities for iPhone apps means that apps require a greatly varying amount of memory. A simple app may require less than a megabyte of the iPhone's memory, while some massive game apps can take up more than a gigabyte. Large apps prove relatively rare, as the average app memory size stays rather small to facilitate easy downloading.
Average Size
According to App Manifesto, the overall average app memory size clocks in at just under 9 megabytes. Some categories of apps have much larger average sizes, particularly travel apps, which often have map information or regional data stored directly in the app's memory. Apps in the finance, social networking and news categories average at around a single megabyte, speaking to the fact that much of these apps' content is provided via a data connection.
Phone Limits
The number of apps you can store on an iPhone depends on its internal memory size. Considering that some internal memory remains dedicated to the operating system, a 16GB or 32GB iPhone could still store more than 1,500 or 3,000 apps of average size, respectively. Keep in mind that an iPhone's internal memory is often used by other information as well, including music, videos, contacts and notes, which may use a considerable amount of space.
Download Restrictions
Apple restricts the size of apps when downloading directly to the iPhone, as well as the maximum size of apps regardless of download method. When downloading over the air, users can only access apps that use 20 megabytes of memory or less. Larger apps must be downloaded from iTunes and transferred to the phone. Apple does not allow developers to submit apps larger than 2GB.
Existing Apps
You can check the memory size of apps you already have installed by connecting the iPhone to a computer and opening iTunes. Expand the iPhone's memory in the left frame and click on "Apps." In the top frame, change the view to list format, and then click the Size column to organize the apps according to their memory requirements. If that column does not appear, right-click a column heading and click on "Size."
References
Photo Credits
- Chris Hondros/Getty Images News/Getty Images
