JKB | Hello
A RESET IS REQUIRED
Useless apps sitting on smartphones are becoming a significant issue for the mobile and app industry. The problem is not the storage or memory aspect but these apps are not only eating up CPU capabilities but they are also throttling network bandwidth. Just a decade ago, Internet access was a great and costly thing. The era where we used to buy MBs of data for a significant price. But since the start of 4g and unlimited data, app productions are getting crazier.
Here is one top example for you, in Android 12 Google introduced a new feature where the apps that are not being used for a long time in your phone, such apps will go into a hibernation zone. This hibernation zone cuts storage and network usage by that particular app. Unnecessary permission required by apps is causing great issues with performance. A smartphone that looks snappy on the first day, feels like struggling to keep up with performance in just 2 years of period. Why it is happening, why the apps are sending endless notifications, and why they are pushing too much unnecessary information in disguise for marketing and promotion?
I understand that it is me who installed the apps and allowed the permission, but isn't this a responsibility of app developers to maintain tranquility during usage? A common popular food app sends me 10+ notifications a day and up to 2-3 emails. I have the time to manage mail or notifications subscriptions but as I use a lot of other apps too, it becomes very difficult for me to know what app has what setting. For example, I marked one message sender as spam and after a while, I was using an app and requesting an OTP but I was not getting it. I contacted the support team and they said messages are getting sent from their side. Then I went and reverted settings and got my top.
The national government has also implemented a few policies to curb this nuisance of notifications and spam. Another problem is that there are many alternative apps for the same service but only differing in prices. For example, food apps. I keep 2-3 food apps to get the best discount on my food. And it is troublesome to search same thing and compare prices to get one service. Thankfully, the government introduced the ONDC platform which uniforms the prices of services. This helped me to reduce the number of redundant apps.
My Solution
I have a policy by which I reset my phone every 6 months to understand what I am using and how much I am using. This also helps me to get rid of spam and garbage collected on my phone due to usage. I keep a set of apps and I refrain from using redundant apps. I also disable the services and keep my internet off when the phone is not in use. Also, I switch off my smartphone for 1-2 hours which helps me to focus on my work and it also enhances the longevity of my device. I install apps that I can recall after a reset and beyond that no unnecessary app hoarding.
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