Welcome Wednesday: Too Many Mobile Apps

[#1]

Happy Wednesday Everyone!

As our family has finished our major travelling for the year, I decided to clean up a number of the apps I had installed to make things easier/more convenient while we were on vacation.

This might be a hot take on my part, or maybe I’ve finally reached my grumpy old man stage of life, but there are too many apps out there. I cleaned up 13 apps that I doubt I will ever use again, and I have another 7-10 apps that I have kept because I “might“ use them within the next 6 months.

Am I the only one that feels this way? My question for you this week: Are you also overloaded with single purpose apps? Have you cleaned any up recently? If so how many?

Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

Have a great rest of the week!

[Stephen_Lugton]

I tend to clear out unused apps for 2 reasons:

1. My phone tells me I haven't used an app for x months
2. I get a new phone

Since I'm not going to get a new phone for a couple of years, I guess I'll have to wait until my phone tells me to check if I still want that app!

[Andy Gladstone]

@Jimmy Seddon you are not alone! I regularly check my app hygiene by cleaning up the unused apps on my iPhone. I also log in to my Apple account to make sure I am not needlessly be paying for apps that I am being billed for on a monthly basis. I recently saved over $150 annually by unsubscribing from/removing apps that I had no intention to continue to pay for but had forgotten to cancel.

You may be grumpy, but you're not yet an old man!

[Thiago P [Atlassian Support]]

Same here! It's crazy how many Apps pile up and go unnoticed when you're not paying attention. I try to do this on a weekly basis (same with emails).

Tip: there's a way to Offload Unused Apps in iOS which basically keeps a bookmark on your Home screen and saves the app configs on iCloud. When you need it again, the App will be downloaded and installed again, but until then your storage is freed up! =]

[Valerie Knapp]

@Jimmy Seddon , when I tell you I felt this in my soul!

My wife is always teasing me because I refuse to have more than 2 screens worth of apps on my phone at any one time.

Well, I occasionally travel to the USA from Europe to visit my family. This often requires anywhere between 2-10 apps, depending on where I am going and who I am seeing. Also, on my most recent trip, I even needed to download the apps for two different airlines! It was the same booking through British Airways, but I had to get the American Airlines app to have my boarding passes for 'their' flights.

In case it wasn't already clear, I agree, no more apps PLEASE

[Barbara Szczesniak]

@Jimmy Seddon Thank you for the prompt to check my phone for apps I don't use. I have deleted 3 while I paused in typing this response. I also see a bunch of apps that came with my phone that I have never used that I will go through later and remove from my home screen. Then I will tackle the iPad.

[Natalie Beiler]

My email inbox cleanup is first on my list. I guess this has me thinking my phone and all the apps should be next. 

Reminds me of the old days when we would ditch the old phone book when a new one was delivered or scrap the atlas when we needed a new one.

[Daria Kulikova_GitProtect_io]

Same here! I also make a habit of cleaning up my phone and removing apps I don’t use. Unfortunately, there seem to be more and more “use-once” apps these days — and my phone even reminds me when I haven’t opened some of them for over 3 months! Regular phone hygiene really does make a difference.

[Rachel Wright]

Needing to download an app to pay for a parking spot is the absolute worst!

• Likely to be "one use" = high
• Likely to be part of a data breach = higher