According to a new research study by ABI Research, the average size of iOS apps have increased by 16 percent between March and September 2012. The study also showed that the size of iOS game apps have increased even faster, growing 42 percent in the same time period.
With this increase, the average app size is now 23 MB, and the average game app is now up to 60MB. This increase in size is assumed to be partly due to the iPad’s new Retina display, as well as the increase in over-the-air App Store download limit that moved from 20MB to 50MB in March.
Such increases in app size have huge effects on iOS devices with storage capacities of 8 GB or 16 GB. iOS device owners with these lower capacities have to manage more carefully which apps they put onto their devices, as well as deleting older apps to install the new ones. According to ABI Research:
“The flipside of the increasing file-sizes is that the internal storage of smartphones and tablets is becoming a scarcer resource, as the device capabilities struggle to keep up with the requirements of apps and mobile content. Markkanen predicts, ‘Especially the consumers with 16GB devices are likely to become more conscious about what apps to keep and what to uninstall, so the developers’ bar to impress will be getting even higher than it is now. This could also speed up the adoption of the mobile cloud as a storage remedy quite significantly.'”
People may start tending towards getting the bigger storage capacity iPads. Even the iPhone has seen a trend towards larger capacities as Apple added a 64 GB option for the iPhone 4S and the only free iPhone 4 is the 8GB option. The new iPod nano is only offered in a 16 GB capacity, dropping the 8 GB version available in the previous iPod nano generation.
Image Credit: Anteater Technology