{"id":69112,"date":"2013-01-26T13:58:41","date_gmt":"2013-01-26T11:58:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=69112"},"modified":"2013-01-26T14:03:10","modified_gmt":"2013-01-26T12:03:10","slug":"time-to-delete-your-smartphone-apps-and-start-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/columns\/69112-time-to-delete-your-smartphone-apps-and-start-over.html","title":{"rendered":"Time to delete your smartphone apps and start over"},"content":{"rendered":"

135 apps. That\u2019s how many I had on my old iPhone 4S<\/a> (which these days doubles as a pretty heavy iPod Touch).<\/p>\n

One hundred and thirty five. Seven screens\u2019 worth, a handful of folders, and some deleted because I simply ran out of space.<\/p>\n

Apple<\/a> (and iTunes<\/a>) makes it so easy to switch between iPhones<\/a>. You backup your old phone (tick encrypted so it backs up all your passwords too), and when you plug your new device into your computer, iTunes asks if you want to restore from your old device. Everything moves across. It\u2019s that simple.<\/p>\n

But in that simplicity, lies a curse too. This means you move across all the thousands of SMSs, emails, notes, photos that you haven\u2019t bothered to delete, and all the apps too.<\/p>\n

This means your new phone is full and labouring under the load of all this ancient history before you even start using it.<\/p>\n

With iCloud, Apple\u2019s not only solved the cable problem (having to sync with iTunes continuously), but also the setup dilemma. Assuming you\u2019ve set up iCloud on your old phone, when you sign in with your Apple ID on your new phone (sans the syncing with iTunes), and everything\u2019s there.<\/p>\n

Mail, contacts, calendars, reminders, Safari history and bookmarks, notes, documents, data\u2026 everything.<\/p>\n

Except apps. And that\u2019s a good thing.<\/p>\n

\"iPad<\/a>

iPad Mini Apps<\/p><\/div>\n

I took this route with my new iPhone 5 in December. Not deliberately (I was juggling two phones for a while), but restarting almost from scratch is liberating.<\/p>\n

The iTunes App Store has a useful \u2018purchased\u2019 tab which lists all the apps you\u2019ve ever purchased, with shortcuts to install each of them.<\/p>\n

The end result: not even two pages of apps on my new phone\u2026 22, to be exact (over and above all the preinstalled iOS system stuff like Mail and Weather that you can\u2019t remove).<\/p>\n

I now have apps that I actually use: Tweetbot, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Podcasts, Camera+, iA Writer, FNB, YouTube, Nike Running, Podcasts.<\/p>\n

My phone\u2019s snappier, and way less cluttered. (And I have tons of free space!)<\/p>\n

Only when you wade through the list in the App Store or in iTunes do you realise how much trash you\u2019ve accumulated.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve also become disciplined enough to delete any new apps I download if I try them once or twice and end up not using them.<\/p>\n

The one downside: no games. That means far more productivity. Though I might yet cave and (re)install Plants vs Zombies, Letterpress and every Angry Birds I can get my hands on.<\/p>\n

If you are upgrading or switching smartphones, try starting from scratch. If you\u2019re not, prune your list of apps. Be brutal, especially if you\u2019ve been downloading apps like there\u2019s no tomorrow. You don\u2019t need even three quarters of the apps on your phone.<\/p>\n

You can also declare\u00a0e-mail bankruptcy\u00a0(maybe a topic worth exploring in this column in the weeks ahead\u2026).<\/p>\n

Start over with apps.<\/p>\n

*Hilton Tarrant contributes to ‘Broadband’, a column on Moneyweb covering the ICT sector in South Africa. He desperately needs to start over on his iPad\u2026 That\u2019s in even worse shape than his old iPhone\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

More smartphone app articles<\/h3>\n

Getting hooked on apps<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Google removes \u201cMake Me Asian\u201d app<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

App rewards children for doing chores<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Apple App Store tops 40 billion downloads<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Apps to help achieve your New Year\u2019s resolutions<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Declare bankruptcy and cut the clutter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":75,"featured_media":57417,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[605,35,1125,611],"class_list":["post-69112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","tag-apple","tag-headline","tag-iphone","tag-itunes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69112"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/75"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}