Part of it is app sizes on mobile. But it's apps in the 200mb - 2gb range that are the problem, not ones that single-digit megabytes.
The 2GB apps are usually so large because they include high quality media assets. For example, Spotify will frequently consumer multiple GBs of storage but the vast majority of that is audio cache.
I agree that the largest data use tends to be media assets.
I’m not trying to dismiss your point here. Genuinely curious how you’ve accumulated so many app installs.
Looking through at categories of app where I have multiple, I'm seeing:
- Transport provider apps (Airlines, Trains, Buses, Taxis etc)
- Parking payment apps
- Food delivery apps
- Hotel apps
- Payment apps
- Messaging / Video calling apps
- Banking apps
- Mapping apps
It's especially easy to accumulate a lot of apps if you travel through multiple countries, as for a lot of these apps you need different ones in different countries.
> First because it’s kind of a fallacy. Size is absolute not relative to something. Especially for software. No one thinks of software size primarily in the context of their disk space.
That’s exactly how most people think about file sizes.
When your disk is full, you don’t delete the smallest files first. You delete the biggest.
> Further I think everyone keeps getting larger and larger memory because software keeps getting more and more bloated.
RAM sizes have actually stagnated over the last decade.
> I remember when 64gb iPhone was more than enough (I don’t take pictures so just apps and data) Now my 128 is getting uncomfortable due to the os and app sizes. My next phone likely will be a 256
That’s because media sizes increase, not executable sizes.
And people do want higher resolution cameras, higher definition videos, improved audio quality, etc. These are genuinely desirable features.
Couple that with improved internet bandwidth allowing for content providers to push higher bitrate media, however the need to still locally cache media.