The Size of the Average iOS App is Growing

[Anthony Bouchard]

The size of the average application being launched in the App Store is growing, says a report by ABI Research.

According to the report, the larger retina displays in Apple’s newer devices have caused a massive increase in the size of all applications, but games have been the most affected by the change. Spanning all of the genres of applications of Apple's iOS App Store, the average application size in the month of September was 23 megabytes. Citing ABI Research, this is a 16% increase from the month of March. ABI Research also takes a look at just the Games category in the App Store:

The latest data from ABI Research shows that the global average app size across all categories was 23 megabytes in September, 16% more than in March.

For the most popular app category, games, the average size was 60 megabytes, meaning a six-month increase of 42%.

Seeing as how applications are being optimized for the extra pixels, it does seem like an obvious situation. Albeit the screens are getting bigger, there is another factor that could be attributing to the growth in application sizes that ABI doesn't mention. The complexity of these applications has also grown along with the amount of processing power that these next-generation mobile devices are capable of.

Applications that can do more are going to take more memory on a device. Apple has been moving many of their Mac OS X applications such as the iWork and iLife suites to the iOS platform, which are massive applications. They are full of all kinds of useful functionality; much more than we see in the average iOS application. Accordingly, the average application was not as large as these suite applications.

These larger applications are becoming more popular among both users and developers – developers because they can rake more money from applications that do more, and users because they can get more done in just one application. Developers have taken advantage especially of the awesome graphical power of the new iOS devices to release huge games such as Modern Combat 4: Zero Hour, Infinity Blade II, and Real Racing 3 (some of these announced and not out just yet). These games are much larger than the smaller, time-killer games in the App Store such as Flight Control, Tetris, and Angry Birds.

What's the average size of the applications on your iOS device?

Sources: ABI Research via MacRumors

[Lohand]

And this plus the previously sited iPhone 5 quality control issues is why I wont bite until said issues are resolved and there is a 128GB iOS device (Phone or Pad) or at least an expandable storage slot, which I'm guessing wont happen unless Apple uses Sony's model and create some nonstandard storage medium. How much you want to bet they will do that? After all there are dollar$$$ to be made. Sayin...

PS Besides, my 64gb JB'ed iP4s with the lighted logo mod kit and speed tweaks like Nitrous and Speed Intensifier is doing just fine...

[Silverado1987]

And this plus the previously sited iPhone 5 quality control issues is why I wont bite until said issues are resolved and there is a 128GB iOS device (Phone or Pad) or at least an expandable storage slot, which I'm guessing wont happen unless Apple uses Sony's model and create some nonstandard storage medium. How much you want to bet they will do that? After all there are dollar$$$ to be made. Sayin...

PS Besides, my 64gb JB'ed iP4s with the lighted logo mod kit and speed tweaks like Nitrous and Speed Intensifier is doing just fine...

I hope the iphone 5S should get a bigger storage

[rcm]

Guess i'll have to upgrade to a 32gb phone when the time comes.

[Mrteacup]

This was the most retarded article i have ever read. Do we really need to be told that the higher and bigger screen capable apps will require more storage and that will lead to bigger apps? Thats like telling us the average computer game is going up. It will always be going up because things will always require more storage and memory

[hogcia]

This was the most retarded article i have ever read. Do we really need to be told that the higher and bigger screen capable apps will require more storage and that will lead to bigger apps? Thats like telling us the average computer game is going up. It will always be going up because things will always require more storage and memory

What the heck are you talking about? As an app developer I found this article very interesting. You don't speak for all of us so stfu!

[scroogelives]

This was the most retarded article i have ever read. Do we really need to be told that the higher and bigger screen capable apps will require more storage and that will lead to bigger apps? Thats like telling us the average computer game is going up. It will always be going up because things will always require more storage and memory

If u ain't happy with what you read! Stop and move on or if you think you can do better then let's see it!! Other wise be silent!

[steve-z17]

This was the most retarded article i have ever read. Do we really need to be told that the higher and bigger screen capable apps will require more storage and that will lead to bigger apps? Thats like telling us the average computer game is going up. It will always be going up because things will always require more storage and memory

Really..??

Anyway...this is why I always get the 32GB or higher. Pictures/Videos in HD plus App sizes are taking up a lot of space on the iPhone. I always recommend the 32GB or 64GB iPhone unless you really don't use your cell phone for things other than calling/texting.

[mfdeva]

to control the app size being growing on a daily use, use Icleaner from Cydia... It really sweeps a decent amount of memory from major apps if not everything... Not to forget, they are adding apps into their sweeping list on a regular basis.. Its clean..

[regkilla]

more size in an app or game means more content