The country has an obesity crisis. I don’t think that is news to anyone. Indeed, over the years, I have done my best to contribute to it, much to my doctors’ dismay. I’m not, however, talking here about avoirdupois. It’s our IT devices that are having the problem with being overstuffed and bloated.
For the next few Tony’s Tech Tips, I shall be attempting to guide you through a few simple practices which will save you from finding your devices stuffed to the gills and unable to eat even one more ‘waffer’ thin mint. (Beware – Monty Python references may lurk anywhere in my writing.)
“I’ve run out of storage on my device” is a problem that presents frequently at my ‘surgeries’… and guess what, the service provider is always super keen for the user to take out an online storage plan and pay a juicy subscription each month for it. Occasionally this may be a reasonable solution, but very often it will be totally unnecessary expenditure.
IT devices, like our homes, benefit from regular clear outs. I won’t say ‘spring cleaning’ because it needs to happen more frequently than annually. Indeed, my modus operandi is to do the clearing up as I go along.
Manufacturers love to fill their devices with what is now known as ‘bloatware’. They install lots of apps (applications) on the devices, so they’re half full even when fresh out of the box. The manufacturers think this looks generous, but frankly bloatware is a pain. Of course you will need some basic apps to get you started, but much bloatware is there to tie you into the device manufacturer, so they can be first to harvest your data.
This, I feel, is iniquitous. A pet peeve of mine is Google’s habit of flashing up a message saying ‘You need to finish setting up your device. Do you want to do that now?’. In all innocence, the unwary think that sounds like a good thing. It isn’t. It gives Google an excuse to cram as many of their apps on the device as possible.
Most of us of a certain age will need very few apps living on our devices. Mail of the ‘e’ variety, messaging, internet browsing, a banking app (perhaps), the NHS app, shopping apps are all very helpful, but I’d find it hard, I think, to come up with more than a dozen that may be truly essential.
Remember that apps can be very greedy in terms of storage and the resources they claim as their own, so next time, I will address cutting your apps to the bare minimum…but be warned that, as with all good clearing out, a degree of ruthlessness will be required.
Tony