My smartphone is 7 years old: I struggle every day to keep it

In 2024, you need to be creative to maintain your electronic devices... here are some tips to extend the life of your smartphone.

Overloaded System vs. DIY Fixes

I&paos;ve been using a Samsung J3 since 2017: my smartphone just turned 7 years old. And throughout these past years, the mobile apps I use have continued to grow... unlike the storage space on my smartphone (16GB) which is not expandable.

Wondering what a smartphone at the end of its life looks like? Here's what I see every day:

To save space, it's often recommended to transfer your apps to a microSD card.

For example, Waze can be transferred (thanks to the developers for enabling the option), which frees up some space on the smartphone. Unlike its equivalent, Google Maps, which:

• Is forcibly installed on new Android devices.
• Cannot be deleted or transferred to a microSD card.
• Can only be disabled.

Good to know: By default, Android app developers restrict their users from transferring their apps to a microSD card with the "internalOnly" property.

The app installs on internal device storage only. If this is set, the app never installs on external storage, such as an SD card. If the internal storage is full, then the system doesn't install the app. This is the default behavior if you don't define android:installLocation.

Do app developers forget to disable this default constraint? Is it due to a lack of knowledge? Or is it intentional? It's hard to say... but it's still possible to reach out to them via comments on the app’s page:

While writing this article, I discovered another workaround: the solution lies in the developer mode of the smartphone. How do you activate it? It depends on the Android version of the device. The easiest way is to search on Google for the instructions.

From Android settings, it then becomes possible to activate the option: "Force allow apps on external storage."

The "Force allow apps on external storage" option allows any app to be saved on external storage, regardless of the values in the manifest file.

Over time, apps have become increasingly heavy to install. Partly for a simple reason: most developers use the latest hardware to work. With these latest-generation devices, they have an abundance of available space. Under these conditions, it’s easy to forget that the users of the services they develop don’t always have a high-end device.

And that’s not even considering the weight that apps accumulate with use: often connected to one or more servers, they frequently download data. Typically, when I use YouTube to watch a video, the app loads thumbnails, video cache... enough to quickly end up with an app containing 400MB of cache. The only solution: regularly clear this cache.

To do this, go to your smartphone settings, then click on Apps and select the app to clean. Then, click on the Storage line and finally on the Clear cache button. The second option (Clear data) could cause you to lose potentially important information: for example, your encrypted message exchanges.

In terms of size, when I compare today's apps to those from 7 years ago, I think we’re now forced to use bloatware (from the English "bloat," meaning "to swell"): apps that use an excessive amount of resources on the device.

And it’s not just a personal impression: according to Sam Tolomei, a former Google employee, the weight of Android apps quadrupled between 2013 and 2017. The same phenomenon is observable with the TikTok app:

Over time, I’ve also gotten into the habit of deleting apps I used occasionally. When I need them again, I delete other apps to reinstall them. The result: a (slightly tedious) process of alternating between data deletions and redownloads.

At some point, I was eventually forced to delete more apps until I was left with only the essentials... and those I couldn’t remove: those infamous pre-installed apps.

So, I had to remove all the apps that had a web version, accessible via Firefox or Chrome on my smartphone. Typically, I deleted the LinkedIn app and now use Firefox to access my account, messages...

Now, it’s the Firefox app that occupies a large part of my smartphone, and for which I have to regularly clear the cache.

To Root or Not to Root?

To keep my smartphone longer, I rooted it: I followed a procedure that allowed me to become the administrator on my smartphone. This operation finally gave me control to remove pre-installed apps.

I was thrilled to rid my smartphone of apps that were discontinued by Google but still couldn’t be deleted (!): Google Play Movies, Music, Magazines...

Thanks to the System App Remover app, I was able to recover 263MB of data. An extremely valuable gain in space when you’re hunting down useless apps.

Be careful if you venture into this: don’t delete apps essential to the smartphone (like making a phone call)!

Good to know: Rooting isn’t liked by all apps, and some refuse to work. For example, banking apps like Crédit Mutuel, Boursorama, and others (although there are workarounds with some research), or administrative apps like France Connect. The main reason given? The fear that users will install unofficial apps containing viruses that could hijack their bank accounts.

Struggling on the Web

With increasingly heavy websites, using my smartphone is becoming more and more complicated because memory is starting to be limited. My device can no longer temporarily store the necessary information to display certain web pages.

For example, visiting the FranceTV Info website regularly crashes my smartphone. The browser starts loading the page and then closes because the site demands too many resources. Not to mention LinkedIn and a number of other sites I want to visit (unlike e-innovators, thanks to our many eco-design efforts!).

Not to mention that I’ve gotten into the habit of turning off mobile data or WiFi when I’m not using it. The result: when I turn one of them back on to retrieve information, my device becomes completely unusable. Almost all the apps activate simultaneously and start searching for the latest received data: a photo here, a message there. This is the time to be patient.

From Smartphone to Dumbphone

The older my smartphone gets, the more it becomes a dumbphone by force of circumstance. I'm now just able to check my SMS and make a few calls. If I absolutely have to browse the web or watch a video, I need to be persistent and think carefully in advance about what I need to do.

My smartphone has thus become a true tool for forced disconnection. Simply because it has become very limited, despite all my efforts to keep it up to date. A very concrete consequence of the technological arms race on increasingly greedy and heavy software.

These issues are not unrelated to the increasing market share of refurbished phones. If manufacturers continued to offer new smartphones that were much more durable and easy to repair, would we have had this eco-responsible trend? It's not certain.

I can no longer quickly test an app or access certain features. For example, LinkedIn requires downloading the app to validate your profile, which involves taking a photo of your passport while holding it in one hand (to ensure that you're not impersonating someone else).

DIY fixes have their limits: Developers must take responsibility

This experience has taught me, in a very concrete way, that apps and websites also have a role to play in extending the life of our smartphones and combating software obsolescence. So if you discover that some sites or apps are heavier than others, you can contact their developers and try to make a change. Here’s an example of an email:

On the developers' and companies' side, optimization logic prevails. Teams look at visit statistics or app installations and focus on the largest proportion of devices in use to develop features.

"Old" smartphones like mine are considered too outdated and not worth supporting because it’s too costly. This pattern is even found in tools that track bugs: they have an option to hide errors that occur on old browsers or smartphones.

All these elements discourage users from keeping their devices as long as possible. In a society where new smartphone models are released almost every year with huge advertising campaigns, it's hard to resist.

Especially when using an "outdated" smartphone becomes increasingly challenging every month. As proof, my device has been suggesting for a few days now that I uninstall my favorite web browser (because according to Google, I "don’t necessarily need it").

After reviewing the situation, I feel like I’ve reached my limits. Without a company deciding to create apps specifically designed for smartphones that are 5 years old and older, I’m afraid I may have to give up the fight. Fortunately, there's no need to buy a new smartphone these days...

References:

• Matomo - Examples of statistics based on public data from French State startups
• Android developers - Documentation to block storage on the microSD card (manifest)
• Medium - Shrinking APKs, growing installs
• TikTok in 2024
• TikTok in 2023
• TikTok in 2022
• TikTok in 2021
• TikTok in 2020

[Cover photo: Galaxy J3 (2017) - Samsung]

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