Has your phone slowed down?
It is normal for older phones to slow down over time. Not always because of the age of the phone although that can be a factor, but it can also be due to newer operating system and app requirements. When a new app or operating system is released, they are built for newer phones so your older phone may not be able to keep up as well.
There are other explanations for slowness, so let’s talk about a few of those and what you can do to get things moving again.
Restart the Phone
When you restart your phone any apps that are open and using memory are closed, some apps are prone to memory leaks which can drain the battery and slow things down. You might also notice apps are crashing or not behaving properly and restarting can clear that up.
Disable Bloatware
Bloatware is a term used to describe some of the pre-installed apps that come on your phone. These can include manufacturer, carrier and third-party apps. Uninstall any you don’t need.
Free up storage space
If you phone is running low on storage space it may slow down, delete files, pictures, videos and apps you no longer need or use.
Clear The Cache
The cache is a temporary storage of data files used by the apps installed on your phone, a cache is not a bad thing and can be useful. For example, if you use a music app on your phone that app may access the cached data to open your playlist more quickly. The program uses these files as a reference so that it does not need to recreate the playlist each time, but over time the cache can become quite large and should be cleared out. When you use the app again the cache will be rebuilt.
Clear Browsing Data
When you use your phones web browser data is collected and saved, this data can enable webpages to load more quickly but it can also build up and slow things down over time. Clear the data occasionally.
Update the Software
Keep the operating system and apps on your phone up to date, software updates not only add new features and provide enhancements they also contain bug-fixes and address security vulnerabilities.
Hot and Cold Temperatures
Overheating can cause major damage to cell phones and other electronics. The same goes for extremely cold temperatures. If a phone gets to hot it can experience problems like battery drain, random forced shutdowns and internal damage to the phone’s hardware. Always protect your phone from extremes in either hot or cold.
One obvious cause of overheating is the temperature and the environment the phone is currently in. If you are outside on a hot day or leave your phone laying in direct sunlight it can overheat very quickly. If you have your phone outside, never leave it in a location where it receives direct sunlight. The same is true for cold temperatures, don’t leave your phone in a cold car or other location.
Another cause of overheating is too many apps open or running in the background, each app uses the battery and if the battery is overworked it can overheat. Close apps that you are not using.
Over charging your phone can also cause the battery to overheat, once your phone is charged unplug it from the charger.
The Tech Minimalist 