All smartphone users know the struggle of dealing with a slow phone, which can take a good day and make it a bad one pretty quickly.
Androids, just like iPhones, can begin to slow down for various reasons, from battery issues to the age of the device. However, what some people may not realize is that there are numerous apps often downloaded to Androids that can be sneakily causing it to slow down and make your user experience a lot more irritating. We spoke with tech experts, including Steven Athwal, founder of The Big Phone Store, and Ethan Heine, about three Android apps users may not realize could be slowing down their smartphones. Read more about them below.
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1. Social Media Apps (Instagram, Facebook, TikTok)
Unfortunately, while we may love the biggest social media apps of today, they can be quite draining for Android batteries. Apps like Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, and more have a lot going on in the background, therefore causing your device to work extra hard.
Athwal notes that Facebook "constantly feeds, refreshes, notifies, and tracks in the background, which keeps your CPU and memory active, draining battery and slowing performance," and Instagram "eats data, storage, and processing power, making your phone sluggish."
2. Google Maps
Google Maps is a gift to many of those who struggle with navigation, have to commute a lot, or travel to numerous places for work. It's also super nifty for keeping track of your favorite bars and restaurants, so you can have their names on hand and get to them whenever you want. However, all of these fun features and efficient navigation tools can cause your phone to halt a bit.
"Running all the time, GPS polling for constant location updates and map updates will heat up the CPU temperature by some 2 degrees in an hour," explains Heine.
3. Spotify
Spotify is one of today's most popular music streaming services for a reason - it contains several fun features. It can give you access to hundreds of thousands of songs, audiobooks, and more in an instant. However, all of that data and listening can easily make your device run slower.
"Spotify's offline downloads and playlist syncing drain your system," says Athwal. "Large stored files cause heavy read/write activity, and background services like Spotify Connect can continue running even after you've closed the app. This constant load on the system slows down other processes on your Android."