Does anyone know what subset of the iPhone's overall storage capacity is reserved for applications and application data? I am not talking about RAM, but rather disk space. I remember reading that only a portion of the iPhone's capacity was used for application data, while the remainder was used for music and media, however I cannot remember the amount. Thank you.
It depends on the model, of course - you have 8, 16 and 32 GB variations. My 16GB iPhone 3G would have around 14GB of free space, while my 32GB iPhone 3GS has around 28GB of free space. This free space is not limited to either applications, music, videos or podcasts - it is shared. As long as there is still free space available, you can install more applications or sync more media files. There is no partitioning of hard disk space by file type.
On the other hand, no single application may occupy more than 2GB of hard disk space.
iTunes assigns ~500mb of the device's flash to the OS partition and the rest is assigned to the user partition to store App Store application/data, music, videos, podcasts, email, photos etc. Upon sync iTunes will always ensure there is at least ~200mb free by removing music (usually)
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how do i increase the available memory (more concrete: the part of the RAM) that can be used by my app?
i am not referring to the space available on the harddisk of an iphone, but to the RAM.
does anyone know if there's a way to use the whole free part of the RAM for my app only?
i have to clear this up a bit, sorry if it was too vague:
i had to think of the java heap size, which can be increased by adding a parameter to the startup command of the java programming.
as i don't know, but at the moment suppose on the iphone something similar happens (every app has just xxMB RAM for execution) this value might be adjustable, so that i can use the whole remaining RAM for my app.
which pretty much is what i need for this special app (non-app-store-publication; file-sizes between 50MB and several 100MB)
How do i increase the available memory?
Short answer: you don't.
Memory is managed by the kernel.
Your application process can't control this.
You can't explicitly control this - this is managed by iOS.
You can't do that. Try reducing your memory usage instead of looking for ways to remove well needed limits.
Store your data instead and read from it when needed.
I don't know for sure if you can configure RAM allocated for your app. I think that is taken care of by the iOS kernel
It's unlikely (read: not going to work) that you will be able to allocate anything more than a few Mb in your application at once.
Not planning on publishing your app to the App Store won't change this. Apple don't officially acknowledge the amount of memory in iOS devices. But its known that devices have between 128Mb and 512Mb of physical RAM.
With the kernel, essential applications (Phone app, etc), background processes, etc, you won't have anything like that available to your application. Careful analysis in instruments would suggest that you'll generally start getting memory warnings when you've allocated around 22Mb of RAM in your application.
A change made in iOS 5 makes the watchdog process much more aggressive with killing applications after you get a memory warning. If you get a memory warning on iOS5 you have to reduce your memory usage or you will get jettisoned by the OS.
If you want to proceed, you will have to figure out how to reduce the amount of memory your datasets require. Its unlikely that all of the 100Mb file needs to be in memory at once. iOS devices have "relatively" fast CPU's and storage, you'll have to architect your application to read and write to storage in chunks and work on smaller subsets of your data.
Some related Stackoverflow questions and links:
Monitor memory usage in an iphone app?
How much memory can an iPhone app use?
10 iPhone Memory Management Tips
I'm not talking about binary size. I'm talking about the amount of data that can be written to disk during execution inside of certain directories such as Cache or Documents.
I can't find an easy answer in the XCode documentation, which is to say I can find none at all.
I know there is a limit for the cache directory in the form of "oh hey, your device is crashing now", but I haven't determined the actual number, and I am not sure if the Documents folders or other folders have the same restrictions.
Links and numbers are appreciated!
There is no reference or limitation of disk space once the application has been installed to the iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch device.
The only limitation would be available disk space (whole disk space available) at time of writing to those directories.
I'm writing an iPad app that acts as a media player (video and photos). I know there is a 2GB size limit on apps, however is this the size limit on an app when downloaded? Or the limit on the size of your sandbox throughout the life of the app? For example what if my small app later on downloads various media files to its sandbox that put the user over 2GB total (app + downloaded media)?
Thanks!
There is no limit to the size of your sandbox other than the remaining capacity of the device itself.
I did a little test last night, and my sandbox was over 8 GB when I finally called it quits.
Sandbox size is unlimited, According to the iPhone Application Programming guide:
To manage program memory, iPhone OS uses essentially the same virtual memory system found in Mac OS X. In iPhone OS, each program still has its own virtual address space, but (unlike Mac OS X) its usable virtual memory is constrained by the amount of physical memory available. This is because iPhone OS does not write volatile pages to disk when memory gets full. Instead, the virtual memory system frees up volatile memory, as needed, to make sure the running application has the space it needs. It does this by removing memory pages that are not being used and that contain read-only contents, such as code pages. Such pages can always be loaded back into memory later if they are needed again.
If memory continues to be constrained, the system may also send notifications to the running applications, asking them to free up additional memory. All applications should respond to this notification and do their part to help relieve the memory pressure. For information on how to handle such notifications in your application, see “Observing Low-Memory Warnings.”
IIRC, Apple limits size of d/led applications to 20MB.
I have an app which is quite huge. It has tons of images and sounds. In total it's 30 MB in size.
1) Is there an official limit for the app size?
2) Are there other "practical" limits I should consider?
Reading around, there are reports that the absolute maximum size for an application is 2GB (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1605342).
Other than that, if your app is over 10MB, users will only be able to download it over a wifi connection, having the impact that users won't be able to download your application easily when they are out and about.
This might sound obvious, but there are two size limits to keep in mind here - neither are absolutely defined.
One is the limit for the application bundle. I don't know if there is a real limit (other than the device's flash storage limit), but this should rarely be an issue. Keep in mind the 10Mb threshold that the other Phil mentions though. There may be something in the 2GB limit too, I don't know.
The more important limit is on the size of the loaded binary image and it's runtime memory usage. The iPhone is obviously a constrained device in this area. The original iPhones and iPod touches had 128Mb of total RAM, with no paging. Current models have 256Mb, but it's a bit early to limit yourself to that subset of the installed base if you can help it.
Assuming 128Mb, of that a fair chunk is used by the system itself and its background tasks (and people want user background tasks too!?!).
In a conversation with an Apple Engineer he said that apps should be written to use no more than about 25-30Mb! Up to 60Mb may be available but cannot be counted on (but you could use this extra for caching stuff that you can purge as necessary).
1) I believe that you shouldn't ask for maximum size, as you have to aim for minimum possible size for your apps. As iPhone has limited memory (both storage & RAM), you should not create a huge app. (I doubt an app > 200MB can pass through Apple's app check.)
Yeah, Phil is right, when you app is over 10MB, it can only be downloaded via wifi or iTunes. Quite a lot users may want to download anywhere they like using 3G networks, so >10MB is not recommended.
Also, take care those users with iPhone 2G. If you produce a >10MB app, it takes them a day to download your app (if they are lucky enough to have no disconnection at the middle of download...)
2) practical limit ... K.I.S.S = Keep It Simple and Small.
That's it. Hope it helps.
I plan to submit my new app to App Store. App consist of a lot of image resources (animation) - more than 40M.
Is there any formal limits at App Store of the app bundle size? I never see such condition and think it will be ok. Is it right?
My major question is..
Is there any negative aspects for usability in case app is a huge?
-increase user traffic
-problem with installation
-etc...
Should I try to reduce my app size as much as I can? (actually I've done it already but size still big)
I have no statistic on this point. What is the average app size at app store and how many exclusion with big size?
Thanks, Mike/
The only limit that I'm aware of is that if your app is larger than 10 megabytes, you must download it over wifi when installing via the App Store on the phone.
There are some huge apps that I've installed, including:
Apple's Hold em: 172.8 MB
Spore: 68.5 MB
Oregon Trail: 52.6 MB
and 10 more that are over 40MB
I'd venture to guess that the upcoming Tom Tom app with the maps will be very large.
I don't think most people look at app size when downloading via iTunes or even on the phone when on Wifi. Smaller applications will install faster, but at that point they've already bought the application.
If you somehow have the ability to get your app under 10MB, then I'd say shoot for it. I don't have any actual numbers, but I would guess it certainly wouldn't hurt. However, if you can't get down to 10MB, I would spend only a reasonable amount of time getting your application size down. The decrease in download time and disk space I doubt will raise sales that much.
I don't know of any limits, but remember that anything larger than 10 MB requires a wifi connection to download. Under 10 MB can be downloaded over 3G.
At least these are the limits today, they could change soon.
iTunes Connect developer guide says there is a hard limit of 2 GB.
App Size Tips (For iOS Apps Only)
■ Apps can be as large as 2GB, but be aware of download times.
■ Make efforts to minimize file size.
■ Remember there is a 20MB limit for Over the Air downloads
https://itunesconnect.apple.com/docs/iTunesConnect_DeveloperGuide.pdf