Apple: no more 'free memory' apps?!

[labman]

Don't upgrade the IStat App don't upgrade to 1.1

I just did the update for IStat and the free memory option is now gone. thank you Apple I now lost one of my favorite Apps. At least why I bought it. Just want to get the word out!

 

[chriswitt]

I just did the update for IStat and the free memory option is now gone. thank you Apple I now lost one of my favorite Apps. At least why I bought it. Just want to get the word out!

Grab it out of the trash, throw out the "upgraded" one, and reinstall the old. Fixed!

 

[Warbrain]

Yea, sucks that Apple apprently decided that we shouldn't be able to free up memory without cycling the phone.

From Bjango:

Where did ‘Free Memory’ go?

iStat’s Free Memory function was removed at Apple’s request.

This decision was completely out of our hands. Please note that all other apps with Free Memory appear to have been removed or updated without their Free Memory function too.

This was not taken lightly—we examined our choices, taking a lot of public feedback on board. We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused and we do not plan to remove any other features from iStat.

If you choose (and you haven’t already updated), you can continue to run iStat version 1.0. You’ll miss out on new features, but you’ll get to keep the Free Memory feature.

We are very committed to ensuring iStat is the best iPhone and iPod Touch monitoring tool. Free Memory has been removed, but a lot of other useful features will be added in its place.

http://bjango.com/help/istat/freememory/

Other apps have been removed as well.

 

[Warbrain]

Grab it out of the trash, throw out the "upgraded" one, and reinstall the old. Fixed!

I never thought about it. Might then even be possible to keep both...maybe, maybe not.

Probably not.

 

[GoCubsGo]

While it is all over the net, I ponder the right to ask for a refund if the app is no longer functioning as advertised. I saw this with SongText. I bought it and weeks later the dev pulled it over some purported conspiracy with the MPAA and such. It was stupid. He said he had no moral obligation to refund, I guess in some ways I see that but if I bought a memory app I'd be pissed.

 

[labman]

well I'm back to Version 1.0

not sure though how I am going to keep it is there any way to flag it not to update? this is the 1st time I don't want a app to update. other features are nice but not as nice as freeing my Memory. 😉

 

[Warbrain]

This just really ticks me off it really is one of my favorite apps

You know, I did quote this above 😛

 

[labman]

You know, I did quote this above 😛

I saw it after I posted it lol that's why I just edited and deleted it! 😉

 

[Looon]

I've never used one personally. Every time I use the free memory feature from SBSettings it always seems to go back down to what it was before almost immediately after going up. Could just be my phone though, I was on a 2g

 

[Highland]

I thought apps were supposed to be 'sandboxed' so that they can't make any changes outside of their 'sandbox', except for contacts?

iStat didn't go outside its sandbox (App Store apps can't).

I never thought about it. Might then even be possible to keep both...maybe, maybe not.

Probably not.

I don't think you'll be able to, unfortunately.

In other news, we'll keep on adding other features to iStat. So all is not lost—the app still has a bright future.

 

[Battlefield Fan]

this is just insane. apple needs to back off.

 

[stuffradio]

While it is all over the net, I ponder the right to ask for a refund if the app is no longer functioning as advertised. I saw this with SongText. I bought it and weeks later the dev pulled it over some purported conspiracy with the MPAA and such. It was stupid. He said he had no moral obligation to refund, I guess in some ways I see that but if I bought a memory app I'd be pissed.

Apple should issue the refund, not the developer.

 

[daihard]

Maybe it messes with some of the background Push functionality.
On the other hand, it makes it more profitable to Apple for people to upgrade some of the older phones to 32GB.

The memory in question here is RAM, not SSD (permanent storage space).

Any decent OS should be able to protect its own processes from user-level operations. Any decent OS should also be able to assign a block of memory for its own use so no user applications could mess with it.

And I hope the iPhone OS is a decent OS...

 

[Highland]

Want iStat 1.0 back?

Here's how (Time Machine required).

 

[admanimal]

The memory in question here is RAM, not SSD (permanent storage space).

Any decent OS should be able to protect its own processes from user-level operations. Any decent OS should also be able to assign a block of memory for its own use so no user applications could mess with it.

And I hope the iPhone OS is a decent OS...

Obviously Apple could have had iPhone OS work this way if they wanted it to - and I'm sure it does in fact work this way for truly essential processes - but the iPhone is not a desktop computer with gigabytes of RAM. Apple's approach is to try to keep Safari, etc. in RAM as long as possible so that they always re-launch as quickly as possible. However, if one particular app is facing a critically low memory situation, Apple is polite and will kill its own apps to try to keep the foreground app alive.

The free memory apps work by flooding RAM with random data until there is so little free memory left that Apple politely kills its own apps, freeing their memory. Then the free memory app frees all of the garbage data it puts in RAM and voila, most of your RAM is free.

I am surprised that Apple didn't pull these apps a long time ago seeing how they undermine Apple's desire to keep Safari, etc. in RAM unless it's absolutely necessary not to.

 

[andrew0122]

Apple has never removed apps from phones and there is no indication that they'll do it here.

They have the option to do that, yes, but the press would be so bad you'd better believe they won't use it unless they REALLY have to.

I mean, people still have that old tethering app from last year and Apple never touched that one, so I doubt this kind of thing would qualify.

The only real problem is that Apple has always wanted it iPhone to be tether-able. From my understanding Apple has grown tired of AT$T and their lack of a network to support such a phone as the iPhone. Just look at how long is has taken AT&T to support MMS with the iPhone. OH WAIT THEY STILL DON'T SUPPORT MMS. I was told sometime in August. . . Still waiting with only another 3 days left. . . Not a huge deal, but I do think that we will eventually see it with the 3.1 update. (My money is on the iPod refresh date)

 

[daihard]

Obviously Apple could have had iPhone OS work this way if they wanted it to - and I'm sure it does in fact work this way for truly essential processes - but the iPhone is not a desktop computer with gigabytes of RAM. Apple's approach is to try to keep Safari, etc. in RAM as long as possible so that they always re-launch as quickly as possible. However, if one particular app is facing a critically low memory situation, Apple is polite and will kill its own apps to try to keep the foreground app alive.

I believe it has more to do with how mission-critical certain processes are than with where the OS is meant to be used (i.e. desktop, mobile, etc). If you think about it, 128MB of RAM is a LOT more than the top-of-the-line desktop computer even dreamt of 15 years ago.

IMO, processes like Safari and Mail aren't mission-critical as long as killing them does not lose the site history, messages, etc. That is why Apple can be polite enough to kill them if necessary. If they let the user force-quite them (which they do), then I don't see why they shouldn't let third-party apps do the same.

 

[Mr. Zorg]

Too late for me :-(

I've downloaded the update but NOT SYNCHRONIZED the device yet -- so I have still the "Free Memory"-button. Is there any way to delete (or disable) this particular update in iTunes before the next sync?

Thx in advance for any hint!

Go into your iTunes Library folder and then into "Mobile Applications/Previous Mobile Applications". The previous version should be in there. Delete the new version and drag that one back into your library. 🙂

 

[ltldrummerboy]

I contacted Apple to get a refund with the idea that I would just support iSlayer/Bjango with a PayPal donation. Apple said that I had owned the app for 60 days and that they would not issue me a refund.

 

[andrew0122]

This just means that I won't be updating iStat anytime soon. At least until I know what Apple's plans and reasoning for removing the process.

 

[longofest]

I am surprised that Apple didn't pull these apps a long time ago seeing how they undermine Apple's desire to keep Safari, etc. in RAM unless it's absolutely necessary not to.

one of the big issues remains that there is nothing in the SDK that prohibits the free mem apps to work like they do. The decision by apple appears quite arbitrary.

Let's not forget that people use the free memory feature of these programs for a reason: the iPhone OS doesn't always do as good of a job as it should of having enough memory free to launch apps or even to provide a stutterless UI. Maybe if apple would fix the OS to be better about that, people wouldn't be complaining as much about them forcing the removal of this functionality, but even that still doesn't explain their decision making process.

 

[Lazlow]

This is BS. The Free Memory app is awesome; I use it all the time when I notice that my iPhone is getting a little choppy, and it always works perfectly. I hardly use Safari, so I don't need it open 24/7 using up 24 MB of my phone's RAM. I really hope Apple doesn't break the functionality in 3.1; if so, it'll be time to re-install SBSettings.

Every little move like this from Apple is making an Android phone more and more likely to be my next phone...

 

[Watabou]

That's why I jailbroke. I don't need Apple telling me I can't free my memory. 😀

 

[Eso]

iStat didn't go outside its sandbox (App Store apps can't).


I don't think you'll be able to, unfortunately.

In other news, we'll keep on adding other features to iStat. So all is not lost—the app still has a bright future.

I bought iStat specifically for the memory clearing function - without it I really feel entitled to a refund at Apple's expense. Let me know who needs to hear about this and they'll hear plenty from me.

This pisses me off.

 

[mavis]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3GS (White, 32GB): Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7A341 Safari/528.16)

iStat didn't go outside its sandbox (App Store apps can't).


I don't think you'll be able to, unfortunately.

In other news, we'll keep on adding other features to iStat. So all is not lost—the app still has a bright future.

I bought iStat specifically for the memory clearing function - without it I really feel entitled to a refund at Apple's expense. Let me know who needs to hear about this and they'll hear plenty from me.

This pisses me off.

Actually, me too. I chose iStat over the other memory freeing apps because of the remote monitoring feature, but the reason I bought it was for the memory cleaner. That's it. I think a refund is in order, too.