3 Apps You Should Never Download, According To Tech Experts—They Slow Your Phone!
March 25, 2025 by Lisa Cupido
A slow iPhone is a frustrating iPhone. When your phone starts to stall you may struggle to find ways to get it back up to speed. Doing so may require trying a few different things. There are settings that you can disable, such as Background App Refresh and Push Notifications, and it’s always a good idea to lower your screen brightness, which also takes stress off your battery.
It’s important to take stock of the apps on your phone to determine if any of them are seriously affecting your battery and could be contributing to both slow battery degradation (in the long run) and a slower phone (in the short run).
But we get it. Deleting all of your social media apps may not be in the cards right now. There are three app types that you likely won’t be as sad about having to delete, and getting rid of them can save your phone storage space and battery power.
1. Antivirus Apps
Antivirus apps designed to detect, prevent, and remove malicious software are not necessary on an iPhone because Apple already has sufficient built-in security features. Instead, these apps can slow your phone down because they typically run in the background, from which they monitor your device for threats. They often send you unnecessary notification (another sign they are hard at work and could be draining your battery). Instead of downloading these types of apps, remember to create complex and unique passwords for every site you visit and to enable two-factor authentication as an extra security step.
2. Memory Cleaner Apps
Memory cleaner apps are designed to clean out unused memory and background processes so that they can help speed up your device and free up storage space. But these apps aren’t always necessary because Apple already has a system in place that efficiently closes unused apps and manages your phone’s memory. When one of these memory cleaning apps force closes apps, it can then take even longer for the app to reload when you want to open it, which puts unneeded stress and drain on your battery.
It’s so much better to close unused apps on your own, delete files that take up lots of storage (like old photos and video), and clear Safari cache by going to Settings > Safari > Clear History and Website Data.
3. Battery Saver Apps
Battery saver apps work by managing the amount of power that your phone consumes and providing tips on how to prevent battery drainage. These apps typically adjust settings for you, such as screen brightness and location services, but they can potentially slow down your phone, too. They run in the background, consuming system resources like RAM and CPU, and this can cause your phone to slow down.
You can easily take your own steps to lower screen brightness, turn off Background App Refresh and Location Services for apps that don’t need it, and turn off Bluetooth unless you’re actively using it. An additional app is not necessary.