Mobile Apps today come in a variety of shapes and sizes. The differences abound and with each App the issue of memory comes into play. Device memory is what allows your App to load in a timely manner and not crash when overloaded with either too many concurrent processes or too many large sized files living in the same place.

With the wide range of tablets and smart phones, each device contains and handles memory just a little bit differently. So it is in your best interest as a Developer to implement a strong plan to manage the memory of you App.

So where do you start? Well the first thing you want to bear in mind is what types of content are you planning on using? Memory hogs like datasources, images and video can slow down an App when not properly managed. If you can’t avoid the use of these elements (and who would want to?) then you need to understand how and when you want them to be used.

In a lot of cases, Apps contain several screens of action and when you are focused on one area of the App you need to take steps to clear or unload memory heavy components when you are not directly interacting with them. This includes wiping out images stored on the App when they are not directly being viewed and reloading them when they are needed again.

Also when using datasources, you don’t always need to retrieve the contents of an external datasource on App initialization, so to save memory only load a datasource when the user navigates to the area where that content will be seen. And then subsequently unload that content when the user leaves.

Memory management might seem like a very technical concept and while it does require some code to be applied to unload or clear out content, paying attention to the user experience and understanding the content elements that could slow down your user down can go a long way.