What would it be worth to you to squeeze out every bit of runtime memory (not drive storage) out of your iPhone or iPod touch? That’s what Recession Apps’ Free Memory 1.3 is designed to do. We’re not talking about the stuff the iPhone stores in its pocket, but what’s in its head, if you know what I mean.

The iPhone has 128MB runtime memory and a lot of it gets eaten up by native apps like MobileMail and MobilePhone and other system processes. When you restart your iPhone, it may have as much as 40MB of runtime memory available.

However, as you run various apps throughout the day, a lot of it gets used by a variety of running processes even after you close apps. Should an app crash or behave in wacky ways it may be because it doesn’t have enough runtime memory. Typically, you’ll restart your iPhone to clear its memory and all’s right with the world. Or, you could use Free Memory 1.3 to do the same thing.

Free Memory 1.3 gives you a look at what processes are running on your iPhone, how much free memory you have available, and with a button press, frees up to 20MB runtime memory, which is sufficient to run an app designed for the iPhone and iPod touch. One nicety: Free Memory 1.3 also indicates in percent your device’s remaining battery life.

I restarted my iPhone and launched Free Memory, which indicated that I had approximately 40MB free runtime memory. I then launched and used several apps in succession and checked Free Memory after I closed each one. With each app, my free memory dropped. So, it works as claimed.

Just how useful is that info for the average user to know? Probably not much. It’s interesting to geeks like me, but I doubt that once the novelty wears off, I’ll use it much. On the other hand, it’s only $0.99 and the battery life indicator is nice to have.

For more articles like this, subscribe to the AppCraver RSS feed.

category: Utilities, Worthwhile Apps