If it feels like your iPhone has been slowing down lately, there could be several reasons. Degrading battery health and outdated hardware on older phones might be to blame, but there may be another culprit: the apps you have installed. Popular software like Facebook, Waze, and TikTok can demand a lot from your phone, which can make it feel like your iPhone is slower than it actually is. Fortunately, not only can you choose to delete these applications, but in some instances, changing a few preferences can immediately make your device feel snappier.
Still, while making some adjustments can help, it’s important to note that Apple is very careful about how apps take advantage of iOS and your iPhone, so it’s not like they’re all running rampant on your device. In fact, if apps are indeed slowing down your phone, it’s more likely a combination of factors than one piece of software going rogue. Perhaps you’re in the habit of force quitting apps and instantly reopening them, which takes more resources than letting iOS manage them automatically in the background. Or maybe you have multiple apps performing similar tasks at the same time, like using both Apple Maps and Google Maps for navigation. That said, the iPhone apps below could also be harming your experience, and getting them in check is not a hard task. Here’s what you need to know.
If you’re still using Facebook in 2026, you should know Meta’s app is heavy on background refreshing, notifications, and media preloading, which means that by the time you open the app, even if your internet connection isn’t ideal, you’re able to scroll through several posts and media. This constant activity in the background can put additional strain on the battery life of your iPhone and even contribute to slowdowns on older devices.
Since Facebook, like so many other social media apps, wants you to stay engaged on the platform, every time you open it, the app wants to make sure you’ll stay there for the longest time possible — and if you’ve been gone too long, it might just send you a few notifications about what you’ve been missing. Fortunately, it’s easy to “fix” that heavy processing, which not only could keep you away from the platform for longer, but may also make your iPhone more responsive and improve battery life.
If you’re a heavy Facebook user, deleting and reinstalling the app can help it run smoother by clearing cache and other stored files. Also, in the app’s settings (from the iPhone’s Settings app) you can limit Background App Refresh, reduce notifications, and even change location access to “While Using” or maybe “Never.” These small tweaks can greatly reduce Facebook’s impact on your iPhone and also help you doomscroll a little less.
Waze
Navigation apps like Waze are among the most demanding apps you can have on your iPhone. If the phone is already suffering from poor battery health and regular technology aging, then Waze, Google Maps, and other navigation apps can noticeably impact your experience. After all, these apps heavily rely on continuous GPS, real-time data, and map rendering. On top of that, if your reception is poor, it can further increase battery drain, because the phone has to work harder to stay connected while still managing everything else. Combining all of that, you have a category of apps that can quickly drain battery and heat up your device, so you should really be conscious when using them.
One of the best ways to mitigate this issue is changing the permission for location access from “Always” to “While In Use” in your iPhone’s Settings app. Closing the app after you reach your destination and even turning off Background App Refresh in Settings can greatly reduce the impact these apps have on your iPhone, which might make your device feel slightly snappier and improve general battery life. These same basic tips could be applied to Apple Maps, too, since it relies on the same resource-hungry functions as other navigation apps.
Another Meta app that can demand a lot from your iPhone is WhatsApp. But WhatsApp isn’t inherently more resource-hungry than any other messaging platform, so these same tips could be applied to Facebook Messenger, Telegram, and others. Even though the impact of these apps is less about processing power and more about storage, Apple lists low available storage as one of the top things that can impact an iPhone’s performance and recommends maintaining at least 1 GB of available space to prevent slowdowns.
Since WhatsApp media doesn’t show up in the Photos app by default, you may not be aware of the sheer amount of pictures, videos, and GIFs that the app has been accumulating. Thankfully, WhatsApp now lets you manage storage for each separate chat, and the app offers several features that can mitigate storage issues. In WhatsApp under Settings > Storage and Data > Manage Storage, the app shows media files that are larger than 5 MB or that have been forwarded many times. The app also gives you an overview of the chats that occupy the most space on your device, making it easy to delete some of the files to free up space.
WhatsApp has other settings that let you limit how much data is used for calls, adjust upload and auto-download qualities, and choose how you’d like to auto-download certain files. In your iPhone’s Settings app, you can also limit WhatsApp’s location access and even disable Background App Refresh, though note that changing these settings can impact location sharing and app startup times.
TikTok
TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, and YouTube are among the apps that are the most resource-intensive due to constant video playback. With aggressive preloading of content and heavy use of the GPU, doomscrolling through social media apps that offer TikTok-like videos can make an iPhone run hot and feel less responsive. Just like the other apps mentioned above, options that can be changed to improve the general experience include disabling Background App Refresh and clearing cache from your iPhone’s Settings app, and it may help to delete and reinstall the app every once in a while.
Still, the most effective way to improve your iPhone’s performance when it comes to such apps is to not use them at all. If that’s not a viable option, you can also try setting up Screen Time limits in the Settings app to help avoid continuous doomscrolling. Disabling notifications or even using a third-party app that can help you reduce screen time can also be powerful tools to improve your iPhone’s responsiveness and your digital wellbeing.
Gmail
Gmail and email apps in general can also be demanding. After all, they frequently sync your inbox, even if there aren’t new messages to be found. They often rely on push notifications, and attachment caching means the app is also regularly fetching data in the background. While these apps might not seem particularly demanding, using several of them at once can be an issue.
One important tip is to concentrate all your email providers into one mail app, whether Apple’s, Google’s, or a third-party indie developer. Besides that, you can switch to manual fetching or less frequent intervals, which can help improve battery life and general performance. Limiting notifications and removing unused accounts can also reduce background load. Some of these changes can be made in the individual email app’s settings, but others can be made from your iPhone’s Settings app, such as disabling Background App Refresh to help prevent pre-fetching data.
By following these tips, you can wrangle some control of your iPhone’s performance back from apps that have been impacting it. Still, they’re just part of a bigger picture that could be making your device feel slow, like constant VPN usage, having your storage full or almost full, granting unlimited permissions to apps, and force quitting apps habitually. Besides that, if your battery health drops below a certain threshold, Apple starts to limit some experiences so that your battery doesn’t degrade even faster.
