Data Limits May Harm Bandwidth-Hungry iPhone Apps

Changes to mobile data limits recently announced by US mobile operator AT&T may affect the number of downloads for applications that consume a high amount of bandwidth.

The New York Times reports that previously, when no limits were placed on mobile data usage, consumers didn't bother to see how much data was being downloaded by individual applications.

Now, with the new data limits in place, speculation has arisen that users might restrict themselves to applications that use less data.

Noam Bardin, chief executive of Waze, a company which develops turn-by-turn navigation applications, said: “What created this lively app world we are in was the iPhone on one hand, and unlimited data plans on the other. If people start thinking about how big a file is, or how fast an application is refreshing, that will be a huge inhibitor.”

Bardin believes that if people started to download applications depending on the size of the file and the rate at which the application refreshes its data, then developers may cut back on developing new features to improve user experience.