Android Gets Tougher on Resource-Hungry Apps

Google is clamping down on Android apps that consume too much memory. In a bid to maintain phone performance, the company will expand its per-app memory limits to more devices over the coming year.

The new restrictions are part of Android 17 and initially targeted Pixel phones with varying amounts of RAM, from 4GB to over 16GB. The goal is to prevent any single app from slowing down or terminating the entire phone.

When an app exceeds its allocated memory, Android can temporarily move data into compressed memory, making the app run slower due to increased processing power. If the issue persists, the system may terminate the app altogether.