It’s probably better late than never after all

Jun 4, 2019 09:21 GMT  ·  By

One of the improvements that might escape unnoticed in iOS 13 concerns the app downloads from the App Store that you make with a data connection.

First, some context. On the latest version of iOS 12, downloading an app or game from the App Store without a Wi-Fi connection isn’t possible unless that app or game comes packed in an installer with a size less than 200MB.

In other words, anything that’s larger than this would require a Wi-Fi connection because good guy Apple thinks you may otherwise use your entire data plan accidentally by simply downloading apps from the App Store.

The bigger problem is that this restriction is applied regardless of data plan, so even if you’re on an unlimited contract, there’s not much you can do because Apple isn’t offering an option to ignore the warning or disable it from settings.

And while the recent change that increased this limit from 150MB to 200MB was welcome news, it looks like Apple is making another major step towards getting everything right when it comes to app downloads over cellular.

Bye-bye, download limit!

Cupertino is finally removing the limit altogether in iOS 13, technically letting you download apps and games as large as you want regardless of your connection.

The warning will still be there when you attempt to download a large file, but iOS 13 will come with two options called Download and Later On Wi-Fi. Tapping the first lets you continue the download on a data plan.

At the same time, Apple is introducing additional options in settings to let you configure app downloads. There will be three options available in iOS 13, namely Always Allow, Ask If Over 200 MB, and Ask First. Their purpose is pretty self-intuitive, so you can thus device if you want to see the aforementioned warning for each download or not.