Spring Cleaning for your smartphone?
Spring cleaning is for more than just your home. Even mobile devices can benefit from an annual cleanup. In this article I will talk about how clean out those “cobwebs” in your phone increasing productivity, security, and time management.
It is extremely important to make updates and upgrades to your mobile devices. When it comes down to it if you are behind on your operating system in your phone you are missing out on a lot of security opportunities and enhancements especially if you are an iOS user. iOS typically releases an update every few months which are small and have smaller features. Without downloading these upgrades and updates you really lose a lot of the functionality on the device as they continue to upgrade and release new features. With Android phones if they were purchased more than two years ago they may have a difficult time being able to run the latest Android version. Samsung and some other third party smartphone may not even support the latest Android operating system. These are great things to think about and insure you are taking care of at least periodically and spring is the perfect time to do that.
In today’s market were apps and information can be downloaded in the click of a button and easily left in the “back of the closet” it is important to use this time of year to delete unwanted apps and clear junk data from your devices. Insuring the only things you have on your device are apps and information that you access on a daily basis can dramatically improve the performance on your phone. Each of these apps especially with Android can or could be running in the background which will take up CPU, memory and storage space on both Android and iOS. This can also drain your battery faster and leave you with a “brick” instead of a useful device. Here are some questions you should ask about the unwanted apps on your mobile devices:
- Are they constantly communicating to the outside world?
- Are they asking for updates?
- Are they running advertisements?
- Are they excessively using up my data?
- What documents have people taken onto their device with the app? What exposure do they open up for the company?
It is a good idea for anyone who uses there phone business and pleasure to organize it. For many business people the whole point of their phone is so they can use them for everything in their life. A great way to separate work from pleasure is to secure and isolate your corporate data from your personal apps and information. For example if you are a user of Dropbox, you do not want your personal account taking your corporate information and moving it over to Dropbox. You do not want your corporate emails accidentally sent through your personal Gmail or other personal email account.
It is important to use the very best apps to increase productivity. Apps are increasingly becoming sources of corporate security weaknesses due to poor data storage practices, malware, unauthorized access, lack of encryption, and data leaks from syncing. For corporations it is important to use Mobile Application Management system. With a Mobile Application Management system you can receive protection for your corporate apps. You reduce the risk of sensitive data leakage, you’re provided with on-device access control and compliance, you can perform selective wipe on apps, provided with administrative controls and graphical reports. If this is not a viable option for you, here are some tips you should you when downloading apps for business use:
- Avoid questionable apps
- Research, research, research
- Make sure the App offers user support
Keeping mobile operating systems and apps up to date is easy enough for even non-technical consumer users. It just has to be made a habit, much in the way spring cleaning is a habit in many homes. Now use this time to go clean up some mobile devices.