Apple’s annoying 150 megabyte data cap for downloading apps and games over cellular connections is 50 MB less annoying this week but still doesn’t give phone owners the option to ignore it. So, yay, but also boo.
Finding out a cool new game has been released on the iTunes App Store, purchasing it, and then having the “App Over 150 MB” message pop-up, urging you to connect to a Wi-Fi network before you can play is frustrating. As of this week, as reported by 9 to 5 Mac and confirmed by me trying to download Stardew Valley using cellular data, the message has changed, but the frustration stays the same.
Apple last upped the data cap from 100 MB to 150 MB back in 2017. That’s after increasing it from 50 MB to 100 MB in 2013. If trends continue, in a couple more years we’ll be able to download a quarter of a gigabyte, all at once. The future sounds awesome.
I have unlimited cellular data. Lots of people do. I would really like it if there were an option to ignore the app overage message, either through settings or an additional option in the dialog box.
But hey, congrats to people downloading games that were between 151 and 200 MB. And to the developers who can now make their apps’ initial downloads a little bit larger before the game is launched and a couple of gigs of additional data is downloaded over cellular networks anyway.