iPhones and iPads last for years, but what was a reasonable amount of storage back then may be woefully short now. Replace apps with shortcuts and save lots of storage space on your device.

Those aren't apps in the photo above, they are shortcuts that take up almost no storage space.

If you have the latest iPhone or iPad from Apple then lucky you, you have an awesome device that will last many years. The specifications of a new iPad or iPhone are fantastic, but it might not look so amazing in a few years time.

For those people that hang on to their iDevices for a few years rather than upgrading to the latest every year, you might have an iPhone or iPad with limited storage. It isn't that many years ago that entry level models had 16 GB of storage. That is a tiny amount compared to the minimum of 64 GB that you get with today's models. (And 64 GB might not be much in a few years from now.)

If you have an older iPhone or iPad that has 16 or 32 GB of storage and you are running short of space for apps, photos and other content, there are things you can do to reduce the storage requirements. You have to figure out ways to save space in order to get everything into the phone that you want to use.

iOS can be set to automatically offload apps to create space of course, but there are disadvantages to this. One is that when you need an app, it must be downloaded before it can be opened. This takes time and if you are not on Wi-Fi then it also uses phone data. Once the app is downloaded, it then uses storage space. It is an option, but here is an alternative way to reduce storage requirements.

Replace social apps with shortcuts

Social networks like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and several others, all provide apps. They work very well but often they are quite large. Some social apps are hundreds of megabytes and if you have several, then gigabytes of storage space can be used by them. You may not realise that they are not necessary.

There has been a gradual shift of traffic to websites from desktop computers to mobile phones. For this reason, and Google pushing mobile in its search results, many websites work fine on mobile phones and tablets. Modern website designs are responsive and automatically adapt to small screens and touch controls.

When websites work so well on mobile, why bother installing the app? You can simply go to the website to access the content. Twitter is a good example of this and the website is almost indistinguishable from the app.

Go to Twitter in Safari on the iPhone or iPad and see how good it is in the first screenshot here. Pull down to show Safari's toolbars and then go to the actions button at the bottom of the screen.

Select the option to add a shortcut to the home screen. Twitter provides an icon that is identical to the app and the caption can be edited to say 'Twitter'. Add it to the home screen.

If you have the Twitter app on your phone you should try the app and then this shortcut to the website. It is very difficult to tell the difference, yet the home screen shortcut you created is tiny and takes up almost no storage space. The app can be deleted to free up space.

Repeat this with other social apps you use.

Advantages: Lots of storage space is saved because shortcuts use close to zero storage.

Disadvantages: The first time the website is accessed in Safari you must log in. Your login details are remembered so this is a one-off and in the future it is skipped. The main disadvantage is that there are no notifications. The app displays notifications, but a website cannot. I find notifications from social apps a distraction anyway and prefer not to be notified of every post and update.

Replace news apps with shortcuts

I like to have several news apps on my phone and when I have time on my hands with nothing urgent to do, such as when I am at home or out at a coffee shop, I catch up on the latest news. My iPhone and iPad are my main sources of news.

There are lots of great news apps for the iPhone, but apps take up valuable storage space and in many cases, the website is almost as good. As pointed out earlier, these days websites are often very good on mobile devices with small screens like smartphones, so fire up Safari and go to your favourite news site.

If the website works well in Safari on the iPhone, like the CNN news website shown here, pull down from the top to show Safari's toolbars and tap the actions button at the bottom of the browser window. Among the options that are displayed, pap Add to Home Screen.

You will need to customise the caption and shorten it because it is always too long and wordy, but then tap Add or Done and the icon is added to the home screen or wherever the next available space is. One tap on the icon opens the website, which is often as good as the app.

Repeat this with all of your favorite news websites and create shortcuts for them on the home screen. Once this has been done, the apps can be deleted from the iPhone or iPad to save space.

Advantages: Lots of storage space is saved because shortcuts use close to zero storage.

Disadvantages: Shortcuts cannot display notifications of breaking news stories. Notifications are distracting so I only allow essential ones like email, messages, calendar and so on. Notifications are disabled on all other apps anyway. I check the news several times a day anyway, so I don't miss anything.

Create groups for news shortcuts

I usually press and hold a news icon until it wobbles, then drag and drop one on top of another. This creates a folder or group and you can name it News.

What this does is basically no different to creating a browser bookmark. Bookmarks are useful, but you have to start Safari, go to the bookmarks, find the one you want, select it and wait for it to load. Having shortcut icons on the home screen looks fantastic and one tap goes straight to the website. They are often almost as good as the app.

All the icons in the screenshot above and in the main image at the top of the article are saved bookmarks but you wouldn't know. A bookmark takes up no space at all, so you save a lot of storage space by using them. Bookmarks do not run in the background, they do not update, and they do not consume battery power when not being used. This means that they reduce data usage and increase the battery life.