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My sister is having trouble with her iPhone SE 16GB, still running iOS 10 after filling it to 0KB free. She's often playing some mobile game that's 2.2GB in size that she won't delete. iOS software update isn't working with endless loading/scrolling and the usual fix of deleting the update so it can download and install it again is impossible/missing. She can free up a few hundred MB at most by deleting things and says the new free space disappears before her eyes without touching anything. She has mentioned experiencing bugs. She's unhappy and is thinking about getting Samsung phone next which makes me unhappy to hear.

I said the NAND looks like it's dying after seeing 12GB for Capacity (on mine it says 64GB with an iPhone 6S 64GB) in Settings > General > About:
https // i.imgur.com/xwcq7ZQ.png

Is that capacity of 12.13GB normal? Is it broken?
What's the best way of getting iOS 11 installed and get things working properly?
In reality, how much free space do you get on a 16GB iPhone to use, allowing for everything to work properly like having enough free space to install iOS updates and take new pictures?
Is having a 2.2GB game on a 16GB iPhone doable or should I tell her to buy a bigger phone?

Thanks

iOS 10 only showed capacity minus OS space and also showed base-2 calculations. An image in this article shows that used and available space on a 256GB iPhone to be around 251.8GB. So I think the storage is fine.

You don't have to free up too much space on an iPhone to install an iOS update if you update through iTunes on a Mac or PC. You don't need the temp storage for this, because your computer will download and extract the update. You'll probably have to have SOMETHING free, but not as much as you would without iTunes.

Once you update to iOS 11.4.1, the space will show "x available of 16GB" but remember that it's now base-10 storage values and it's not excluding the system storage requirements any longer.

Yeah, when you do an update via iTunes, it only needs slightly more free space than the difference in size between new and old firmware.

Once you get into iOS 11, there are many more features of automatic offloading of things like unused apps and old photos (as long as they exist in iCloud), so generally the space pressure is less after the phone has had a few days to settle. The big saver for me was the automatic photo offloading. After uploading the image or video to iCloud, it will replace the on-device copy with a smaller thumbnail, or in the case of video, just a thumbnail. If the photo or video is needed in the future, it's downloaded on-the-fly.

This feature allows my phone to manage about 65GB of photos while only using between 2-3 GB on the device itself (at 16GB 6S Plus, in my case).

+1 for SuperSpy's solution. You could also back up her photos to something like Google Photos and delete the ones on the device.

iOS uses some disk space for swap, so as you get below about 1GB of free space the phone will slow down in loading etc. No matter what she'll have a better experience with a larger capacity phone.

iOS does not do paging at all. iOS warns and then outright kills apps to save memory instead of touching the disk.

Why not simply connect to the PC, use iTunes' backup function to save data and settings, and then do a full phone restore? That'll almost certainly fix whatever problem, plus it'll install the latest iOS anyway.

SuperSpy wrote:

Yeah, when you do an update via iTunes, it only needs slightly more free space than the difference in size between new and old firmware.

Once you get into iOS 11, there are many more features of automatic offloading of things like unused apps and old photos (as long as they exist in iCloud), so generally the space pressure is less after the phone has had a few days to settle. The big saver for me was the automatic photo offloading. After uploading the image or video to iCloud, it will replace the on-device copy with a smaller thumbnail, or in the case of video, just a thumbnail. If the photo or video is needed in the future, it's downloaded on-the-fly.

This feature allows my phone to manage about 65GB of photos while only using between 2-3 GB on the device itself (at 16GB 6S Plus, in my case).

FWIW, this feature is only likely useful to her if she has more than the default 5GB plan. The default storage Apple gives with iCloud is disgusting.

morphine wrote:

Why not simply connect to the PC, use iTunes' backup function to save data and settings, and then do a full phone restore? That'll almost certainly fix whatever problem, plus it'll install the latest iOS anyway.

Ohhh, that's a good idea.

DancinJack wrote:

FWIW, this feature is only likely useful to her if she has more than the default 5GB plan. The default storage Apple gives with iCloud is disgusting.

Yeah, but 50GB is 99 cents a month.

MOSFET wrote:

DancinJack wrote:

FWIW, this feature is only likely useful to her if she has more than the default 5GB plan. The default storage Apple gives with iCloud is disgusting.

Yeah, but 50GB is 99 cents a month.

Of course. Not saying it's a bad deal, it's just incredibly stupid it's not the base storage level.

Given how much you pay for an iPhone or a Mac, I agree. Lifetime storage of a sensible amount should be in the price. But it's Apple, so it's not.

With my Pixel 2 I got two years of 100GB extra Google Drive storage. That's sensible to me.

SuperSpy wrote:

iOS does not do paging at all. iOS warns and then outright kills apps to save memory instead of touching the disk.

Hm ok. Something definitely is happening underneath though--I get adverse application load times and increased stuttering whenever my disk is nearing full (deleting a few videos always restores performance). Maybe it's just slower writes from having to constantly reconsolidate blocks?

You even get 15GB with Google 1's (formerly Google Drive) default plan, for free. At least that's usable. 5GB isn't even enough to backup a full iPhone 16GB.

Yeah nuke-and-pave with the iTunes/iCloud backup safety net is my go-to solution for silly iOS issues.

DancinJack wrote:

You even get 15GB with Google 1's (formerly Google Drive) default plan, for free. At least that's usable. 5GB isn't even enough to backup a full iPhone 16GB.

It's almost like that's on purpose

morphine wrote:

DancinJack wrote:

You even get 15GB with Google 1's (formerly Google Drive) default plan, for free. At least that's usable. 5GB isn't even enough to backup a full iPhone 16GB.

It's almost like that's on purpose

Almost!

Thanks everyone, that was definitely helpful.

morphine wrote:

Why not simply connect to the PC, use iTunes' backup function to save data and settings, and then do a full phone restore? That'll almost certainly fix whatever problem, plus it'll install the latest iOS anyway.

Because that would require installing and using iTunes . I suppose if it does the job and it has no other impact apart from using some drive space then it’s not too bad, but we’ll call that plan B.


What would be a recommended amount to have as free space to have no problems? I was thinking of telling my sister to always leave 1GB free. Although after a quick google it seems like updating to iOS 11 the non iTunes route could require as much as 4GB free to download and install.

Yeah the update is close to 2GB and then it needs to be expanded, so you need as much room as the download + the expanded space.

I frequently get mine under 1GB before I dump the pictures tomy NAS.

GoJuice wrote:

Thanks everyone, that was definitely helpful.

morphine wrote:

Why not simply connect to the PC, use iTunes' backup function to save data and settings, and then do a full phone restore? That'll almost certainly fix whatever problem, plus it'll install the latest iOS anyway.

Because that would require installing and using iTunes . I suppose if it does the job and it has no other impact apart from using some drive space then it’s not too bad, but we’ll call it plan B

As it's her problem-install itunes on her computer (if she has one) NOT on your own.......................................

Worth noting that the Windows Store version of iTunes is rather compartmentalized.

https://www.howtogeek.com/352307/avoid- ... e-version/

Ryu Connor wrote:

Worth noting that the Windows Store version of iTunes is rather compartmentalized.

https://www.howtogeek.com/352307/avoid- ... e-version/

Indeed. I finally installed iTunes on my main rig when they released the Windows Store version.

The iPhone SE is still a decent device, but 16GB is a bit painful. At the very least, she should be able to uninstall that bloated game for long enough to get iOS updated. I would also backup her photos and then delete them off the device and/or use iCloud.

GoJuice wrote:

Thanks everyone, that was definitely helpful.

morphine wrote:

Why not simply connect to the PC, use iTunes' backup function to save data and settings, and then do a full phone restore? That'll almost certainly fix whatever problem, plus it'll install the latest iOS anyway.

Because that would require installing and using iTunes . I suppose if it does the job and it has no other impact apart from using some drive space then it’s not too bad, but we’ll call that plan B.


What would be a recommended amount to have as free space to have no problems? I was thinking of telling my sister to always leave 1GB free. Although after a quick google it seems like updating to iOS 11 the non iTunes route could require as much as 4GB free to download and install.

Installing iTunes is completely harmless these days, unlike the days of yore when it'd Quicktime all your s**t.

Just install it, authenticate the phone with it, use the backup functionality, do a full factory restore, then restore the backup. Uninstall iTunes then if you want, but I'd advise keeping it around since it's the safest/most bulletproof method of updating/backing up/etc an iPhone. Just don't use iTunes for iTunes stuff. It's hideous at that.

^^^ I’d have to disable those system services iTunes installs. When installing any program I’d want to disable any processes that run at boot up.

Ryu Connor wrote:

Worth noting that the Windows Store version of iTunes is rather compartmentalized.

https://www.howtogeek.com/352307/avoid- ... e-version/

Thanks, interesting, I did not know about that.


My sister has deleted the game from phone and will play it on a tablet. Today I’ve seen the phone and there is 1.99GB reported free space (the game she deleted was 2.2GB and at the time she deleted it, it gave her 2.48GB free). I can’t see very much else to delete. Even Apple apps she’s already deleted. There’s another game 1.3GB if I include the app’s “documents & data”, 1.26GB photos & camera, few hundred MB for WhatsApp, Messenger, Messages, candy crush.

Something isn’t right. Phone storage has dropped to 1.97GB free while typing this message. Shouldn’t there be more space than this to play with without having to delete so much?

Another option.

https://www.copytrans.net/#product-shelbee

I use this. It only does a backup and restore of the phone. That's it.

A full backup and then a wipe/restore of the phone should help you answer some lingering questions you have about the product.

Seriously, just install iTunes, do the backup/restore, then uninstall it (along with Apple Mobile Device Support and Bonjour).

Ryu Connor wrote:

Worth noting that the Windows Store version of iTunes is rather compartmentalized.

https://www.howtogeek.com/352307/avoid- ... e-version/

That's some good information right there!!! Thanks

Ryu Connor wrote:

Worth noting that the Windows Store version of iTunes is rather compartmentalized.

https://www.howtogeek.com/352307/avoid- ... e-version/

Thanks for posting; I was unaware of this.

morphine wrote:

Seriously, just install iTunes, do the backup/restore, then uninstall it (along with Apple Mobile Device Support and Bonjour).

Point well taken.

But the iPhone has since fixed itself. iOS 11 installed and afterwards there was nearly 7GB free space.

Thanks everyone that replied to this thread.

The Windows Store version of iTunes sounds cool. However, since many years ago someone already advised me if you really don't want iTunes near any of your personal computers, you can always take it to a Genius Bar. Your high price for the phones includes the good service.
(probably not the backup bit in your case though, but just for the upgrade)