Kirk McElhearn, writing for Macworld:
I recently checked my iPhone’s Storage & iCloud Usage settings, and it said that I didn’t have a lot of space left. On this 64GB device—which, according to the iPhone, only really has 55.5GB—there was only 696MB available.
But then I synced the iPhone with iTunes. The latter showed me how much free space it thought I had: 2.68GB. And it also said that the iPhone’s capacity is 55.7GB, or 200MB more than what the phone itself says.
This is a valid point. It’d be nice to have a single take on iOS storage, one that starts with your phone’s size, then shows what is used for what. A view that showed me my device’s full storage, similar to the Manage Storage setting or the iTunes bar of storage, but one that lets me drill down for actual details, one that lets me delete things I don’t need.
For example, if I have old updaters I no longer need, let me delete them. Let me delete videos from that same view. Or music I have backed up elsewhere. As is, I get snippets and clues from various places, and have to visit different apps, deal with wildly different schemes to delete things. And sometimes, I can’t figure out how to delete things, or simply can’t delete them.
This is one of things that just drives me crazy.
So much for the advantages of controlling the whole widget.
This would be hugely helpful. I’m always hunting down for free space on my children’s iPads so I can upload another movie or tvshow for them to watch on long trips. It’s hard to figure out where to save space.
I recently restored my iPhone and gained back 20 GB i’d space that was reported to be used but wasn’t. So I restored my iPad and gained back 40 GB there. This is not the first time I have had to do this.
My original iPad from 2010 is still running and its iOS 5 is at least 10x more reliable than iOS 7–9. So we are looking at the same phenomenon from Apple 1985–1995: no Steve Jobs means Microsoft-level software quality. It means there is almost no point in Apple continuing to exist. In a few years, Microsoft will be seen as just as good but cheaper and easier to plan around.