I had to wipe my 32GB iPad a couple weeks ago. The problem is that Apple tells you that you can save 1GB from deleting large attachments, but then you go into the storage management pane and there are definitely not even close to 1GB worth of files attached. Deleting is slow, because while you can 'edit', it doesn't provide any sort of 'select all' widget.
But the overwhelmingly worst thing is the 'other' category, which just cannot be removed. It doesn't belong to any particular app, it just accrues over time. If you have a lot of app churn, which my iPad did, it eventually gets to the point where it takes up the majority of the space and you're screwed.
Of course, doing a full wipe of the iPad has its own problems, like if you've bought anything off of the messages app store area—those things are gone and you can't get them back. You could of course restore from backup, but the thing I was trying to avoid was all the cruft that got me in trouble in the first place. Apple's storage management options are woefully inadequate, and honestly, losing functioning stickers/apps with no recourse is just bad practice. That particular corner of the app store is such an afterthought.
Couldn't agree more, and let me tell you, I trash Samsung's software 24/7 since I carry some of their latest hardware, but on some aspects they are so far ahead from Apple its unbelievable.
On offloading pictures for example it's a breeze, plug the phone, open smart switch file explorer, go to images folder, cmd+a to select them all and copy paste or drag them to the computer. The transfer is pretty quick since it's USB-C. Every single storage MB is reclaimed accordingly, as simple as it can get. With Dex even easier, just install the app, and experience the entire phone content from your computer without even plugging the phone to it. It's literally 2 phone taps and bam, you have it fully enabled in your computer's display.
Apple photos management tries to lock you to iCloud, which is fine from a business perspective, but also in iCloud the management is subpar at best.
And regarding other posts, yes, $0.99 for 50gb may sound like a decent deal, but considering the quality of camera they are putting out in the phones and the device's storage options, 50gb its a sad joke guys come on, even for $0.99!
Unless you want to throw your money at Apple desperately, your best bet with photos is to pick a device with high storage and store locally without iCloud. When it's full, offload via image capture.
Don't get me wrong, it still depends on having a mac, image capture is a buggy dinosaur with zero love from Apple likely to be phased out, it will still mess your storage specially with heic to jpg conversion and take forever, but still better than any of the iCloud plans except the more expensive one (which is still ridiculous but space amount is decent for today's use).
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