iOS 9 Includes New Auto App Delete/Reinstall Feature for OS Updates on Devices With Insufficient Space

[kolax]

I really wish Apple would put in a separate flash chip just for the OS and updates. There's plenty space with the bigger iPhones and flash is cheap.

Also: think about stuff like Spotify. It is the largest app I have on my phone (currently ~8GB). I have all of that music saved offline for listening on the subway. If Apple blows away Spotify and reinstalls it... I now have a chore ahead of me to re-download many hundreds of songs.

I don't see this being all that popular of an option...

Well that's sort of the point in this feature! If Spotify is using 8GB of local storage and you can't do an OS update, then it'll zap it to free up space. Otherwise, you can manually free up space yourself. It isn't being enforced on you, it's just a way around low storage space and OS updates.

 

[gnasher729]

App data is kb/mb, yes? I'm sure it'd be preserved in a temporary file...? Shooting in the dark here. :s

What likely happens is exactly the same as when you restore from a backup to a new device: Placeholders for all the apps are created, then the data is restored, then the apps are downloaded one after the other. So when apps get temporarily removed, the apps are replaced with placeholders, the data isn't touched at all, it just stays where it is, and then the apps are downloaded again later.

 

[Tankmaze]

Now that's innovation !! and fit with the tagline "it just works" meaning user doesn't have pick which app to delete
to clear space. But hopefully this doesn't justify Apple still selling the 16 GB iphone. 32 GB should be the base iphone.

 

[Jsameds]

let me DELETE passbook, apple pay, newsstand, podcasts, tips, and health

I'm sure that would save you almost 40 whole megabytes.

 

[diamond.g]

everything you said indicated you are exactly who i was replying to: young and too tech savvy for an iPhone base model.

everything in my comment you ignored: there are MILLIONS upon millions of people who aren't tech savvy and don't need the storage. for real, it may shock you, but there's a good portion of the population who buy an iPhone, find someone to set up their stock apps for them, download kindle and Facebook to keep up with their Soccermom/dad friends (or nothing at all since the app store is 'intimidating'), sync up to iCloud, and they're done worrying about/ tinkering with a phone for 4 years or more.

if you think it's all 'pricing' and no market research, you're kidding yourself.

So what about going the other direction, why shouldn't Apple sell a 8GB iPhone 6 or 6+ for those same users that heavily rely on the cloud or have like two or three apps on their phone?

 

[Jsameds]

So what about going the other direction, why shouldn't Apple sell a 8GB iPhone 6 or 6+ for those same users that heavily rely on the cloud or have like two or three apps on their phone?

On the flipside one would question why someone would have a top of the range, desktop-class, blisteringly fast all singing all dancing iPhone 6S just to stream stuff. Seems like an awful waste to me.

 

[nouveau-apple]

Because it tricks the consumer into thinking they're getting a better deal or 'more for their money' when they pay the extra to go from 16GB>64GB, compared to 32GB>64GB. Furthermore, far less people would be inclined to pay the extra if the base storage was 32GB, because that would be enough storage for a majority of people (whereas I'd argue 16GB is laughable, seeing as it's been the base storage since the iPhone 3GS).

And the trouble is that they can't really now up the base storage to 32GB for the next iPhone as they know that'll make people less inclined to upgrade to the 64GB. Furthermore if they actually adhered to their own rhetoric about making the best products in the world and caring solely about consumers, upping the base storage to 64GB would result in a media crapstorm because people would realise how badly they've been getting ripped off.

This is, of course, all conjecture; we're talking about a company who still sells 8GB iPhone 5Cs at an off-contract price that can only be described as extortionate. I do appreciate the top-spec products but any love I had is going down the pan. I wish they weren't so profit-oriented. And yet when they announce how much money they've made, we all cheer

Ever feel like you're in a cult?

You're basically being forced to buy an iPhone that's half the size of a 128.

So basically those who paid for a 32GB are now getting less for their money.

But instead of pay the money, I decided to buy the 16GB anyway. That means I had to make sacrifices.

Less apps to download. Less things to leave on my phone and more cloud storage use.

I wouldn't spend a penny more.

 

[kyjaotkb]

This is good but I hope it doesn't mean that they will keep selling 16GB as their base models for iphones and ipads.

their base model iPhones have 8GB only

 

[Rogifan]

So, it seems like 16GB base storage option for near future. No hope for 32GB base option if they are trying out ways to optimize whatever little available space on the phone.

Not necessarily. Since every device that was eligible to run iOS 8 will be able to run iOS 9 Apple wants to make sure there's no reason for not upgrading.

 

[Rogifan]

Apparently software nudges like the reduced 300MB footprint of 8.3, the reduced space required to install iOS 9 and now this app deletion and installation technique is still cheaper than bumping the minimum iDevice capacity to 32GB.

Personally I'd rather have a minimum 32GB.

But there are still millions of iOS 9 eligible phones at 8 and 16 GB. This isn't just about the new phones coming out this fall. When Craig Federighi admits on stage that iOS 8 adoption numbers were lower because people didn't have enough free space to do the OTA update you know that was a sore point and a bit of an embarrassment inside the company. They're making darn sure no one can go to twitter and complain about not having enough space to update to iOS 9.

 

[Jsameds]

But there are still millions of iOS 9 eligible phones at 8 and 16 GB. This isn't just about the new phones coming out this fall. When Craig Federighi admits on stage that iOS 8 adoption numbers were lower because people didn't have enough free space to do the OTA update you know that was a sore point and a bit of an embarrassment inside the company. They're making darn sure no one can go to twitter and complain about not having enough space to update to iOS 9.

True - but still 8/16 is very miserly - even for older products. I can understand why they did it from a business perspective though. Personally it doesn't affect me because I never go (or have gone) for the bottom tier of storage. I know it's extra cash on top of an already expensive product, but it increases the enjoyment and usability of said iDevice many times over so is worth it IMO.

 

[Abazigal]

Wouldn't it be better and easier to lose the 16gb and go to 32gb instead. Fix the problem don't just use a bandaid.

To be fair, these two don't seem mutually exclusive.

Going out of their way to minimise app sizes is a feature I would appreciate regardless of what storage I have on my iOS device, be it 16 or 32 or even 128. I could be using a 128gb iPad and still have maxed out my storage, in which case such a feature would still come in handy. I could be using a 128gb iPhone and still appreciate features like app thining because it reduces the sizes of apps, potentially to well below the 100 mb download cap (and use less data while I am at it).

And this applies to all existing devices, from the latest iPad air 2 to the old iPad 2 or iPhone 4s. I don't need to wait for Apple to release a new 32gb base iOS model to reap the benefits.

If anything, I would argue that simply increasing the base storage size of the device is the bandaid, because it ignores the main underlying issue - that apps are taking up way more space than they should! It might be easier to simply offer a 32gb base iPhone, but how would that be better for someone like me, who is currently rocking a 64gb iPhone 5s (and will likely continue to opt for iOS devices with 64gb of storage minimum?)

 

[skwash]

Have you confirmed that through testing multiple apps? As the default practice would be the data is lost when a user manually deletes the app and reinstalls it unless the app has additional built in protection or syncing. If it does backup the data that's great.

So let's say you have a 200mb app, and it has 200mb of content. So 400mb total. If you manually deleted the app, it would erase both the app and the content. Freeing up 400mb.

This process removes only the app, freeing up 200mb. No need to create a backup, it just removes the app.

As a side note, this would also allow App Thinning. So if you had downloaded this 200mb app in iOS 8, with App Thinning, it might only be 150mb when it re-downloads. Freeing up additional space.

 

[JeffyTheQuik]

It's not Passbook anymore, it is Wallet and it is very useful. Even if you not in US or UK you can store cinema tickets, boarding passes and misc event tickets there.
Apple Pay is included in the Wallet.

Newstand is changed in iOS 9, you still can be subscribed to magazines but they are stored as any other app - in a simple folder, and yes you can delete it.

Podcasts, — I think it is important to keep it preinstalled to expose more people to podcasting. Podcasting is struggling with low popularity for years. Any help to make podcasting more popular will make a word a better place. I use Overcast personally. If you don't listen to podcasts I record you to try it, you probably don't know how many interesting free shows out there.

Regarding Health I hope you change your mind. It is one of my favorite features from iOS 8. I even developing the app called Caffeine++ so everybody can easily track their caffeine intake every day. This app wouldn't be possible without Health. This is incredible for storing health data. It allows easily share it with any other health related app. It handles all kind of data starting from your steps. Finally, everybody should set up Medical ID with their information and a blood type, this can save somebody's life because thereis the option to access this information from the lock screen. Unlike Google Health, Apple Health never store information online (except encrypted iCloud backups).

Is there an app that lets you correlate all of your health data and export it?

I have diabetes data, including blood sugar (from Dexcom Share), exercise, food (from Orange Chef scale), heart rate, and all I need is a pump that talks to my phone for dosing. I just want to see the cause/effect of what I'm doing.

 

[diamond.g]

On the flipside one would question why someone would have a top of the range, desktop-class, blisteringly fast all singing all dancing iPhone 6S just to stream stuff. Seems like an awful waste to me.

True, in the past I had always gotten the most expensive model, but that was when I was buying in contract. Now, with iPhones being so expensive out of contract, I am not sure what size I would get. I assume I would go with the 64GB model as that is what I have had for the past few years. Though I could probably get by on 32GB.

 

[C DM]

On the flipside one would question why someone would have a top of the range, desktop-class, blisteringly fast all singing all dancing iPhone 6S just to stream stuff. Seems like an awful waste to me.

How does storing something locally vs accessing it remotely relate to the usefulness or the power of a device?

 

[urtules]

Is there an app that lets you correlate all of your health data and export it?

You can use Health for this. There's option to export/import all data from it. You can add all kind of stuff including blood glucose (sugar), active calories, heart rate. You can do it with many App Store apps, maybe some accessories (not aware if any exist) and you always can add this data manually bit by bit.
You can correlate it to on the Dashboard view. Every data type can be added to the dashboard and you can switch from daily, weekly, monthly and yearly progress. For example like on attached screenshot, I can correlate between heart rate and how much caffeine I get.

 

[lazard]

pretty much confirms that Apple will stick with 16GB moving forward.

 

[winston1236]

Or they could just sell phones with an appropriate storage size for the year we live in.

 

[ocyrus]

I would like to add that text messages and emails now know what a flight number is.

 

[C DM]

pretty much confirms that Apple will stick with 16GB moving forward.

It has been brought up a number of times already, and yet it doesn't really seem to imply that.

 

[Menel]

I would like to add that text messages and emails now know what a flight number is.

whoa...

 

[nouveau-apple]

It just deletes apps which you would have to do anyway, this just does it for you. ¯\(°_o)/¯

 

[skinned66]

I'm sure that would save you almost 40 whole megabytes.

Actually, now I'm curious how much that would be. So I'm going to find out. I'm going to add the Watch app to that list too. That one I probably will delete.

 

[Jsameds]

How does storing something locally vs accessing it remotely relate to the usefulness or the power of a device?

I'm saying if it's just for streaming why do you need something so powerful (and expensive) when even something so old as an A5 device could do the same job?