[schmichael]

I recently upgraded from an iPhone 12 to an iPhone 16 because I couldn't figure out how to free enough storage on the 12. The battery was still more than good enough to go a full day.

I don't notice any difference other than now I have a pile of useless lightning cables (good riddance). Honestly kind of a relief as I liked the 12 just fine. Phones kind of seem like a Solved tech these days. About as exciting to upgrade them as upgrading my Brother Laser Printer.

[evanreichard]

Not sure if it was the same bug, but I had a storage issue where System Data ballooned to like 200GB.

It had the most bizarre solution; airplane mode, set time to one year in the future, reboot, wait a few minutes, set time to 6mo in the future, reboot, wait a few minutes, set time to now, reboot. Went from 200GB to like 15GB. Was ridiculous.

(For anyone looking at this and considering doing it, you also need to ensure iMessage retention is forever, otherwise the iPhone will think it's a year old and delete the messages)

[ValentineC]

> Not sure if it was the same bug, but I had a storage issue where System Data ballooned to like 200GB.

> It had the most bizarre solution; airplane mode, set time to one year in the future, reboot, wait a few minutes, set time to 6mo in the future, reboot, wait a few minutes, set time to now, reboot. Went from 200GB to like 15GB. Was ridiculous.

I've had the same problem on my iPhone 14 Pro with iOS 17, but the "set time to the future" trick didn't work. I'd already deleted plenty of apps, and was almost considering getting a new iPhone with more storage.

I had to install Filza, write a script to figure out what was consuming the most storage, and delete a few directories:

- /var/mobile/Library/Caches/com.apple/geod/MapTiles

- /var/db/uuidtext

- /var/root/Library/Caches/com.apple.coresymbolicationd

Deleting these helped a lot.

I just checked again, and uuidtext and coresymbolicationd still seem to be bloating up in size. But the problems could also have been fixed in iOS 18/26 — I'm just not upgrading yet, because I like my semi-jailbreak.

[schmichael]

Not sure why you're being downvoted, that was my exact issue. I only had a 128 GB iPhone 12 though and System Data had eaten up over 60 GB. As I cleared off more apps and data it would just eat up the excess.

The internet seems full of various wild fixes, but I could afford an upgrade so saved myself the hassle of futzing.

[simmonmt]

Interesting. I made the same jump and noticed a huge increase in speed and decrease in memory pressure (the likelihood that iOS will kill an app I've switched away from). I miss the physical silent mode button though.

[giancarlostoro]

The new button was driving me a little crazy I hit it now and then when I think I'm doing volume up. I wish they had moved that button literally anywhere else.

[schmichael]

I honestly never noticed memory pressure. I am not a heavy app user. Chat, browsing, and pictures of my kids are the vast majority of my phone usage. Not exactly intensive stuff.

The camera button on the 16 seems to have been perfectly engineered to be exactly where I grab my phone. I'm sure I'll get used to it, but in the mean time I have so many blurry photos of desktops and pants to enjoy.

[smallmancontrov]

If Apple ever implements SMS anti-spam that actually works, I'll buy the upgrade it a heartbeat. It's been a solved problem on the google side for years so it's clearly not impossible.

[giancarlostoro]

I saw a setting to detect some spam that I toggled on sometime back. I don't know if I'm just getting less spam period, but I feel like maybe it helps? It's hard to tell.

[jdlshore]

The new OS (with Liquid Glass) has SMS message categorization that works fine to filter spam IME. You still have to delete them if you don’t want the red dot, but at least I don’t get alerts any more.

I upgraded iOS just for this feature and am glad I did. Not a fan of Liquid Glass, though.