iOS 26.2.1 has rendered my phone unusable

Make sure it's backed up, then use your computer to restore iOS and restore your backup.

You are not talking to Apple This is a user forum. Apple is not here.

Yes, I suspect it is your System Data that is growing on your device and gets difficult to manage yourself when you have run into a storage issue and trying to free up space. Apps would crash when there was no room to store their cache data or perform memory swaps, then when you free up space there is room to store those cache files so it fills up again. Any iCloud data that previously was unable to sync to your device would then be able to use that space too.

And to top it off, when you mark data to be deleted, it is not actually removed immediately. Freeing the space so that it can be used for another purpose requires a background process to go through and zero the data that you previously said you want deleted, and that is done when the OS determines it is most convenient by not interfering with what you are doing. The Restore using a computer will get you back on track.

What you describe sounds like an issue with the storage that had maxed out where it can be difficult to free up space. That will certainly happen with any OS version especially when you are syncing data to iCloud that is also full.

The info provided by KiltedTim will definitely get you on the right path by installing the OS again on a clean device. After that I would post both the iPhone storage and iCloud storage graph to see how much breathing room you have.

• Settings > General > iPhone Storage
• Settings > [name on top] > iCloud

https://apple.com/feedback

My phone just won't boot up and says to attach to laptop. Once I try that and try to update it does not work and is indicating phone needs to be restored. I have much in iCloud but not everything so am very concerned. Going all the way back to my first iPhone (3) I have never had a catastrophic failure like this.

Using 12 Pro Max with 1TB of storage.

Daniel Murphy wrote:

First post, my mistake. Hope serious damage not done.

Not at all. But you will get better help if you start your own thread with a specific subject line. Posts with titles like this one tend to attract way too many different issues and a lot of drek.

Best of luck.

Please start your own thread instead of trying to hijack someone else's.

Please send me instruction where to write to Apple I’m very disappointed on IOS 26.1.2 on iPhone 15promac is a disaster very slowed and not intuitive with menu bar going CRAZY

First post, my mistake. Hope serious damage not done.