iPad Air showing 11.7GB storage on the 16GB model

Lets break it down. a 16GB iPad has really 13.7 GB of actual storage. minus the Os and installed data you are left with around 12.5GB.

If you consider the iOS update has many new features on the iPad air, not available on an iPad 2 those may be taking up the extra space.

Having 11.7GB of available storage is not really out of the question.

However if you want to make sure, you can on your iPad go to Settings->General->Usage->Storage->Manage Storage And see what is taking up the most space.

You may also want read this:

How OS X and iOS report storage capacity

I don't buy it. I had an iPad 2 16gb pure wifi using the SAME version of iOS. Last thing I did last night was make sure I cleaned off any extra "other" files using an app on the iPad, and then again using a program on my desktop. I then proceeded to back up the machine and wipe it. At this time the machine had easily a gig plus free. This morning I took my iPad 2 down to my local Apple Store and used it in the recycle program towards my new iPad Air 2. Also another 16gb wifi only machine. I take it home and straight out of the box it's showing 11.7 GB of space. I tried to load my backup and not all my apps and such were loaded because I simply ran out of space. I tried my iPad app, and the desktop program to clean it and found only kilobits of junk to remove. Two machines of the same size (16gb) and the same version of iOS, and the different is easily 3-5 GB. Something is wrong. Somewhere the course of a Steve Jobs-less Apple, the iPad lost the ability to allocate/organize space efficiently😠.

For what it's worth, my new iPad mini 2 16Gb has 14,91Gb capacity reported, when restoring it in iTunes, and 11,96Gb available space once usable (empty without anything).

Phil,

I understand the OS commandment of my device's storage capacity, yet In my limited knowledge, shouldn't the 'Total Capacity' of my iPad be identified in my settings menu? As a person who is not computer illiterate, I have allowed myself a few years of attempting to understand how my devices work. Again, in my limited experience, I have noted that new devices advertise a relevant amount of storage and it's total capacity is shortened due to the OS and its apparent subsidies.

What I do not understand about the iPad Air2 that I recently received as an award, is that its total capacity, in the Settings menu, identifies only 12G as the total capacity. If this is a 16G device, does this not mean that 4G of proprietary space has been captured by its OS and whatever else is needed to make it work? Don't you find that as an extraordinary amount? I usually see that my devices show their total capacity and then allow me the opportunity to see what is now available to me. I understand that I have loaded some information into my iPad, but the numbers still do not add up.

I am going to attempt a screen shot of my iPad Air2's Settings menu so that you will be able to ascertain my dilemma. Can you please explain to me why I do not see the full capacity of my device?

Thank you,

Marvin

This article explains it better:

http://www.macworld.co.uk/feature/ipad/whats-iphone-ipod-ipads-true-formatted-st orage-capacity-3511773/

With that said, this is an issue with every single device that has onboard storage capacity, and its always been the case. I have an old 256MB(megabyte) Sony Micro Vault USB drive, and it actually only has 247MB as reported by the computer.

Sony adds this disclaimer to its products:

http://www.sony.net/Products/Media/Microvault/products/usm-m/index.html

Actual usable capacity is less than the amount shown on the device. Capacity is based on 1GB = 1 billion bytes.

Even other phone and tablet manufacturers do this:

http://www.androidcentral.com/32gb-galaxy-s6-and-s6-edge-have-just-over-23gb-sto rage-free

Apple ends up being one of the better ones at this actually.

Basically its just the way storage ends up working. You start with a number that may or may not be exactly 16,000,000,000 bytes. Its likely a little less due to how storage is constructed, its impossible to get exact numbers in hard drives. Then you factor in the fact that a gigabyte is not 1 million bytes, but actually 1,073,741,824

Then you have formatting differences. At the end of the day, as long as you end up with around 75% of the advertised capacity, it is acceptable. If you bought a 16GB device and where seeing 8 or 9GB then there would be a problem. As it stands 12.2 for a 16GB drive is acceptable.

Unless something dramatically changes with the way storage is built and calculated, this will continue to be the case for any product with starge

The discrepancy is due to the difference in decimal and binary calculation. Storage device advertised as 1GB (in decimal) real capacity is approximately 0.9313GB (in binary). Yes it is kinda deceiving to advertise something larger than its actual size but I guess it becomes confusing if storage manufacturer advertises its capacity as 931MB. What is easier to remember, a 16GB iPad or a 14.901GB iPad?

I'm not sure why your iPad shows 12GB capacity. I should show 14.9GB capacity (which is the binary representation of 16GB storage) and approximately 11.x GB available free space (about 2-3GB is used up to store iOS and your songs, photos, apps etc)