Where exactly are my 16GB in iPhone?

Coonikol wrote:

if I knew that iOS uses 25% of my storage then I would buy a different phone 😠

Good luck with that.

Here's a comparison of the available memory on brand new 16GB phones out of the box...

http://www.phonearena.com/news/Comparison-shows-how-much-internal-storage-you-ac tually-get-with-popular-smartphones_id51856

KiltedTim wrote:

Coonikol wrote:

if I knew that iOS uses 25% of my storage then I would buy a different phone 😠

Good luck with that.

Here's a comparison of the available memory on brand new 16GB phones out of the box...

http://www.phonearena.com/news/Comparison-shows-how-much-internal-storage-you-ac tually-get-with-popular-smartphones_id51856

Nice resource. I've seen similar data, but not in such a clear, easy-to-read format. I think I'll borrow that, lol.

The fact that you have realized this marketing gimmick in 2015 is a surprise. All phones that say they come with 'X'GB storage never have all of X available for use. If you buy a brand new Nexus 5 - 32gb and go to storage settings, you'll see only 26.76 gb free to use (source - my previous phone was a Nexus 5 32gb). Same goes for any phone that even comes with expandable storage, lets take Note 3 32gb model for example - if you buy a brand new one and go to the storage settings again you'll see around 25 gb available for use (Samsung's OS is bloated and heavy).

The same goes for iPhones. Here's a rough 'usable space' estimate I found on another forum:

16 GB ~= 12 GB

64 GB ~= 56 GB <-- (I have verified this figure personally - I currently use the 64gb model)

128 GB ~= 114 GB

As you see increased storage space means the pre-installed OS and file system data uses up more and more space. There are several technical reasons behind this that I wouldn't want to go into but let's just say as the storage capacity increases the OS reserves a larger space to save file system data (because stuff stored in a larger space is harder to track)

Here's another interesting read as to why 'X' gb is read as being lesser by the OS: http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201402

Hope that cleared up a few things.

EDIT: had the three figures wrong, corrected them.

Coonikol wrote:

I have bought a 16GB iPhone 6.

I am surprised how little memory I can use. I installed a couple of apps, made a dozen of pictures and all of a sudden I have less than 9GB free.

if the 7 gigs were my files then I would not mind it, but actually it's used by something else.

to be precise I went to settings And checked for storage usage. It says then that :

- I have 9 gigs available

- I "use" 3 gigs

this is adds to 12 only. So more is missing than I actually use.

but that's not the end.

Below I found a list of apps installed. I decided to add the size reported for each app and it summed up to..

1.1 GB.

So what's the catch. How is it possible that after using 1 gig out of my 16 gigs I have 9 gigs free?

Best regards,

Kamil

The operating system of the iPhone (called the iOS) uses up a portion of that 16GB. Whatever isn't used by the operating system is the available capacity of your device. The list of apps doesn't include all the user data on your device. If you have used 3 GB, and have 9 GB available, that means your maximum usable capacity is 12 GB out of 16 GB. That sounds about right.

Your computer, for example, may be advertised with, say, a 500 GB hard drive. But you don't actually have 500 GB of available storage, because the computers operating system needs to take up space to operate the computer. This is true of all computers, and has been for decades.

Coonikol wrote:

Thanks for a quick response.

but why it reports I use 3gigs when all aps with their data add up to 1gig?

Your apps and their data aren't the only thing that is taking up space. Every piece of data on your device requires space. You're over analyzing it. If you're running out of space on your 16 GB, then perhaps you need to upgrade? If you're within 14 days of your purchase, you should be able to return it. If not, you'll either need tone more selective about what data you keep on the device, or sellout or trade it in and get a larger capacity device.

Coonikol wrote:

if I knew that iOS uses 25% of my storage then I would buy a different phone 😠

Then perhaps you should have done more research? You're going to see approximately the same amount of space being used by comparable operating systems, such as Android's OS.

And iOS doesn't use a specific percentage. It uses what it needs to use. This is all in the available information about the iPhone, prior to purchase. Again, this is a matter of consumer responsibility. Everything about the iPhone and how it operates (at least everything a user ever needs to know) is available online, not just from Apple but many, many different resources. It's your responsibility, as a consumer, to make an educated purchasing decision. Obviously, you did not. Learn from this, or take the actions I recommended, or both.

On my iPhone, the operating system only takes up about 3% of my total space.

Coonikol wrote:

Different meaning perhaps iPhone with 64 gigs 🙂

any idea where the additional 2 gb went?

Messages, photos, email, settings, app data for apps not listed in the list you're looking at, saved passwords for networks, carrier settings information... and so on.

Coonikol wrote:

Different meaning perhaps iPhone with 64 gigs 🙂

any idea where the additional 2 gb went?

Read the useage data from your phone

Or take a photograph of it and post it here, we can't tell you if only you can see it.

A 16 GB iPhone (which is 16 billion bytes which is 16 billion in decimal, not binary) is actually 14.90 GB (binary).

So there is 1GB you are “missing”.

Then you have the OS and preinstalled apps.

Now you have 1.96 GB as OTHER (usually deleted messages, photos and other data that have not yet been removed from the storage)

Ok

Do you use iTunes?

If you do and you connect and sync your phone it gives a nice colored graphic breakdown of what all is on your phone

Here is another article that may help

Please let us know of any questions

http://www.imobie.com/support/what-is-the-other-on-my-iphone.htm

Some of the 'missing' storage space can be accounted for by the difference between decimal math, used in marketing materials, where 1 GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes, and binary math, used by computers, where 1 GB = 1,073,741,824 Bytes.

On a 16 GB device, that equates to 1,179,869,184 Bytes. And that doesn't include overhead for formatting.

This has been an issue since the dawn of digital storage. Well, ever since we stopped using magnetic tapes for storage, anyway.

16 gb iPhones all have around the 12 gb free space (with nothing installed except iOS). iOS (operating system) uses 4 gb, which makes 12 gb free space.