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

Tuesday June 23, 2015 11:23 am PDT by Juli Clover
Developers who are installing the second beta of iOS 9 have discovered a highly useful iOS 9 space management feature, which will help users who have little space on their devices install major operating system updates.

When attempting to install iOS 9 on a device with insufficient space, there's a popup that offers to temporarily delete some apps in order to make room for the update. Apps that are deleted are then reinstalled and replaced after the operating system update is completed.

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With iOS 8, many users with 16GB devices were disappointed with the large installation size of the operating system. As it was over 4GB, few users with 16GB devices had the space for the update, which may be one of the main reasons that iOS 8 installation rates were slow for several months following release. Given the disappointment that many customers expressed with the install size of iOS 8, Apple's made efforts to make iOS 9 much more space efficient.

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Apple has significantly reduced the installation size of the operating system to just 1.3GB to make it easier for people to find the space for an update, and this new auto app deletion feature will ensure that almost all customers can upgrade their devices with little hassle. Other features, such as app thinning for developers, will also help free up space on devices by installing only the necessary app assets for each device.

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BreuerEditor
50 months ago
But the REAL question is does it put the data back for the app(s) or just reinstall the app?
Rating: 22 Votes
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AngerDanger
50 months ago
Originally codenamed Flappy_Bird_Removal_Initiative, this feature will go public in iOS 9.
Rating: 13 Votes
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Twimfy
50 months ago
Now that is quite a cool idea.
Rating: 11 Votes
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greg8799
50 months ago
I'm still waiting for Apple to increase the iPhone's storage. Why not drop the ancient 16GB and finally start at 32GB?! Now that would be a better solution.
Rating: 11 Votes
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soupcan
50 months ago
If they only did this for some of the stock iOS apps nobody ever uses, and then permanently. If I want to "Find my friends" I'll install the app when I need it, thank you.
Rating: 8 Votes
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sampaul
50 months ago
Now thats Apple being Apple.

Rating: 6 Votes
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friedmud
50 months ago
I assume they're only going to do this for Apps that either don't have any locally stored data... or apps that only store data in iCloud.

Seems like quite a tricky thing to get right... if it goes awry people could easily lose data.

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...
Rating: 6 Votes
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nepalisherpa
50 months ago
How about just starting phones at 32GB? Now that's an even better solution.
Rating: 5 Votes
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RoboCop001
50 months ago
Would be nice if you could also do this manually. Say, with an app you don't use much but want to uninstall without losing the data. So upon deletion it could backup the data to iCloud. And the next time you install it, it should ask if you want to restore the data as well from iCloud.
Rating: 5 Votes
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keysofanxiety
50 months ago

How about just starting phones at 32GB? Now that's an even better solution.


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?
Rating: 4 Votes

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