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Users Find Renting a Movie On iTunes Frees Up Space On iPhone, iPad

An anonymous reader writes: Many, if not all, believe that 16GB storage on their iPhone and iPad is not sufficient. Apple insists that users with 16GB variant iDevice can always save files to the cloud. At any rate, several users have found an interesting way to free up storage space on their iPhone and iPad. The trick is to rent a movie from iTunes (on your mobile device) that is larger than the storage you have available. If you have 500MB free, for instance, you could try and rent Bridge of Spies, which is a 5.79GB download, according to an article on BetaNews. "When you click Rent, a loading symbol will appear but then you'll receive a message informing you that "there is not enough available storage" to download the film, and you'll be given the option of managing your storage in Settings. Tap the Settings button, and -- ta-da! -- you should see the amount of free storage you now have is much greater than before. Repeating the process will free up even more space."

68 comments

  1. Memory by fluffernutter · · Score: 2

    Why do people buy 16Gb devices and then assume it will be good for anything beyond that 16Gb?

    --
    Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    1. Re:Memory by squiggleslash · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They don't. They assume that if the phone comes with 16Gb and has no expandability, that 16Gb is probably "good enough" because what manufacturer would come out with an explicitly crippled device that cannot be upgraded, not even for cold hard cash?

      There are a lot of 4Gb Android devices - with only 1.6Gb free, which is immediately reduced to half a gig as Play Store automatically updates all the software - but virtually all of them at least have an SD card slot. Some of them even let you use the SD card ;-) (That's another story... thankfully, reportedly, Android 6 has the ability to just fuse the SD card and internal storage together, though some manufacturers have disabled that functionality...)

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    2. Re:Memory by arbiter1 · · Score: 1

      Well they are talking about an iphone which generally has No expandable slow for memory so.

    3. Re:Memory by Sarten-X · · Score: 1

      They assume that if the phone comes with 16Gb and has no expandability, that 16Gb is probably "good enough" because what manufacturer would come out with an explicitly crippled device that cannot be upgraded, not even for cold hard cash?

      Bullshit. They buy a 16GB device because that's what they want to buy. Don't blame the manufacturer because you can't imagine a use case for their product. Sure, other use cases fit other products better, but one size certainly does not fit all.

      I know someone who bought the smallest iPhone available at the time, because he doesn't have any need for large storage. He uses the phone for phone calls, email, a few apps, and the ability to have access to online references wherever he is. It was also a convenient tool for his job installing video systems. Last I heard, his phone was still half empty after a few years of use.

      I bought my latest device in the middle of the range. The smallest was a bit of a tight fit to also serve as a camera, but the largest was more expensive than I cared to spend, and I didn't need that much storage.

      If you think you'd need more than some particular fixed limit, then go pay for it and have what you want, but please don't assume that my requirements match yours.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    4. Re:Memory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just like all flagship android phones....

      Your lack of education is showing.

    5. Re:Memory by mrclevesque · · Score: 3, Informative

      "They buy a 16GB device because that's what they want to buy"

      To quote you, "Bullshit"

      What's Behind Apple's Epic Memory Markup :

      http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...

    6. Re:Memory by arbiter1 · · Score: 1

      Um a majority of flagship android phones have microSD slots smartass.

    7. Re:Memory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      That "fusing" is a iffy.

      When you do so, you basically lose out on the ability to move the content of the card between devices.

      This because Android will format and encrypt the FS on it with a key only that phone has.

    8. Re:Memory by Geeky · · Score: 2

      Performance will take a hit as well. I put the fastest SD card I could find in my phone and ran a disk read/write speed test on internal storage and then on the SD card, and the internal came out 2-3x quicker

      --
      Sigs are so 1990s. No way would I be seen dead with one.
    9. Re:Memory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I bought an iPod Touch with 16GB. It does everything I want—e-mail, messaging, Twitter, photos, Skype, Facetime. With Skype, I don't have much need for the phone component, and I'm in a wifi environment almost continuously, so I don't need the cell-data access. I do pay $12/year for iCloud storage, mainly for photos, and the photos app manages storage well enough that I have access to 5,000 or so photos in my library but spend less than 1GB caching what I have on my phone. I have 4GB of music, 2GB of apps, another 1GB of random data, and 4GB free. I'm not sure what I'd do with more than 16GB of space except waste it.

      I'm sure there are people who use their phones to download and watch movies or something, but I don't see much point in walking around with ginormous movie files in my pocket so that I can watch 720p videos on a 4" screen. I can use my laptop (or Netflix) for that. Maybe games are big space-users, but I wouldn't know. I'll continue buying 16GB devices for pocket use and much larger hard drives for my laptop.

    10. Re:Memory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Q: Why do people buy devices that lack expandable storage?

      A: Because they are morons.

      Dear Apple, I love your Mac Pros; they are almost up to the level of a $200 used Dell Precision workstation (except for the latest trashcan,) but until your phones are expandable, they are garbage. If you want to sell phones, add in a uSDXC card slot. If you want your PC division to be profitable, license OSX for $200 a copy. You will sell 10 million copies in the first day. After the sales slow down, cut the price.

    11. Re:Memory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Same AC here...I forgot to add:

      In addition to the uSDXC card, add a user replaceable battery, and a price below $300...if You want me to buy it.

      One last thing: At least Apple makes the same phone in multiple sizes. Your screen size is dependent on your eyesight. Only in the culture of Silicon Valley can people pretend that everyone has perfect eyesight.

    12. Re:Memory by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Why do people buy 16Gb devices and then assume it will be good for anything beyond that 16Gb?

      Most people are not techies. They just want an iPhone. When they figured out the limitations of a 16GB iPhone, they may upgrade to a better model depending on their needs. According to my friend who works at a Sprint store, they sell a lot of 16GB iPhones.

    13. Re:Memory by KGIII · · Score: 1

      I'd have absolutely no use for 16 GB of extra space on my phone and I do have a smart phone. I just don't load up a bunch of apps. I make phone calls, email, text, browse, and that's about it. I believe I have a 64 GB SD card in my phone. I'm pretty sure I'm using less than 200 MB of it. The internal storage still has plenty of room. If I take photos/video with it then I move that off the phone and onto something more suitable. I have my own 'cloud', VPN, VPS, NAS, and all that. I have real backup solutions that automatically replicate data to multiple disparate locations. IOW, keeping data on my phone would be pretty silly of me. It also helps that I don't take a lot of pics or video.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    14. Re: Memory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are 7 million or more provided by employers just in the USA.

    15. Re: Memory by hackwrench · · Score: 1

      You sir have a unique perspective on how people reach the conclusion they want to buy and the more generalized "do" something.

    16. Re:Memory by SvnLyrBrto · · Score: 1

      The minimum-spec iPhones are also fairly popular for corporate and government customers, which buy them in bulk, put them in MDM with the official approves apps, and issue them to employees. Often they'll have additional restrictions. No room for your personal photos? Tough. It's a work device, not personal. But thanks for reminding us. The camera will be disabled in the next profile update.

      The minimum-sped iPad? What do you think is attacked to all of the Square terminals you see in small stores, and even in food trucks? The cash register app is probably the only thing those ever run.

      --
      Imagine all the people...
    17. Re:Memory by cyberjock1980 · · Score: 1

      It's not "reportedly". I can tell you that my M9 that is happily running with Marshmallow works great with my 128GB SD card "formatted as internal storage". Works great. I've had zero problems.

      The only downside I can think of is that the SD card is effectively unformatted storage if the phone breaks. Most people store backups and things on their SD card so that if/when their phone breaks they can pop the SD card in the next phone and do a restore. You can't do that when the SD card is formatted as internal storage. :D

      If cell phone manufacturers are disabling the feature, that's screwed up and I'd be returning my phone that day. The feature is so useful that I can't imagine not having it now.

    18. Re: Memory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Even at the inflated prices of 16 to 32gb being 100 bucks, it seems pretty stupid to buy a cloud account (especially when other services offer similar for free).

      5000 pictures at 2-3mb is about 10-15gb. You could theoretically just store everything on the phone and not destroy your battery when you're browsing online content...

      But sure, throwing away money means you have no use for it. Typical fan lol

    19. Re:Memory by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      Performance will take a hit as well. I put the fastest SD card I could find in my phone and ran a disk read/write speed test on internal storage and then on the SD card, and the internal came out 2-3x quicker

      Not at all surprising, actually. eMMC is pretty poky at 30-40MB/sec throughput, even in "fast" 8-bit mode, but SD cards and controllers they put on them can be far worse - usually they don't really use the high speed modes so you end up with 10MB/sec speeds.

      And internal memory speeds are increasing - UFS memory can get 120MB/sec, and PCIe memory (used on the latest iPhones) is pushing 250MB/sec.

      Even the fastest SD cards UHS-1 Class 3 are about 40MB/sec writes and 100MB/sec reads, if they actually use those modes. But now you're looking at pricey memory cards.

    20. Re:Memory by lars_stefan_axelsson · · Score: 1

      ." Hello world"

      It's of course apt to have a code example from probably the most compact programming language (binary wise) in history when talking about how many gigabytes of memory you've already filled up, and it's still not enough! :-)

      Brings me right back though. Maybe I should try and wrestle the phones away from my kids long enough to bring the Jupiter Ace out of the basement and show them what "computing" was like when I was their age. 3kB can last a lot longer than you think! :-)

      But for it to count as a hello-world programme, it should probably be : hello ." Hello world" ; right?

      --
      Stefan Axelsson
  2. Huh? Deleting unnecessary files? by Alumoi · · Score: 1

    Yeap, just keeps deleting all those unnecessary files you have: music, photos, documents and such. After all, they're all backed up in the cloud, so why on Earth you'd keep them on your phone?

    1. Re:Huh? Deleting unnecessary files? by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Yeap, just keeps deleting all those unnecessary files you have: music, photos, documents and such.

      I used to do that with my 20MB hard drive back in the day. Of course, I backed them up to floppy disks. We didn't have a cloud back then.

    2. Re:Huh? Deleting unnecessary files? by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Erm ... are you kidding?
      They are not all backed up in the cloud. Free cloud storage is 5GB, how do you back up with that 20GB of pictures is beyond me.
      Most who use cloud back ups have set it to Wifi/Wlan only, otherwise it would wreck their data plan. So all new stuff snci your last Wifi connection is not backed up.
      AFAIK if you delete something from the phone it is deleted from the cloud, too!
      Your idea is pretty silly!

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    3. Re:Huh? Deleting unnecessary files? by Alumoi · · Score: 1

      Oh, sorry, I forgot the tag.
      Of course I'm fucking kidding. TFA says "According to this Reddit post, it seems what the device is doing is deleting unnecessary files from installed apps in an effort to free up the room you need to install the movie."

  3. Who rents this stuff? by sixsixtysix · · Score: 1

    For the same price of these digital rentals, you can buy a used physical copy within a week of release, and guess what? You can lend or resell it later! Also, if Redbox can rent movies for under $2 (blu-rays), surely they can stream it for the same price.

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    ...
    1. Re:Who rents this stuff? by squiggleslash · · Score: 2

      Another option if you want to keep it: Rent on Redbox, take it home, use the VUDU "DVD upgrader" app on your PC to purchase an online copy ($2 for same quality as original, $5 for an upgrade from DVD to HD)

      I haven't done it yet, largely because I'm the kind of disorganized idiot that Redbox makes money from (ie I'll rent something and then weeks later finally get around to returning it), but...

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    2. Re:Who rents this stuff? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Obviously someone who hasn't read the article since paying and renting is *not* done. It only uses the attempt to clear out unnecessary files that the user isn't given the opportunity to do using a less absurd method.

    3. Re:Who rents this stuff? by OzPeter · · Score: 1

      For the same price of these digital rentals, you can buy a used physical copy within a week of release, and guess what? You can lend or resell it later!

      It's called "Convenience". Lets compare the two solutions:

      Buy Physical movie:
      1. Decide on what you want to watch
      2. Locate store/person who has said physical copy
      3. Travel to that location or have it sent to you.
      4. Rip said movie and copy to your device
      5. Store physical copy in safe place
      6. Advertise movie for sale
      7. Deal with public who wants to:
                a. Beat you down on price
                b. Burden you with weird shipping requirements
                c. Make an enquiry and then go silent.
      8. Package the movie for shipping
      9. Send the movie off or take time to meet the person in some neutral location.

      Rent movie:
      1. Decide what you want to watch
      2. Click on icon and download movie.

      Now the big question is: How much is your time worth to complete steps 3 to 9 of buying and selling the movie? If the cost of those steps is much greater than then rental cost of the same movie then you really need to rethink your lifestyle choices. Especially if you only ever plan on watching a movie once.

      Note that renting the movie can be done instantly anywhere in the world that there is a decent internet connection, and you do not have to pre-plan your viewing decisions.

      --
      I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
    4. Re:Who rents this stuff? by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 2

      I occasionally rent a movie from iTunes if I need some entertainment on a flight or long ride.

      --

      "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

    5. Re:Who rents this stuff? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      ding ding ding! This is correct.

      I recently had my wife saying she couldn't take any pictures because there was no more free storage.

      So, go to the storage settings and just check what's using it all, right?

      Wrong. It doesn't even show you how much is actually being used. It tells you a number M that is in use, a number L that's free (in this case: 0MB), yet somehow advertised storage capacity N is much greater than the M it gives you - and you can't even make sense of it by thinking it must be the OS.

      So you go into manage storage thinking that at least you can clear some stuff up out of there, right?

      Wrong. Take the Photos app. In the manage storage settings, it will happily tell you that it's using, say, 500MB - even though there's 1GB of photos and oh hey look under "recently deleted" which apparently it ignores by design.. there's another 4GB of videos the nieces took and the wife wisely deleted-but-not-really.

      So you google that shit and the interwebs tell you that you should hook it up to a computer and manage it from there. And by that they mean, install iTunes. And by 'manage' the mean sync it first. And by 'manage' they mean "good luck. with that." because you still don't really get a clearer view of where in the fuck the your storage space went.

      In the end we factory reset the thing, re-linked the account to get settings, contacts, etc. back, and enjoyed all the freed up space.

      Short of Apple deciding that maybe offering this natively as an option or at least getting their math right, I'll certainly be happy to use the method described in the article in the future.

    6. Re:Who rents this stuff? by sixsixtysix · · Score: 1

      nice. will have to try this.

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      ...
    7. Re:Who rents this stuff? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, because streaming the movie requires a license agreement negotiated with the copyright owner, and the studios don't like to agree to streaming. Redbox can buy discs at the same prices as the public, and rent them out all they want without ever talking to a movie studio, as long as they don't rip the disc and stream it on the internet.

    8. Re: Who rents this stuff? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      To be fair, if all you want to do is obtain a digital copy, you need only perform steps 1-4. So the only "extra" steps are driving to the store and ripping it.

    9. Re: Who rents this stuff? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No they can't. Video rental disks are much more expensive due to the license. Back in 1994 one of local video stores had a list of upcoming movies and the pamplet also had their prices. $100/each, back in 1994.

    10. Re: Who rents this stuff? by KGIII · · Score: 1

      VHS cassettes, properly licensed to rent, were anywhere from about $300 to $600 each. That was in the 80s - a buddy owned a store and got a discount because he was part of a franchise. In other words, it was more expensive for the little stores. Lots of those little stores did not properly license them. Some were caught and taken to court. When they were no longer new releases, the prices would go down to the $80 to $120 range. :/

      Like you say, the ones to rent are MUCH more expensive for physical media. I suspect that Redbox isn't actually buying the disks but, like Netflix, is licensing a right to print a certain number of disks. A license to stream will not be covered in those contracts/agreements. I'm sure they're working hard to get as profitable a streaming license as possible.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    11. Re: Who rents this stuff? by Karlt1 · · Score: 1

      That's not how real life works. The reason that Redbox can rent a DVD for $2 is that once they buy it, they can rent the same DVD out as many times as they want. They don't have to make any deals with the studios.

      With streaming, the content is licensed and the retailer has to pay the studio each time it is streamed.

    12. Re:Who rents this stuff? by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

      I have no idea what you're referring to. Your comment starts with "no" implying I'm "wrong", but then you address some issues that have nothing to do with people renting DVDs and using the VUDU PC app to turn them into Ultraviolet Digital Copies.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  4. This is the stupidest solution I have ever heard. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Why can't we just have admin access to the devices we own so that we can do this ourselves, rather than using using these stupid workarounds? It is ridiculous that one should have to pay hundreds for a device and then not be able to manage storage space except via operating system bugs. Believe that Apple is going to remove this 'feature' as soon as they release how people are using it.

  5. You can't just free the cache?^ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Seriously? There is no way to do that without buying shit? Truly an innovative company.

    1. Re:You can't just free the cache?^ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You don't actually buy (or rent) the movie. Lots of apps do have the ability to manage and clear their own caches, so you could probably free up most of the space manually if you wanted to spend the time. There's not a global "clear every app's cache" option that I'm aware of.

    2. Re:You can't just free the cache?^ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's not a global "clear every app's cache" option that I'm aware of.

      Naturally it lacks such a feature. How else would they be able to add great features to the next iOS?

    3. Re:You can't just free the cache?^ by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

      Well the next question is why isn't this an option in the little storage space app.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    4. Re:You can't just free the cache?^ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The whole iOS 9.3.1 "link corruption" thing was caused because apps could corrupt a cache. Once that cache was corrupted, there was no way to clear it, because yes: Apple provides no method of clearing caches.

      It's incredibly annoying, especially when things like the music cache corrupts on an iPhone. Once that happens tracks won't play entirely or tracks will start playing with the wrong title (so tap on Track A, and Track B will start playing). Again, no way to clear and rebuild the cache, so you have to entirely delete your music library and sync it again, from scratch. And hope that it doesn't corrupt again.

      Apple seems to believe their hype and think that their software never has bugs or corrupts data, so they don't provide any mechanism to fix it.

    5. Re: You can't just free the cache?^ by unami · · Score: 1

      just find a free promo movie (e.g minion madness)

    6. Re:You can't just free the cache?^ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That would require a settings menu. Apple products don't have these. In fact, they rarely have menus.

    7. Re:You can't just free the cache?^ by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 2

      Why would you want to manually free a cache when the system apparently manages it quite well (as evidenced by this whole story)? There's literally zero advantage to having free storage unless you have plans for it, and big downsides to blowing away, well, cache just because you like seeing a bigger number in the "free" column.

      There are lots of things my computer doesn't let me manually manage by default. When was the last time you manually set your hard drive RAM buffer size? I thought so.

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    8. Re:You can't just free the cache?^ by Aaden42 · · Score: 1

      Consider the average smartphone user doesn't know the difference between hard drive "memory" and RAM "memory" on a computer.

      Clearing caches causes apps to discard downloaded and pre-calculated resources to free local storage space. These resources can be recovered when needed later by either redownloading them (probably costing $ for data usage) or recalculating them, probably using battery. I'm sure we all know iPhone users who obsessively "quit" their apps by double-tap-home & swiping them, under the mistaken belief that it somehow saves resources or makes the phone run faster (Facebook app notwithstanding...). Given a shiny "Clear caches" button, many users would obsessively hit it without understanding what it does or needing to use the function. The end result would be a significant amount of wasted data and battery usage for these users and a general slow down in their apps (waiting while things download or rebuild). Instead, the operating system automatically invokes the feature only when space is running out & more is needed.

      More buttons isn't always the best approach. An operating system is supposed to manage and abstract low-level details for things that can be automated in a reasonable fashion. Cleaning up temp files is certainly something that a human shouldn't have to do regularly.

      The question I have is whether these users are freeing up space because they genuinely need it, or just because seeing "X GB free" on the screen makes them feel better. The phone should already invoke cache cleanup when installing apps and generally any time it runs out of storage. IE doing it automatically when it's necessary to do it. An iPhone with very little "free" storage space isn't a problem. There's no benefit (and in fact there's cost) to obsessively forcing the OS to cleanup when it's not necessary.

      If there are cases where an operation will fail due to low free space and not invoke the cleanup process that this rental trick fixes, then that's a bug in the OS that should be fixed.

  6. dying androids by solsang · · Score: 1

    I have tried to help android users who had plenty of memory on phone and on card, and still run into the dreaded 700mb wall, making the phone virtually broken since there was not even space for the android system upgrade... (and that was after moving all possible apps to the other part of memory or card) Several others i know are using old 8gb iphone 4's which keep running as long as aren't filled with photos, so 16gb is absolutely enough provided you "only" use a dozen normal apps and sync all your photos and movies to the cloud, so only thumbnails are left on the phone

  7. Easy come, Easy go by Dorianny · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It is probably just deleting temporary cache files. The reclaimed storage will likely be gone in a few weeks usage

  8. Very expensive garbage collection? by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1

    May be has so many files and data cached for faster response and it knows what can be safely deleted and what's not. At some point the settings trigger a clear old cache process and frees up the memory. Digging around it should be possible to figure this out and trigger it without paying a buck to apple

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  9. An article about a reddit thread becomes slashdot by goombah99 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    So someguy writes a blog post about a reddit thread about an an anecdotal observations on mac storage management. It goes on the slashdot front page. Worse the article itself doesn't discuss how this works or even how well it works.

    From the reddit page, it says that several people observed 2 to 3 gigabytes of recovered space. It did not come from any one place but some came from caches. Random speculators suppose Itunes has large caches.

    Golly.

    I'd be interestd in hearing some comments about language efficiency on Android and iphones. My experience with java has led me to believe that it's likely that android phones have a severe Ram, cache, and energy efficiency handicap, and to a much lesser extent a flash memory handicap. The reason I suspect this is because Java program seem to use a lot more space than C based programs, their interpreter also has to be loaded, and their garbage collection creates memory overhead. As a result one has less available ram, more paging, and less efficient instructions. Now for the flash memory it's likely the case that media chews up more space than programs themselves so I suspect this is less of an issue. If all this is actually true it seems that comparing apple and android phones based on Ram obfuscates the fact that andorids need more ram to do the same job. Furthermore benchmarks using tight algorithmic loops are not seeing the cramped ram nor the overhead of JIT compilation of interpreted code to native that some interpreters impose. Thus one might expect these things to show up on app context switches, how apps are managed in the background, notifications/polling and shared data management--- all things that real users would see but automated test suites ignore in benchmarks.

    Maybe I'm wrong about this. I'd like to know.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
  10. Big shock to iOS Users by shubus · · Score: 1

    Golly it must be shocking for these newbees to find out that those relatively cheap 16GB iDevices don't hold much data. Surprise! Surprise! And no wonder Apple is moving to 128GB. Glad the streaming solution is being realized by many--great if you don't have data caps. You know what they say: "Mo memory, mo betta!"

  11. Can verify this works by flopsquad · · Score: 4, Funny

    I rented $170 worth of From Justin to Kelly 4K and now my 64GB 6S has a total capacity of 96GB!

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    Nothing posted to /. has ever been legal advice, including this.
    1. Re:Can verify this works by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Interesting?

  12. Good bye Martin Shkreli by squiggleslash · · Score: 0

    Can it be used to economically produce Daraprim, and also would Martin Shkreli be hurt in any way if one of these machines, programmed to make Daraprim pills, were to fall on his head?

    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    1. Re:Good bye Martin Shkreli by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Can it be used to economically produce Daraprim, and also would Martin Shkreli be hurt in any way if one of these machines, programmed to make Daraprim pills, were to fall on his head?

      Yeah, so that was a different article, unless you think an iPhone can manufacture drugs.

    2. Re:Good bye Martin Shkreli by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

      Yes, I'm not sure what happened there.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  13. Re:This is the stupidest solution I have ever hear by vtcodger · · Score: 1

    Let me get this straight. You think that just because you bought something, you own it? You sir, are not a 20th century man.

    And if you think Apple is a problem, wait 'til your $25000(US) car won't let you take it to work until you make an appointment with the nearest dealer to have the ashtrays cleaned at a cost of $399.98

    --
    You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
  14. Or by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They could just buy a real phone that lets you manage your storage yourself whenever you want, perhaps even let you install a 128G SD card.

    1. Re:Or by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      They could just buy a real phone that lets you manage your storage yourself whenever you want, perhaps even let you install a 128G SD card.

      I must be doing something wrong. I got a 16GB iPhone with 8GB free.

    2. Re: Or by Karlt1 · · Score: 1

      Yes and you get a 128GB ad card that you can't use to store apps on.

  15. bizarre by unami · · Score: 1

    just tried it with an already "owned" movie in my library and tapped "o.k." instead of "settings". this freed up 300mb. maybe the iphone clears a download-cache when attempting to download something bigger than the available space? doing it for a second time went faster but did nothing.

  16. It's a bug... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm quite sure it's a bug Apple will fix ASAP so you can feel again your mobile is dying and that you need to buy the new mega extra ultra wonderful fantastic cool mesmerizing USA-rulez iPhone 7.

  17. run upgrade. you will get wasted memory back. by swschrad · · Score: 1

    Apple's still using compilers from the BSD v4 era? they fixed that memory clear function long ago.

    --
    if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
  18. What's almost certainly going on by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Every app on iOS is allowed to have its own private temporary directory. However, despite documentation stating that the contents of the directory may be deleted by the operating system, this very rarely happens. The only time I've ever seen it happen is when the device doesn't have enough space for some new content. When that happens, it appears that iOS goes through non-running apps and deletes the contents of their temp directories (probably starting with the app with the biggest temp directory, but maybe not). There's even a special status message that shows up on the home screen for the app while this is happening to it, and you cannot launch an app that is actively having its temp directory cleared.

  19. Re: An article about a reddit thread becomes slash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nope, you're ages out of date with your assumptions.

    Even assuming you're correct in all your assumptions, app executables take up so little space it's not even funny. Most executables (removing any media and content) barely touches 5 or 10mb.

    At this point, Android has ART which basically compiles APKs (executables) when installing so there's it's practically native speed most of the time now.

    As for RAM usage, why would the method of executing affect anything? You still need code loaded somewhere. Sure there might be one interpreter, but again... a few mb.

    With gb at its disposal, any differences are inconsequential. See side-by-side comparison videos - they're practically the same.

  20. Doesn't work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It took away space on mine...any other things I could do?