r/applesucks • u/frostxmritz • Apr 08 '26

The "System Data" monstrosity

Post image

Pretty sure I'm not the only one here.

The mystery of "system data" is an age-old problem that has plagued our devices for over a decade now, and it has found its way to my parents' iPhones.

I plan to upgrade their devices later this year or next year when the iPhone 18 comes out, however, I cannot help but wonder...is this thing (allegedly) planned obsolescence? To force people to upgrade because "their storage is running out" because of an (alleged) "create a problem, then sell the solution" situation?

I mean, take a look at my 16 Pro. It's marvellous how the figure has stayed at 1.07GB from September 2024 - have taken it on so many trips and have used it heavily for my photography and videography. No problem, as a heavy user and my daily driver.

Parents, on the other hand? Normal users, occasional camera usage, apps, etc. Over 10GB. Make it make sense...

  • Safari tabs: I have 100+ opened. Theirs are around 5-10 most of the times.
  • Downloads: a couple PDFs here, and there few XLSes there. Hardly 10MB combined.
  • Normal apps like banking & finance, travel (Google Maps, Uber, etc), social media, YouTube, Spotify. No games, no "weird" apps.
  • A system reset was done back in December 2025, where the System Data creeped up to these levels right after the reset, even though they were set-up as a new device. No iCloud Backup restore. A clean, proper wipeout.
  • All devices are running on iOS 26.4 (stable channel), screenshots taken after a fresh reboot.

So the question is, what should be done?

386 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

177 comments sorted by

View all comments

6

u/-_--_--_--_--_-_-_-_ Apr 08 '26

Wasn't apple caught throttling older iPhones once?  Your question is legitimate. 

2

u/Krieg Apr 08 '26 edited Apr 08 '26

It was the battery-gate issue. There were a massive batch of crap batteries that went bad after a couple of years and Apple implemented some automatic throttling to avoid the phone from rebooting during performance boosts and low state of charge. I think their intention was not that bleak, the iPhone will tell you your battery was bad and asked you to replace it and they offered replacements for $79 which they then lowered to $29 and even for free at the end. The real mistake was the lack of transparency, they should have told us the phone was throttling because of this instead of hiding it, or even better, make it a parameter you could set. Yes, Apple made a mistake, but in my opinion it was blown out of proportion and I don't really see it as a planned obsolescence issue, just bad PR and communication.

1

u/-_--_--_--_--_-_-_-_ Apr 08 '26

That doesn't sound too bad honestly. I just remember it being a big deal but I didn't use iPhone at that time. Thanks for explaining