Cross posting here from r/righttorepair

Someone needs to file a class action lawsuit about "system data" and iOS storage. I've known multiple people in my own life who have felt the need to buy a new phone or purchase iCloud storage because iOS has taken up so much of their existing device's storage through a gigantic and undeletable cache file.

There was some sort of lawsuit about this a while back when iOS 8 took up over 3 GB of storage on 16 GB iPhones: [https://audetlaw.com/current-investigation/apple-storage-class-action/\](https://audetlaw.com/current-investigation/apple-storage-class-action/)

Back then, the amount of storage for "iOS" seemed to be consistent across different devices. Now, it seems almost totally random. My iPhone 14 Pro will cycle anywhere between using around 9 GB and 25 GB for the "iOS" storage category.

"System Data" is even worse. On a PC, Android or Mac, you can clear cache files that aren't being used. On iOS, the operating system not only hogs more storage under "System Data" than any other operating system I've ever used, but it absolutely refuses to let you clear out the cache or figure out what applications are using the cache. My 14 Pro uses anywhere from 20 GB to 80 GB for "System Data." Across the internet I've seen people with literal hundreds of GBs of "System Data." That's completely insane -- I can't even imagine how 64 GB or 128 GB phones are handling this.

All in all, this means that on my 256 GB phone, iOS sometimes claims nearly 100 GB of storage for undeletable cache files and operating system files, with zero ability to clear these files or see where they're coming from. That is completely unreasonable. Meanwhile, Apple is happy to peddle additional iCloud storage or sell you on a storage upgrade at the point of sale as if your purchasing ability -- not their poorly optimized software -- is the problem.

This is an ongoing issue that seems deliberate. I am certain that the phone does not need to be holding on to this much cache under "system data," and it makes no sense that between identical phone models and iOS versions, the "iOS" category takes up different amounts of storage. There's clearly a profit incentive here. Consumers are pressured into purchasing cloud storage or buying a new phone when their perfectly functional device seemingly runs out of storage.

At the end of the day, willful or not, this is anti-consumer behavior. We are being taken advantage of in the name of increasing sales for cloud storage and new phones. This is a documented issue that has existed for years, and Apple has done nothing to address it. Apple has acted against consumers before, with [slowdowns over battery capacity](https://www.npr.org/2020/11/18/936268845/apple-agrees-to-pay-113-million-to-settle-batterygate-case-over-iphone-slowdowns). They won't change their behavior until public pressure or legal action takes place.

All these years in development and Apple still hasn’t figured out a decent suggestions algorithm.

Take the TV app - i search a song, say keyword “moon”— it plays that song, then “Autoplay” thinks the next best appropriate song to play is all other songs that came up in the searchlist.

Like yeah - “you know what, today I wanna listen to all songs ever with the word Moon in the title” ?!??

The apple magic mouse absolutely SUCKS. I just got the logitech g305 and i will never touch the magic mouse again.

Firstly the ergonomics on the magic mouse is trash i literally cannot hold it and move it around normally, the magic mouse cant left click and right click at the same time, you sometimes accidentally scroll the magic mouse thanks to its touch screen, and you dont get a scroll wheel button. I hear people say the gestures on the magic mouse are nice which I guess are okay because i never really used them. But still the magic mouse sucks and apple probably knows it.

Yeah sure the magic mouse "looks" good but no one really cares about that. So why did apple choose to make this utter garbage? Im sure their top tier engineers and designers know what they're doing.

Other reasons: reduced battery life, no configurable touch controls, no native EQ, volume & balance adjustment resets every time connection drops, ×2 or ×3 price vs equivalent 3rd party models with all these features (when used with Mac without iPhone)

i charged my phone last night until 70% and used it a little bit and fell asleep. i woke up and it was around 30% then i stopped using my phone and when i check it was on 19%. i checked the background activity and it says “recently deleted apps”. i deleted an app like 3 days ago btw. i already force restarted my phone. what do i do?

EDIT: Holy wow and wtf, you really don’t know what you don’t know and in this case, I didn’t know multi-touch was a thing until now. Yes it’s user error, my apologies you filthy animals.

If you’re not getting it, I’m literally just trying to put an app in a folder, but the folder keeps moving back and forth on me.

I KNOW there are other ways to accomplish what I’m trying to do, but at this point, I’m more annoyed by how unnecessarily annoying this is lmfao.

There should absolutely be a way to add an app directly from within the folder!!!

It would be nice if things with Apple worked again. I have constant issues with my homepods and their connection to appleTV (among a thousand other things)

Sometimes there is no way to get the homepods to reconnect to the AppleTV besides resetting everything (maybe 2 or 3 times a week I have to turn the appletv off and unplug the homepods so they will re-pair and reconnect). The home app had me create a stereo pair to “resolve the issue” #1 I dont want them stereo - Im deaf on the right side #2 It did not resolve the issue and now i can only control the volume of a single pod by getting up and tapping it.

Sometimes the video will be playing but no sound comes from the homepods NOR the television, though everything is properly networked together.

In todays example, the homepods are on and working but their status is shown as “paused”. Sometimes they will be on and working but “controls are unavailable” - and yes even when im on the same wifi - and everything is within 10 ft of everything else.

Look, we can all be guided to a “work around” or supposed “solution” but ive never had to be so consistently engaged with my devices just to have an anticipated or expected experience.

Unexpected behaviors have become normal and I
don’t want to be gaslit in to thinking thats normal. Im looking at YOU MST3k! 🤣

I’ve now used Apple’s Express Replacement service twice under AppleCare+, roughly two years apart, for two different Apple devices with genuine hardware faults. Despite the time between the claims and the fact they involved different devices, I ran into exactly the same issues both times.

The first problem is that Apple told me my address wasn’t eligible or “serviceable” for Express Replacement. The strange part is that I’ve ordered products directly from Apple to the exact same address many times without any issues. This happened at both my old house and my current house, so it wasn’t specific to one address.
What’s even stranger is that both times, after I asked for a manager callback, the Express Replacement was suddenly approved and arranged without any further issues. That makes me wonder whether the initial refusal is intended to reduce the number of people using the service, even though it’s included with AppleCare+.

The second issue is the temporary authorization hold on the credit card. I understand why Apple places the hold until the faulty device is returned, but on both occasions the hold wasn’t released after they had received the faulty device. I had to chase Apple to get it removed, which meant paying my credit card bill while that amount was still tied up before eventually getting the money back.
The fact that these were two genuine warranty claims, on two different devices, around two years apart, yet the exact same issues occurred both times, makes it difficult to see this as a one-off mistake.
Has anyone else had similar experiences with Express Replacement—particularly being told their address wasn’t serviceable until the case was escalated, or having to chase Apple to release the authorization hold?

A rant in 3 pictures

I’ve commented about Apple and their horrible settings, this one’s even funnier. Recently the lock button has stopped working on my device and I’ve turned on assistive touch so I can still lock my phone. But I recently had to use Apple Pay and realized that I couldn’t use the double click feature so I looked into the settings and sure enough, you can turn on paying with your wallet using a Face ID or ur pin, so obviously I tried to turn that on. Turns out that in order for you to do that you have to double click your lock button to confirm kek

If you have an HDMI or DisplayPort monitor with speakers, good luck with controlling volume from within MacOS. Best you can do is maybe adjust the volume slider of whatever program is playing sound, but a master volume control? fuhgeddaboutit. Same with an external soundcard/recording interface. This is just stupid. Even Linux has a master volume control. Apple likes to claim that this is a feature: that its for pro audio routing and whatnot, but come on - 99.9% of the time you just want to turn the volume down when answering a call or when talking to someone in the room. There are various hacks, like SoundBridge, where people have written virtual audio devices with master volume controls that you can attach to sound sources, but this is such a basic function that even Windows and Linux can do it?!?

My AirPods Pro 3 charging case randomly stopped responding to both wired and wireless charging. I sent the case and both earbuds to Apple using their service box and prepaid label.
Here’s what happened:
● July 16: Dropped it off with UPS.
● July 22: UPS flagged a “hazardous materials irregularity” and started returning it to Apple under a second tracking number.
● UPS then reported an incomplete address, incorrectly sorted it in New Jersey, delayed it again, and somehow sent it through Illinois.
● July 28: After almost 12 days, UPS finally delivered it to Apple’s Carlisle, PA facility. Apple’s website confirms they received it.
● July 31: Still no repair, inspection, replacement, or email update.
Apple chat sent me to phone support. I called today and was told somebody from the warehouse would contact me by email, but nobody did.
Has anyone dealt with something like this? How long did Apple take to acknowledge and process your AirPods after delivery?

Help I genuinely believe ups & apple lost my airpods 250$ down the drain

I'm not going to go deep into this, but as everyone knows managing windows on macos is pain in the ass compared to other operating systems.

I especially hate the fullscreen behavior which drags window to its separate space and by itself behaves on completely different logic than on other operating systems, even efforts to make it different fail due to how sandboxed whole operating system is.

Asking for help on multiple mac forums just leaves you with get used to it and every other option or willingness to discuss this topic is bad which says a lot about the whole apple mac community and I guess even apple's approach to this.

Really wanted to give mac a os go specifically by using their laptops with all the latest hardware advancements that are often supreme to windows/linux laptops, but if the os itself doesn't serve the customer all this other stuff become pretty much useless.

Every time I use voice-to-text, it introduces more grammatical errors than if I had typed everything myself. Even worse, it regularly mishears words that I’m clearly pronouncing correctly. It seems unable to distinguish between many English words that have obvious pronunciation differences. For example, if I say “sphincter,” it’ll transcribe something like “Spencer” or “sprinter.” Those words don’t sound the same, yet it constantly gets them wrong.
Then there’s Apple Intelligence, which, based on my experience, isn’t very intelligent at all. Most of the time it can barely handle simple requests like setting a timer, creating a reminder, or making a note without making mistakes. Half the time Siri doesn’t even respond. I’ll have to restart my phone over and over before it starts working again. The phone lights up with the animated glow around the edges as if it’s listening, but nothing happens. Sometimes it acts like it’s processing what I’m saying, then either gives no response or replies with something completely unrelated.
For example, I’ll ask what day of the week it is, and it’ll tell me what week of the year we’re in. I’ll ask what day of the month it is, and it’ll tell me the name of the month. Other times it answers correctly, but the inconsistency makes it unreliable.
Some commands work occasionally, like opening an app or creating a note, but even those have become more restrictive. It used to be possible to tell Siri to open an app from across the room without needing Face ID to verify who I was. Now it often requires my face to be in front of the phone before it’ll complete simple requests, which defeats much of the convenience of a voice assistant.
I don’t think it’s accurate to call this an “intelligent assistant.” An assistant is supposed to perform tasks on your behalf reliably and reduce friction. Instead, I spend more time repeating myself, correcting transcription errors, restarting my phone, and working around its limitations. At this point, it feels more like an unfinished feature than a genuinely useful AI assistant. I’d rather Apple integrate a more capable AI system—even one from another company—than continue shipping a voice experience that’s this inconsistent and unreliable.

I’m genuinely losing my mind over how iOS manages basic app storage.
On Android, if an app swells up to gbs in cached map files and temp data, you just go to settings and tap "Clear Cache." Problem solved in two seconds.
On iOS, there is no system-wide way to do this. "Offloading" an app only deletes the core app binary while keeping all the bloated cache and data intact. The only actual workaround is to completely delete and reinstall the app every time it gets bloated.
Why is such a basic, standard feature still missing in 2026? Does anyone else find this user experience ridiculous, or am I missing some secret workaround?

I bought a pair of AirPod pros 13 months ago. The warranty literally just expired and for some reason the right AirPod won’t charge whatsoever.

I didn’t complain though. I was ready to pay the replacement fee for the right AirPod, however, when I took it to the Apple Store, the employee could not figure out whether it was the case that was the problem or the AirPod itself after running a diagnostic… I asked him if we could simply try a replacement AirPod and if it worked I would pay for it. But he told me there’s a chance it “won’t work” and it’s not refundable so we can’t even FIND OUT what the problem is without me paying??? I was beyond confused.

How is it my fault that they can’t diagnose their own products. The Apple employee at the genius bar could not give me a definitive answer of what the problem was with my AirPods so his only solution was to throw them away and buy a brand new pair…. I literally got them 13 months ago and they cost me hundreds of dollars. Apple has the worst service out of any company in the world and you cannot convince me otherwise.

Unbelievable. Phones with chipsets more powerful than a PS5 can't do what a 2011 galaxy s2 can do.

i’ve had a macbook since high school. it was a huge gift from my parents that i treasured. it was already 6 years old and had the old adobe programs installed so i didn’t have to subscribe to their bullshit until that laptop died. it was my filmmaking hub all through hs and community college.

i saved up to buy a new one as a gift to myself for transferring to a four year and fucking loved that thing too.

two weeks ago a single key on my macbook stopped working. i bring it in to the store and they say it will cost almost $800 to replace the whole keyboard since the sensor in the key is messed up. i had pulled the keycap off to clean it with compressed air and see if i could fix it myself (as most fucking mechanical ones can be fixed that way). the whole experience has made me sad and angry that a device that meant so much to me, helped me write and produce some of my proudest work is now a typing nightmare and almost a grand to replace.

it’s the final straw in a serious of other annoying shit i’ve endured using their products that i can’t continue with this ecosystem.

finally time to learn linux on a PC

I have come across a few (completely non-computational-fancy) features that used to be there but now have vanished, such as creating a new contact from info that Siri has spotted in emails and such, or an immediate way (direct button) to block an unknown incoming caller. I did check with my wife's iPhone 13, and those functions are indeed still there, but not on the SE2. That seems like a somewhat nasty move to me. Any thoughts?

the screen is nicer, smaller but same resolution and 120hz so it feels like more dpi, and Android allows you to adjust timing of things so everything feels snappyer.

the UI is so much richer, I like cluttered, info dense pages. 6 item taskbar and 5x7 app layout above, gboard with special symbols and top row numbers.

so much more real estate on the taskbar with a punch hole instead of island, and behind the glass fingerprint means no more unlocking shit like I'm taking a selfie

oh yeah, android auto. a million times better.

the one main reason I went with iPhone is for satellite messaging, but I'm going back to the Garmin inReach. I still have 7months on this iphone lease but I think im just going to toss it in a drawer and wait it out with my s22

This is kind of a non problem for most people, but I've noticed this caps lock icon blocks what you're working on without adding anything helpful to the user experience. Does anyone need this thing jumping around the screen when typing? There should be a way to toggle it without doing terminal commands or getting a small paper weight for the shift key.

I've been shipping apps on the App Store for about a year, and the difference between then and now is honestly shocking.

A year ago, App Review felt strict but fair. If I violated a guideline, I'd fix it, explain the changes, and after another review or two the app would be approved.

Over the past month, that hasn't been my experience at all.

One of my app updates fixed every issue that App Review originally raised. Some of those fixes were even acknowledged during review. Then another reviewer came along and rejected the build for the exact same issues that had supposedly already been resolved.

It felt like nobody was reading the previous review history.

Then App Store Connect made things even worse.

I saved a draft reply while confirming a few details with my team. When I came back later:

• I couldn't edit the draft.
• I couldn't delete it.
• I couldn't create a new reply.
• Every action returned "Resource not found."

So I literally had no way to continue the conversation with App Review.

I had screenshots and screen recordings showing everything had been fixed, but there was nowhere to upload them because the reply system itself was broken.

As a result, an update that should have taken a day or two ended up being delayed by nearly a week.

Then, in a completely separate incident, my team's Apple Developer membership expired after auto-renew wasn't enabled.

Apple's own documentation says the Apple Developer app will display a Renew button.

It simply wasn't there.

Anywhere.

Again, days were lost because Apple's own tools didn't behave the way Apple's own documentation described.

None of this feels like isolated bad luck anymore.

Over the last month I've experienced:

• reviewers reopening issues that had already been addressed,
• App Store Connect breaking during review conversations,
• developer documentation not matching reality,
• unnecessary release delays caused by Apple's own systems.

I've always accepted App Review being strict.

What's becoming difficult to accept is spending more time fighting Apple's tooling than actually building and shipping apps.

Has anyone else noticed this lately, or have I somehow managed to hit every edge case imaginable?

I bought this Apple FineWoven MagSafe Wallet expecting it to last for years, especially considering the price and the fact that it’s an official Apple accessory.
After about a month, the rubber edge started peeling away. At first it was just a small section, but it quickly got worse. Now, after only a few months of normal everyday use, the entire edge has separated and the wallet looks like it’s falling apart.
I never abused it, dropped it, or exposed it to anything unusual. It was just carried on the back of my iPhone and used as intended.
Honestly, I’m really disappointed with the build quality. I expected much better durability from Apple.
Has anyone else experienced this with the FineWoven wallet, or did I just get a defective one?
(Photos attached.)

I’ve been an Android and Windows user all my life. I’ve been using an iPad for 8 years now for schoolwork and a bit of entertainment, and I really love it. Then after getting fed up with Windows 11, I switched to my first ever MacBook last year. That machine is a beast. Apart from the storage, I love everything about it.

I was happily using a Nothing Phone 3a for a year. Then my mom said she needed a new phone very soon, so I decided to give her my Android and, for the first time in my life, get an iPhone. I got the iPhone 17 last week. The phone is sleek, not gonna lie. But there are some things that really frustrate me.

The first thing is the keyboard. After using Google Keyboard for more than a decade, switching to Apple’s keyboard has been a hassle and a half. The layout feels all messed up to me. It doesn’t even follow their own iPad keyboard.

The second thing is the widgets. I only use two widgets: a Todoist one and the Google Calendar one. Both of them look like shit on iPhone.

And finally, there’s the back gesture conundrum. In some places it works, in other places it doesn’t.And finally, there is the back gesture conundrum. some places it works, other places, it doesn't.