Recently, people have noticed their iPhone storage filling up, resulting in difficulties using their phone efficiently. In past years, Apple has admitted to slowing down older models of the iPhone through iOS updates that would slow down iPhone processing. Apple defended this process by stating that the “slowdown” was used to lengthen the iPhone’s life because the abilities of the phone batteries decrease over time. Apple settled the case in 2020 and paid out an overall $500 million claim distributed to iPhone users. (BBC) This has now become common knowledge, and individuals typically expect only 2-5 years out of newly bought iPhones.
Some users have begun to question whether Apple’s software indirectly encourages people to upgrade their phones. Many, including myself, have found that their phones have recently reached the max storage capacity. Individuals who have this problem typically have the iPhone 13 or 14. With the coming release of the iPhone 18 in September 2026, this seems like quite a coincidence. People today rely heavily on technology, specifically our phones, for everyday life. Having full iPhone storage results in people being unable to take any new photos or download new apps, but also makes the phone almost impossible to use. It cannot receive any new texts from people, and it frequently deletes sent messages to free up space. Also, apps are continuously offloaded and reset. In some cases, the apps will barely function and frequently crash. iPhones will also sometimes shut off.
So what are some methods to fix this? Trying to delete old apps and going through old photos and removing old texts can be helpful. The problem is that after a large amount of data is deleted, space is freed up for a short amount of time, but soon after, you begin to get alerts about full storage again. Recently, I also deleted 5 GB of storage, and the next day, it said that my phone was full again. Is this another method of Apple getting us to contribute to consumerism, or are our phones truly full?
Either way, the lack of storage requires people to buy new phones because they cannot use their phones. Directly or indirectly, people are forced to upgrade their phone to a new model, because if they get the same phone, they run into the same problems. Even if Apple does not do this on purpose, it is a real problem and interferes with people’s daily lives.
