16GB iPhone user with iOS 10.3 Apple File System (APFS)? Does the space free up?

[mlody]

iPhone 5S 16 GB

I do not have any numbers before the update, but I am now running 10.3.1 and the phone is empty (I am putting it for sale) and I see the following numbers:

capacity: 12.46 GB
available: 11.57 GB

 

[Mlrollin91]

Update:
After a month of usage, I've lost about half a gig of free space without installing any new app. So it's more like 1.9gb to 2.8gb in free space.

That's because of system cache build up. You can use apps like Magic Cleaner to wipe the cache or PhoneClean on Mac to wipe diagnostic logs. Those can get pretty large in size.

The next update will clean your system cache and you will see some space return. But as you use the phone, it will be used up until the next update or you manually clean the cache.

 

[mikecwest]

I gained considerable space. I had 800mb free. After update I have 2.6GB.

Can't say why. Maybe the update cleans some temporary files, maybe deletes 32bit libraries...

It could be the minimum sector size has been reduced. I remember long ago, a file on a Mac had to be 4k..no smaller, as that was the minimum sector size. Since that time, it has been reduced, I am not certain of the exact time frame involved, but lets say the next level was a minimum sector size of 1k, and you have 30000 files that are 1.5k, they no longer need to use 4k of space. You will have saved 2.k*30,000 of disk space..

I am certainly not an expert on the subject, and may have not explained perfectly....but certainly the minimum sector size could make a difference on a smaller device, such as a 16GB iPhone...There are probably millions of small localization files that are actually smaller than those minimum sector sizes. On a 1TB drive in your iMac, it probably won't make a difference, but if you can save 250MB on a 16GB iPhone, it might be noticed.