Besides other improvements, one important iOS 9 feature called "app slicing" was supposed to make life easier for owners of iPhones, especially those with just 16GB of storage memory (or less). That feature, however, did not go live with iOS 9 due to an iCloud bug, Apple disclosed in an announcement to developers.
"App slicing is currently unavailable for iOS 9 apps due to an issue affecting iCloud backups created from iOS 9 where some apps from the App Store would only restore to the same model of iOS device," said Apple's post, dated Thursday.
Part of a group of updates called App Thinning, app slicing makes sure you only download the parts of app necessary for your device, instead of the universal version, which is larger and covers all device types. The upshot is that apps take up less room.
It's unclear whether other parts of the App Thinning group are functional, but app slicing is the most significant one, meaning iDevice users running iOS 9 won't notice much of a change in their app size.
According to Apple, app slicing will become available in a "future software update;" no time frame was given. On Thursday, the company released the iOS 9.0.1 update to users, fixing several bugs, but app slicing wasn't mentioned in the release notes.
While this essentially means "no change" for users, it's a nasty surprise for iPhone and iPad owners struggling with limited storage space, and who had hoped for the issue to be alleviated with iOS 9.
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