First U2 ate your iPhone space. Now a new update from Apple requires anywhere from 4.6GB to 5.7GB of space in order to install iOS 8. iPhone users have been taking to Twitter to declare their anguish as they had to delete hundreds of photos, songs, apps, their soul, and the family cat, in order to free up enough space for the massive download.
When finished, the actual iOS 8 will only take up 1.1GB on your phone but the installation package itself requires the extra space.
But don't tap the delete button just yet. There is an easy way to update your phones without having to wipe out everything else in it.
In order to update your iPhone without the need to erase all your precious memories and data, you'll need to plug your phone into your PC or laptop and fire up iTunes. Make sure you have the latest version of iTunes installed to that it can correctly download iOS 8.
But wait! There are a few things you need to do to ensure that you update your phone easily and safely.
Back up your iPhone. You can back up to iTunes and, better yet, also back up to iCloud so that you'll always have a restore point should anything go haywire during the updating process.
Check for updates. Make sure that you click the correct option for updates and not the Restore iPhone button which will restore your iPhone to the factory settings. But even if you do accidentally click that option, luckily, you backed up your iPhone to iTunes and iCloud before getting to this step, right?
Update and install. You may now begin downloading the installation files for iOS 8 update. Since the download will go into your computer, you don't need to delete a single file on your phone in order to make room for it.
Once you have iOS 8 installed, you can enjoy all the extra features that Apple crammed into the update such as the ability to do time-lapse photography, the ability to share files with different apps, accept calls from your laptop, reply to messages directly from the notification screen, a new Health app, and much more.
