This time, if you have any attachment to the data on your iPhone or iPad - for example if you would be devastated to lose some or all of your photos or music - then you really need to make the effort before updating to iOS 10.3
The reason for the warning is an upgrade in iOS 10.3 to a new Apple File System (APFS). The new file system will be shared across all Apple products using macOS, iOS, tvOS and watchOS.
It will replace the Apple Hierarchical File System (HFS+) which has been used by Apple for almost 30 years, since the birth of the Mac in 1985.
During the iOS 10.3 update, APFS will automatically convert files on your iPhone or iPad to work with the new file system.
However, given APFS and HFS+ are incompatible, should any glitch occur during the switchover, your data could disappear into the ether never to be seen again.
Don't know how to back up? Here's the directions: How to Back Up
As consumers we won't really notice any significant differences on the surface, but benefits in the back end mean the upgrade to the new file system is a no-brainer.
The main benefits can be loosely categorised as
For the more technically-minded there's a list of benefits below - but for most of us the main reason to update is the new file system sets our devices up for future innovation.
In the 30 years since the development of HFS, we've gone from the Mac to the iPhone, Apple TV, iPad, and Apple Watch. We've seen Apple grow from a few million devices to over a billion devices. Our useage has skyrocketed from kilobytes and megabytes of data to gigabytes, terabytes, and beyond.
According to BackBlaze, a California-based company that specialises in backups, we really don't have a choice but to upgrade:
Apple’s paving the way to store lots more data with APFS. HFS+ supports 32-bit file IDs, for example, while APFS ups that to 64-bit. That means that today, your Mac can keep track of about 4 billion individual pieces of information on its hard drive. APFS ups that to 9 quintillion. That’s a nine followed by 18 zeroes (actually, much more than that, because of hexadecimal values).
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As promised, for those who appreciate the detail and courtesty of PC Magazine, the key benefits of APFS are:
APFS was introduced to the world at the Apple Worldwide Developers' Conference in San Francisco in June last year. Watch this video of Eric Tamura, Apple manager, File Storage systems, describe the innovation.
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