Apple's next big iPhone update will have one incredibly useful feature if you're running out of storage

Håkan Dahlström / FlickrThe second version of the iOS 9 beta has a useful feature that temporarily deletes some of your apps while you update iOS if you don't have any available storage, MacRumors reported Tuesday.

Once the update is installed, your apps will supposedly re-install automatically.

So, if you're trying to update your iPhone's software but the device doesn't have enough space, a popup alert will appear saying:

Insufficient Space For Download. In order to make room for the software update, some apps will need to be temporarily deleted. All deleted apps will automatically be replaced after the update is complete. Would you like to continue?

It's not clear whether this automatic storage management feature will work when you update to iOS 9 from iOS 8 or if it will work after you install iOS 9. Either way, it could ensure that every user can download and install the latest updates on their iOS devices, no matter how much or how little space they may have left.

For example, those with 16 GB iOS devices would normally delete and re-install apps manually upon receiving the alert that their device didn't have enough space for a new iOS update. Apple's new feature essentially automates this process for them.

At its WWDC event earlier this month, Apple revealed that its iOS 9 update will be a much smaller file size - just 1.3 GB - compared to iOS 8, which was a whopping 4.58 GB. This caused frustration among customers, and iOS 8 adoption rates suffered due to the sheer size of the file. At the time, however, Apple made no mention of this space-saving feature, and whether or not it would be available to use for the iOS 9 update.

Another space saving measure in iOS 9 that Apple didn't mention at WWDC is "app thinning," which installs slimmer version of apps without the features that your iOS device may not support. For example, if an app has an Apple Pay feature but you have an older iPhone that's not compatible with Apple Pay, the parts of the app that specifically use Apple Pay won't be installed on your phone, which saves storage space.

So, while iOS 8 got off to a rough start, the automatic storage management feature in iOS 9 could eliminate this storage obstacle that affected certain users more than others. And if more iOS devices update to iOS 9, Apple can dedicate more resources towards newer versions of iOS instead of spending energy on maintaining the older versions.

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