Just got new iphone 7, and using only 10 of 32gb, but confused: icloud says I'm using 25 of 50GB ....

So why does the phone say I'm using 10GB... Happy about that.. but want know....

It depends on the kind of data and the selected options. For example if Settings > Photos is set for Optimized storage the images on the iPhone are optimized for display on the iPhone Screen and a fraction of the size of the full resolution images stored on iCloud. The only place the optimized images are used is when you look at them in Photos on the iPhone. Image editing, sending images, sharing images all automatically use the iCloud version. That is the most obvious size difference, but there are lots of other file optimizations that are less noticeable including automatic data compression of all files on the iPhone.

Thanks Joe, yeah, icloud says I'm using 25 of 50 GB and I think desktop and laptop will concur with that.

Whereas the iphone says I'm using 10GB of 32 GB.

But they are all tied to icloud, so bit confusing.

I'm happy though... as I've only got 32 gb with phone, whereas the computer have way more.

Most of that 10GB for iphone is system.

When you look at iCloud that includes only the data from all your devices including backups of all of them but not the System, Apps, and Tunes as those are stored on the App Store servers. When you look at your iPhone that only reports local storage on the iPhone itself — which includes the system, tunes, apps, and app data. So as there is no practical way to make a direct comparison, especially when storage compression, and image optimization on the iPhone is thrown into the mix.

Thanks Joe good to know.. and with desktop/ laptop, different as they use "mobile documents"... mobile documents says 25 GB which is about what icloud says is being used.. very different than iphone which does not have a mobile documents system.