I’m thinking of purchasing an ipad mini. The most storage for that is 256gb. My iphone 12pro has 512Gb. I want to use both devices interchangeably (with same icloud/Apple ID account).
What problems will I run into? Will I not be able to open my Icloud/Apple ID on the mini?
Thanks
iPhone X, iOS 12
Having devices of different internal capacity generally only becomes an issue if you attempt to restore an iCloud or iTunes backup that is larger than the device itself can accommodate.
By example, if your iPhone is using less than 50% of its internal storage, any iTunes or iCloud backup of the device will be less than 256GB - and can therefore be restored to either your iPhone or your iPad mini (the latter having 256GB of internal storage). Don’t forget, any data that is already synchronised with iCloud is already excluded from a backup, making the backup file smaller still. By extension, any backup created from the iPad mini can be restored to either the iPad mini, or to your iPhone that has more internal storage than the iPad.
Only if your iPhone backup exceeds the internal capacity of the iPad will you be unable to restore an iPhone backup to the iPad.
In reality, unless you habitually attempt to restore very large backups created on one device to a separate device of different internal capacity, you are very unlikely to encounter any difficulties. For the most part, you will likely keep an independent backup of both the iPad and iPhone - and should the worst occur, will restore the specific backup to the matching device.
Remember, data synchronised with iCloud and between devices via iCloud - is not included within an iCloud backup as this data is effectively already backed-up in iCloud storage.
In conclusion, you are unlikely to encounter difficulties when using devices with different internal capacity - unless your intention is to completely mirror all data stored on both devices. In this (perhaps unusual) circumstance, you will be unable to use all of the available storage of your iPhone.
Speaking of my own usage, my primary iPad has 1TB internal storage, while my iPhone has 512GB. Both devices share data via iCloud - within which device backup data of multiple devices occupies ~40GB of available iCloud storage. Most other data is shared via iCloud, local storage providing a local cache for performance and offline access.
I hope this insight and clarification may be helpful to you.
Having devices of different internal capacity generally only becomes an issue if you attempt to restore an iCloud or iTunes backup that is larger than the device itself can accommodate.
By example, if your iPhone is using less than 50% of its internal storage, any iTunes or iCloud backup of the device will be less than 256GB - and can therefore be restored to either your iPhone or your iPad mini (the latter having 256GB of internal storage). Don’t forget, any data that is already synchronised with iCloud is already excluded from a backup, making the backup file smaller still. By extension, any backup created from the iPad mini can be restored to either the iPad mini, or to your iPhone that has more internal storage than the iPad.
Only if your iPhone backup exceeds the internal capacity of the iPad will you be unable to restore an iPhone backup to the iPad.
In reality, unless you habitually attempt to restore very large backups created on one device to a separate device of different internal capacity, you are very unlikely to encounter any difficulties. For the most part, you will likely keep an independent backup of both the iPad and iPhone - and should the worst occur, will restore the specific backup to the matching device.
Remember, data synchronised with iCloud and between devices via iCloud - is not included within an iCloud backup as this data is effectively already backed-up in iCloud storage.
In conclusion, you are unlikely to encounter difficulties when using devices with different internal capacity - unless your intention is to completely mirror all data stored on both devices. In this (perhaps unusual) circumstance, you will be unable to use all of the available storage of your iPhone.
Speaking of my own usage, my primary iPad has 1TB internal storage, while my iPhone has 512GB. Both devices share data via iCloud - within which device backup data of multiple devices occupies ~40GB of available iCloud storage. Most other data is shared via iCloud, local storage providing a local cache for performance and offline access.
I hope this insight and clarification may be helpful to you.
You can use same Apple ID on devices with different storage. iCloud and the other Apple services will work on both devices.
as stated there is no problem using them on the same appleID/icloud account but you likely can't restore the ipad from a backup of the iphone
You can open your email and Apple ID on the mini. You simply cannot download all of the items offline to your iPad
Ipad Capacity less than Iphone
