What is "other"

[lancpa]

When syncing my phone it says I have 3.12gigs of "other". What is this and how can I remove it. I went as far as removing my music, pics, podcasts, but it did not effect it. I noticed when I first synced the only thing that it had in the capacity was this 2.12 gigs of "other" and nothing else until the sync was complete.
"Other" seems to be taking up a lot of space

[impaler]

When syncing my phone it says I have 3.12gigs of "other". What is this and how can I remove it. I went as far as removing my music, pics, podcasts, but it did not effect it. I noticed when I first synced the only thing that it had in the capacity was this 2.12 gigs of "other" and nothing else until the sync was complete.
"Other" seems to be taking up a lot of space

I could be wrong...but it might be operating system and applications that perhaps can't (or I guess I should say "shouldn't") be removed.

[Jetprop]

When syncing my phone it says I have 3.12gigs of "other". What is this and how can I remove it. I went as far as removing my music, pics, podcasts, but it did not effect it. I noticed when I first synced the only thing that it had in the capacity was this 2.12 gigs of "other" and nothing else until the sync was complete.
"Other" seems to be taking up a lot of space

I had the same problem with 2.16 GB of "other" even after I had removed all music, photos, videos, etc. Didn't seem to be any way to get rid of it, so I did a restore via iTunes. That did the trick. My "other" is now 12.8 MB and I am now reloading my music. Fortunately, the restore does not wipe out contacts and calendar entries, but it does wipe out all e-mail. For info, I have a Windows Vista computer and am using Outlook 2007 as my contact and calendar database.

[Jetprop]

I beleive the "other" data is software. You can not delete it, and if there is a way to, it would most likely completely screw up your iPhone. I don't know about taking up a lot of space though. Mine is just a sliver.

Well, I think that is the issue. My "other" was also a sliver when I first got the iPhone. But after I experimented with loading and removing some music, videos, podcasts, etc. The "other" was now over 60% of the total memory. That's not internal software, but is probably a fault in the way the iPhone memory is configured. The fact that a total restore brings "other" back to a small value indicates that it is a memory configuration problem. If I have the time and the inclination I'll call the Apple support folks and see if they have an answer and will report back.

[spyrwebs]

i believe thats the data for text, email, bookmarks, and cache. It gives i false reading when you disconect your iphone before it finishes syncing or other reasons. If deleting the data dosent work then only a restore would help you.

[mike3141]

I noticed when I first loaded some DVD-ripped videos onto my iPhone that they weren't accounted for in the "video" bar but show up as "other". I went back and changed the file type to "m4v" instead of "mp4" and resync'd and then the files went into the "video" usage and the "other" dropped back to a small amount.

[lancpa]

All Fixed!!! After talking to Apple support and a restore it is back to normal. Apple said they have had some problems with this and they are looking into it. He was not sure how it happens but the phone may be copying files that are already on the phone. I thought it was weird when I added up my audio, video and photos it had the same gigs(3.12) as the "other" catagory.
I was very pleased with apples support they were all very professional and willing to answer off topic questions(especially when it was restoring, it takes a while and I didn't like the dead air). I think Apple engineering keeps the techs in the dark. They can't give you an answer if they don't know what it is. (ie updates, new phones, changes, etc......) I bet when the techs get to the restore part of the process they roll there eyes and say here we go again with the same questions I can't give anwswers too.