APFS was introduced in 2017 as the replacement or upgrade from the 30-year-old HFS file system. While HFS still exists on iOS devices, it is no longer being used on newly manufactured products, and older devices are often capable of upgrading to this new file system. APFS is new and we examiners are constantly evolving with it—meaning we don’t know everything just yet!

What we do know is that APFS is now the default file system for iOS (starting with 10.3), tvOS, and watchOS. It’s as if mobile was in mind when APFS was designed. The file system is built to function on solid state storage with latency in mind (faster boot and no need for storing extremely large files, which kill precious mobile space) and provides an overall better experience for the user. HFS+, on the other hand, was built to support really large files, which we don’t commonly see on mobile devices. Bulkiness is not a friend for mobile. 

Of course, Apple maintained the protection it has been offering to the user for quite some time, and APFS doesn’t disappoint. Full disk encryption is enabled, and data protection is in place. These topics will be covered later in this section.¹

Reference:

[1]: https://for585.com/apfs