Both of those things are kept low by Apple on purpose
Either pay up for on device storage (at exorbitant rates) or pony up to help Apple Services Revenue with iCloud plans
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Apple's Base 128GB iPhone Storage Tier Needs to Go
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Both of those things are kept low by Apple on purpose
Either pay up for on device storage (at exorbitant rates) or pony up to help Apple Services Revenue with iCloud plans
Not all things are for all users. So many just refuse to understand this.
I’m using less than 100GB on my iPhone and I haven’t even tried to free up space. I’m sure I could free up 10 more gigabytes in under a minute.
In other words, what everyone is really saying is that Apple should sell the 256GB option for the price of the 128GB option.
If Apple dropped the 128GB model but kept the prices the same, y'all would still be complaining.
If Apple dropped the 128GB model but kept the prices the same, y'all would still be complaining.
It started with 4 at $499, and 8 at $599, but in September, alongside the launch of the iPod touch, the iPhone 4gb was dropped and 8gb became $399.
I suspect a majority of 'typical' iPhone users are doing just fine with 128 GB. Remember that a huge portion of users are using their phones as PHONES primarily, maybe some maps, email, web browsing, and photos. Heck, a majority of the people in my life would be hard pressed to figure out doing offline maps, or anything else that uses much storage other than pictures, without instructions and a number of them probably haven't downloaded a new app in over a year.
If you use your phone heavily, YOU should be responsible enough to realize you might need more storage. I've never owned a phone with the base storage. I also don't buy laptops or iPads with the base storage, I know I should have more.
I will 100% agree on the iCloud storage though. 5 GB is a joke at this point. Every person I know has to pay for an upgrade with most on the 200 GB plan or higher (which means even if they upgraded to 10-20 GB by default many users would still pay for upgrades).
If you use your phone heavily, YOU should be responsible enough to realize you might need more storage. I've never owned a phone with the base storage. I also don't buy laptops or iPads with the base storage, I know I should have more.
I will 100% agree on the iCloud storage though. 5 GB is a joke at this point. Every person I know has to pay for an upgrade with most on the 200 GB plan or higher (which means even if they upgraded to 10-20 GB by default many users would still pay for upgrades).
Wait... why the above, but then those same people mentioned in the quote below need to pay for iCloud storage?
See what's going on?
They do need the storage and Apple have rigged this to get people hooked on a never ending subscription.
"Services growth!"
Yep, same here... many people here who are somewhat tech-oriented *assume* that everyone else in the world are just like them.
When in reality Apple's wide customer base are just ordinary people who aren't into tech. Teachers, real estate agents, postal carriers, nurses, retail clerks, gardeners, taxi drivers, carpenters, retired folk, bar tenders, firefighters, painters, bank tellers, and on and on and on.
If you *really need* more storage, simply pay for it. Easy. Apple has you covered if you do.
I would never argue against base models getting better specifications, so fundamentally I agree with everything being said here.
But… Is 128 GB *really* that bad?
Even people I know who still have 64 GB phones haven’t quite filled them yet, especially for the regular models.
And despite what this article says, the storage that Apple Intelligence uses is dynamic. Sure, it *can* use 7GB, but i’ve had enabled since August and have never seen it go above using 3GB.
For people who don’t take a lot of pictures, like me for example, our phone storage needs rarely go up, and iOS has been using about 20GB since iOS 12 or so.
To me, this doesn’t even slightly compared to when 16 GB phones were still being sold in 2016 or 8GB in 2014.
I feel like you still have to be somewhat of a power user to even fill 128 GB still. My 15P has 256 and I’m not even using 100.
But… Is 128 GB *really* that bad?
Even people I know who still have 64 GB phones haven’t quite filled them yet, especially for the regular models.
And despite what this article says, the storage that Apple Intelligence uses is dynamic. Sure, it *can* use 7GB, but i’ve had enabled since August and have never seen it go above using 3GB.
For people who don’t take a lot of pictures, like me for example, our phone storage needs rarely go up, and iOS has been using about 20GB since iOS 12 or so.
To me, this doesn’t even slightly compared to when 16 GB phones were still being sold in 2016 or 8GB in 2014.
I feel like you still have to be somewhat of a power user to even fill 128 GB still. My 15P has 256 and I’m not even using 100.
I agree.
I speak to my partner about the last time 'x' photo from 2012 was viewed and am met with a blank face.
My 128GB phone has 75GB used and that's only because I'm careless about storage.
Actually, it came in a four, eight, and 16 GB option.
The 4 GB option was discontinued in September 2007, only three months after the phone launched. The 16 GB model came out in February 2008.
Agreed, but it will take years for change. Look how long it took for them to raise the min. RAM to 16GB.
And only due to AI
...which ironically could be what leads to change with on device storage defaults too
I can't stand AI .. but I'll admit I'm happy it's led to change on RAM finally
(amazing how all the "8GB of special magical Apple RAM is plenty for everyone" defense sort of died out ... hmmm 🤔)
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Me too. I think the key here is for those who turned on iCloud Photos. I am using a 128GB and there are still 40GB left. Unless the AI models take significantly more space in the future, 128GB won't be a problem for me. Bigger storage is of course nice to have, but for me the marginal benefit of bumping it up to 256 is less than $30.
I think we can "thank" Steve Jobs as that's when $100 iPhone storage pricing tiers began. For example, to go from 4GB to 8GB (add just 4GB or storage) cost $100 when the original iPhone launched. This storage pricing structure continued through Jobs' remaining years as CEO.
It was? I thought the whole "640K ought to be enough" thing (typically attributed to Bill Gates) never really happened and is just a myth.
I am using 54GB of 128GB on my iPhone 16 Plus running the latest version of iOS18. So, at this time, storage isn't an issue for me. We have a family iCloud+ plan with 2TB, so I can optimize storage of my photos and documents on my phone with the cloud.....which definitely helps. BTW - my base iPad 10 only has 64GB or storage, but it does not run Apple AI.
Maybe they should focus on FIXING the icloud storage that they messed up in ios 18.0 MINE doubled for no reason when I updated from ios 17.5-18.0 it gets better overtime but it needs to be fixed. I dont have a phone that gives u AI features. My phone is se 2022. SO theres no reason why the storage increased. 1 photo 25 contacts 0 music 0 videos and I had 57mb and now its 190mb FOR WHAT? How did it increase like that....its also not deleting messages off the server end when u manually delete them. AND THE IPHONE STORAGE IS MESSED UP in 18.3. MANY people have complained about this. APPLE WILL NEVER FIX THIS until a yr or so I bet. They never address serious things until a yr later
But this just isn’t correct, but especially not in relation to storage.
The main stream iPhone has always hover around $599-799 since 2010, yet the storage has gone from 8 to 16 to 32 to 64 to 128 GB.
Even the pro iPhone has been at the same $999 starting price for the last eight years yet the storage has doubled.
Yes my phone is se 2022 and like you I dont have much on it. My icloud storage increased for no reason when I updated ios 17.5-18.0 NO ONE at apple wants to speak on this. They fear they will be sued if they speak on it I bet. BUT at the same time they prob wont fix it until yrs later.Sure, 128GB is not as much as it could be at the base storage, storage is cheap, etc. etc.
But I got the 128GB iPhone SE 5 years ago and it just started to get full recently. And the only reason it's an issue for me right now is that I have 60GB of music locally stored, and the Twitter app for some reason doesn't ever clear its cache so it's taking up 7GB of storage for nothing.I barely have any photos on my phone since I dump them to my Mac pretty often. If you exclude those big storage things I am using right now, an average person would probably only use half of the 128GB phone. That said, I'm planning to get a 256GB or larger phone when they announce a new SE or whatever I end up buying this year.