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Choose a new iPhone with smaller storage after purchasing iCloud storage plan?

T

tonileung

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 23, 2014
28
32
Hong Kong
Hi all,

My wife and I are currently using iPhone 5s 32Gb. Our phone storage got full (mostly photos) and so we have subscribed iCloud 50Gb plan, and enabled iCloud Photo Library with "Optimize iphone Storage" on.

My wife had >20Gb photos (and videos actually) and a few Gbs apps before. After subscribing the 50Gb plan, photos storage in the phone is largely reduced, leaving her a very nice ~10Gb free space. Although my phone has a different distribution of storage of photos and apps, the iCloud subscription also leaves me ~10Gb free space. So I guess "Optimize iphone Storage" would target at a certain level of free space. Is this correct?

My question is, we are now thinking to buy a new iPhone for each of us. I am wondering what would happen if we buy the 16Gb model? Would "Optimize iphone Storage" further reduce the photo storage inside the phone in order to keep the free space at a certain level? If so, how much free space would it be?

Sorry for my poor English. Thanks for reading!
 
I would never get a 16GB phone, even though many can do fine with it. 64GB is a better choice and I have always done the 128GB models as I do not depend on the cloud except for DropBox which keeps all of my company files.

If you choose to depend on the cloud you likely could get by with 16GB.
 
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tonileung said:
Certainly it would be better.

Just that we are going to buy two new phones at the same time (actually three as my mother-in-law will need a new one too), we would like to control the budget as much as possible.
Click to expand...

I can't blame you, three phone at one time!:eek:

The Cloud will be a good choice to store your data.:)
 
tonileung said:
My wife had >20Gb photos (and videos actually) and a few Gbs apps before. After subscribing the 50Gb plan, photos storage in the phone is largely reduced, leaving her a very nice ~10Gb free space. Although my phone has a different distribution of storage of photos and apps, the iCloud subscription also leaves me ~10Gb free space. So I guess "Optimize iphone Storage" would target at a certain level of free space. Is this correct?
Click to expand...
No. The optimization process just reduces the quality of the photos, so the space required is dependent on the number and quality of the photos.
Would "Optimize iphone Storage" further reduce the photo storage inside the phone in order to keep the free space at a certain level?
Click to expand...
No, it would take up the same space as before. So unless you plan on not taking anymore photos, I would get the 64GB model.
 
The 16GB model wouldn't hold all my apps, let alone anything else and I don't have that many apps (20 or less). Also don't forget, while things will be stored int he cloud and an optimised version stored on your phone you still need that space initially for capturing.

The 64GB is the same price as the old 32GB model.
 
tonileung said:
Hi all,

My wife and I are currently using iPhone 5s 32Gb. Our phone storage got full (mostly photos) and so we have subscribed iCloud 50Gb plan, and enabled iCloud Photo Library with "Optimize iphone Storage" on.

My wife had >20Gb photos (and videos actually) and a few Gbs apps before. After subscribing the 50Gb plan, photos storage in the phone is largely reduced, leaving her a very nice ~10Gb free space. Although my phone has a different distribution of storage of photos and apps, the iCloud subscription also leaves me ~10Gb free space. So I guess "Optimize iphone Storage" would target at a certain level of free space. Is this correct?

My question is, we are now thinking to buy a new iPhone for each of us. I am wondering what would happen if we buy the 16Gb model? Would "Optimize iphone Storage" further reduce the photo storage inside the phone in order to keep the free space at a certain level? If so, how much free space would it be?

Sorry for my poor English. Thanks for reading!
Click to expand...
Don't be cheap, get the 64gb so you don't have got worry. I'm sure if you buying two or three iPhones, an extra couple of hundred dollars is not going to make or break you.
 
I just spent the last 3 years with a 16GB iPhone 5 and I set up iCloud Photo Library as soon as it was available. While it certainly did help the situation, I would never buy a 16GB phone ever again. Spent more time micro-managing my storage than actually using the phone.
 
Patriks7 said:
I just spent the last 3 years with a 16GB iPhone 5 and I set up iCloud Photo Library as soon as it was available. While it certainly did help the situation, I would never buy a 16GB phone ever again. Spent more time micro-managing my storage than actually using the phone.
Click to expand...


i would spend more money on a device i use daily over cloud services any day
 
alent1234 said:
i would spend more money on a device i use daily over cloud services any day
Click to expand...
That's exactly what I did when I ordered a 64GB 6s. When I ordered the 5 I was a bit cash-strapped so decided to save the 100$ or however much it was. I still plan on using iCloud Photos, but at least I don't think I'll ever have to micro-manage.
 
If money is already tight, $300 can surely make a difference in a budget. It would mine. Just convincing myself to stay with iPhone instead of going with a mid-range Android has been hard, but I think the iPhone is a better value over the long haul.

That said, I believe I would rather have 64GB phone storage and forego the extra iCloud storage if budget is tight. Perhaps you can find free cloud storage should you need additional.
 
T'hain Esh Kelch said:
No. The optimization process just reduces the quality of the photos, so the space required is dependent on the number and quality of the photos.

No, it would take up the same space as before. So unless you plan on not taking anymore photos, I would get the 64GB model.
Click to expand...
That's not my experience. The optimize setting doesn't even download the actual images if you have little space left. It just has thumbnails and starts the download when you actually click on the photo. So this actually saves a lot of space.
 
It's better to have extra space than to be running out. My friends who have 16 gigs regret it because that space barely houses their apps and gives them very little space for pictures. If you don't have the budget for two 64 gigs now, maybe you should wait until you do.
 
if you buy on NEXT or one of the payment plans you might as well get 128GB because the difference is only a few dollars a month
 
Patriks7 said:
I just spent the last 3 years with a 16GB iPhone 5 and I set up iCloud Photo Library as soon as it was available. While it certainly did help the situation, I would never buy a 16GB phone ever again. Spent more time micro-managing my storage than actually using the phone.
Click to expand...

Couldn't agree with this more. The 16gb phone is really bad. I have one as a backup and have literally 5, just 5, apps on it outside of the pre-installed stuff and that gives me enough room to download updates. I will never buy a 16gb iPhone again.
 
Thanks for all of your input.

Certainly I know how limited a 16GB iPhone is. That's why we purchased the 32GB version of 5s two years ago.

And when our 32GB became full, we purchased the 50GB iCloud plan. And it works very well to free ~10GB space in the phone, and seems like it keeps working to maintain the free space size at ~10GB.

Therefore my question is, how much free space would it keeps in a 16GB phone?

And I just found someone saying this from a website:
I use Apple’s iCloud Photo Library to store all 53,000 of my photos and videos. The library takes up 409GB of space on my computer’s hard drive, but a low 8.8GB on my iPhone thanks to the “optimize iPhone storage” setting in the iOS photos app. When enabled, iOS stores full-resolution photos and videos in your iCloud account, displaying lower-resolution versions for browsing. When you need the full photo or video, iOS downloads it on demand. The optimization gets more aggressive as the amount of storage on the device gets lower.
Click to expand...
 
Don't limit yourself with a 16GB iPhone, even with an iCloud plan. I had to delete Facebook because it was caching almost a gigabyte of data.

Unless you're using stock apps only, that is. Not even social media.
 
MICHAELSD said:
Don't limit yourself with a 16GB iPhone, even with an iCloud plan. I had to delete Facebook because it was caching almost a gigabyte of data.
Click to expand...

Yes likely I'll buy the 64GB iPhone(s). Very much agree that the Facebook app caches up a lot of space. I also deleted it when my phone was full.
 
My theory was the same as yours for the iPhone 6. I regretted it. Get the 64. I hated waiting for photos and videos to load.
 
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