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iPhone 4 32GB Stores 20%+ Less Audio Than 3GS 32GB?

T

Tones2

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 8, 2009
1,471
0
It is an undisputed fact that I can store a LOT more audio on my 3.2GB 3GS (on O/S 3.1.3) than I can on my new iPhone 4 32GB. I mean a LOT less - like 20%.

I loaded the EXACT same settings, apps and songs into the iPhone 4 using a 3GS backup. Absolutely no difference. When I tried to syncronize the first time, it loaded the settings fine until it started to copy the songs over. I got an error message saying there was not enough room. I was going to be 3GB short! Yes, I lost 3GB of available audio storage on my iPhone 4 32GB vs 3GS 32GB.

I cancelled this operation and looked at the total "available" capacity of each device. The iPhone 4 was at 29.1GB and the 3GS was at 29.3 - the iPhone 4 obviously reserves slightly more for OS 4, but not significant enough to account for the 3GB less music storage.

I thought the error message might be a fluke, so I loaded my audio in little chunks until I reached capacity, and sure enough, I could load about 20% less songs than in my 3GS.

So what's up here? It makes no sense to me. One thing to note is that I'm using the on-the-fly 128 kbps conversion option (checkbox on the "summary" page when syncing). Since I copied over most songs on my 3GS when I was using iTunes 9.1 and OS 3.1.3, it could be that iTunes 9.2 (maybe in combination with OS 4) has a less efficient conversion routine when converting a 256 kpbs song to 128 kpbs. Or maybe OS 4 is reserving more space per song for some reason.

Has anyone else experienced this? This is a MAJOR deal for me since I already was VERY disappointed that their was no 64GB phone, and now it's even WORSE because I have to unload ANOTHER 20% on my music!! :mad:

Tony
 
JustinP81 said:
iOS4 takes up more space.

Bigger operating system = more space need for it = less space for your songs.
Click to expand...

did you even read his whole post??? He already knows this and even listed the actual storage capacity on both devices...
 
Tones2 said:
I cancelled this operation and looked at the total "available" capacity of each device. The iPhone 4 was at 29.1GB and the 3GS was at 29.3 - the iPhone 4 obviously reserves slightly more for OS 4, but not significant enough to account for the 3GB less music storage.

I thought the error message might be a fluke, so I loaded my audio in little chunks until I reached capacity, and sure enough, I could load about 20% less songs than in my 3GS.
Click to expand...

FWIW, my 3GS using iOS 4 still reports 29.3 GB capacity.

But where you lost me is the 20%. You're talking about a capacity difference of 200MB. That's less than 1% of the device capacity... so it doesn't explain a 20% change in song capacity, unless I guess your iPhone is full of 28 GB of apps and you only had 1GB of songs on it....

I believe the downconvert to 128k setting is a per-device setting. Did you check and see if it's set the same for your 3GS and your 4?
 
mkrishnan said:
FWIW, my 3GS using iOS 4 still reports 29.3 GB capacity.

But where you lost me is the 20%. You're talking about a capacity difference of 200MB. That's less than 1% of the device capacity... so it doesn't explain a 20% change in song capacity, unless I guess your iPhone is full of 28 GB of apps and you only had 1GB of songs on it....

I believe the downconvert to 128k setting is a per-device setting. Did you check and see if it's set the same for your 3GS and your 4?
Click to expand...

I had to recheck this box in iTunes...
 
With your previous phone, did you have the convert higher bitrate songs to 128K AAC box checked? I know you said all the settings are the same, but that's an easy one to overlook (I didn't realize I had it checked on my 3GS for a few weeks...couldn't figure out why it took so long to sync my library--most of which was 320Kbps MP3).

EDIT: Oops, someone was faster than me :)
 
Both phones use the same chip. iOS 4.0 on iPhone 4 takes up more room because it has more features and higher res artwork to take advantage of retina display. So yes, your iPhone 4 has less user-able space than your 3GS.
 
rKunda said:
Did you even read this thread?
Click to expand...

Well he was complaining about 3GB less storage space when in fact its only 200MB less then the 3GS. So not only does the OS take up space but just because a Harddrive says it is 32GB doesn't mean that's exactly the space it will display when completely formatted.
 
bova80 said:
Well he was complaining about 3GB less storage space when in fact its only 200MB less then the 3GS. So not only does the OS take up space but just because a Harddrive says it is 32GB doesn't mean that's exactly the space it will display when completely formatted.
Click to expand...

Comprehension fail. You should scroll up and read that, while there is a 200 MB difference in the capacity, he is able to place 3GB more music on the 3gs. In other words, iTunes stops putting music on his iPhone 4 before the 3gs. Long before. Probably has something to do with the conversion settings, as said, but read post before you reply.
 
bigred7078 said:
did you even read his whole post??? He already knows this and even listed the actual storage capacity on both devices...
Click to expand...

In my defense, he updated his original post with more information AFTER I posted my response.

If the phone's storage difference is only .2 gigs, I have no idea how that equates to a 3 gig difference. Could be a number of things. iTunes 9.2 + iOS4 + iPhone 4 = the difference... I don't know.

I'd look at the difference in song size. See if you can't compare a song that you had converted before and the same song converted using 9.2 + iOS4. That might be worth looking into.
 
I'm not using any of the downconvert features and the only difference in my 32GB i4 is the extra 260 MB that iOS4 is using.

Yes, on mine it is a 260 MB (not 200 MB) difference. 29.32 vs 29.06 GB.
 
same issue here...

Tones2 said:
It is an undisputed fact that I can store a LOT more audio on my 3.2GB 3GS (on O/S 3.1.3) than I can on my new iPhone 4 32GB. I mean a LOT less - like 20%.

I loaded the EXACT same settings, apps and songs into the iPhone 4 using a 3GS backup. Absolutely no difference. When I tried to syncronize the first time, it loaded the settings fine until it started to copy the songs over. I got an error message saying there was not enough room. I was going to be 3GB short! Yes, I lost 3GB of available audio storage on my iPhone 4 32GB vs 3GS 32GB.

I cancelled this operation and looked at the total "available" capacity of each device. The iPhone 4 was at 29.1GB and the 3GS was at 29.3 - the iPhone 4 obviously reserves slightly more for OS 4, but not significant enough to account for the 3GB less music storage.

I thought the error message might be a fluke, so I loaded my audio in little chunks until I reached capacity, and sure enough, I could load about 20% less songs than in my 3GS.

So what's up here? It makes no sense to me. One thing to note is that I'm using the on-the-fly 128 kbps conversion option (checkbox on the "summary" page when syncing). Since I copied over most songs on my 3GS when I was using iTunes 9.1 and OS 3.1.3, it could be that iTunes 9.2 (maybe in combination with OS 4) has a less efficient conversion routine when converting a 256 kpbs song to 128 kpbs. Or maybe OS 4 is reserving more space per song for some reason.

Has anyone else experienced this? This is a MAJOR deal for me since I already was VERY disappointed that their was no 64GB phone, and now it's even WORSE because I have to unload ANOTHER 20% on my music!! :mad:

Tony
Click to expand...

i feel your pain Tony... had to nix a lot of my music, and apps, in order to sync my 4 vs. my 3GS.
 
Wow - there's a lot of confusion in what I was actually saying! Once again, my issue has very little to do with the extra 0.2GB of space taken up my OS 4 vs. O/S 3.1.3.

Also, I'm SURE that the 128 kbps checkbox is checked when converting with my iPhone 4 (I see it checked now). Plus, it takes DAYS for me to convert 5,000 songs when using this checkbox (it's SLOOOOW), as opposed to an hour or so without, so there can be no mistake here!

This probably (and hopefully) has nothing to do with the iPhone 4 hardware itself, I would guess, There's something going on with the conversion of audio that's less efficient in iTunes 9.2 or in O/S 4. On my iPhone 4, my summary page says I have 25.17GB of audio loaded - this represents 4,638 songs loaded. On my 3GS, it takes 23.56GB to store 5,333 songs.

Note that the 4,638 songs loaded on my iPhone 4 are a SUBSET of the 5,333 songs on my 3GS, meaning that all 4,638 songs are included in the 5,333 songs that I loaded in my 3GS (same songs), and yet my 3GS takes 1.61GB LESS to store 695 MORE songs. This is just the data for the audio itself and nothing else. So it's not extra space taken up by the OS or anything else.

If I use the average space taken up by my audio on my iPhone 4 and extrapolate, it would take about 28.94GB of audio space for 5,333, which would be 5.38GB MORE than the 3GS (that's 22.8% more). :eek: Of course, this is not 100% accurate because the song length may be different, but it's along those lines. Remember - same songs here using the same 128 kbps conversion feature.

This can't be a problem that's unique to ME in any way. Still confused as to what's going on here? :confused:

Tony
 
Tones2 said:
This probably (and hopefully) has nothing to do with the iPhone 4 hardware itself, I would guess, There's something going on with the conversion of audio that's less efficient in iTunes 9.2 or in O/S 4. On my iPhone 4, my summary page says I have 25.17GB of audio loaded - this represents 4,638 songs loaded. On my 3GS, it takes 23.56GB to store 5,333 songs.
Tony
Click to expand...

Do you see a large difference in the Other file size from your 3GS to 4? I'd be willing to bet that iTunes knows that the i4 has a much higher res screen and is syncing a bigger album art file for each track. This could have a huge cumulative effect when you're talking about 5,000 songs.
 
So much posting before reading here. I am hkocked no one has barged in and said, "Pics or it didn't happen."
 
tangfred said:
Do you see a large difference in the Other file size from your 3GS to 4? I'd be willing to bet that iTunes knows that the i4 has a much higher res screen and is syncing a bigger album art file for each track. This could have a huge cumulative effect when you're talking about 5,000 songs.
Click to expand...

That's a good thought, too.

Song file size has got to be the major player here.
 
tangfred said:
Do you see a large difference in the Other file size from your 3GS to 4? I'd be willing to bet that iTunes knows that the i4 has a much higher res screen and is syncing a bigger album art file for each track. This could have a huge cumulative effect when you're talking about 5,000 songs.
Click to expand...

The cover art is only synced by album, not by track.
 
Did you try doing a restore and starting from scratch? Perhaps there are some damaged music files taking up space.
 
gloss said:
The cover art is only synced by album, not by track.
Click to expand...

Any individual track that has the album field filled in will try to download album art. It doesn't matter whether he has the full album or not (and I'm guessing with 5,000 songs he's going to have ~2,000 different albums represented).
 
I noticed the exact same issue on mine, about 3-4GB less space on the 4 than 3GS, my entire library synced using the convert to 128kbps option on both phones. Album art is the only thing I could think of as well, but I don't see how it could possibly make that much of a difference.
 
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