'iPhone 6s' Logic Board Suggests 16GB Base Model and Updated NFC Hardware

[keysofanxiety]

16GB storage again? Fail.

Whelp, Apple have sort of put themselves in a tricky position.

By keeping it 16GB this gen, that encourages more people to make the jump to 64GB. Also the jump in storage tricks the consumers into thinking they're getting a better deal than they actually are.

By upgrading the base storage to 32GB on this gen, they know that'll mean less people will upgrade to the higher-tier. It also means less profits. Also as apps get larger and larger, making a massive jump in the base storage (to 64GB for instance) would mean a huge backlash by the community, as it'll dawn on them just how shafted they've been getting.

So keeping the same base storage since the 3GS was a profit-oriented move, as we all know. It just means they've put themselves in a position where doing the right thing (upgrading the base storage, as they should have in the first instance) will result in them looking bad no matter what they do.

In all honesty they could have avoided this whole thing just by upgrading the base storage to 32GB with the iPhone 6, as consumers will appreciate that's a modest upgrade that would be expected from a next-gen product. By making the profit-move to stick with 16GB instead of 32GB (costs them less than $1 difference between the two, by the way), it's put them in a much more awkward position.

Mind you, that's giving Apple an awful lot of credit; they're still selling phones with 8GB storage, so I don't think they give a toss about what experience the consumer will get when buying the lower-tier models.

 

[WannaGoMac]

[This is a] ridiculous amount of space.

And the fact their laptops still come with a paltry 4gb is also a disservice to their customers (4gb is fine if you could UPGRADE the ram).

What is it with them? Geesh.

 

[spikesglaring]

I can't relate to all the hate for just making a cheaper 16gb version available?!?

If you want more get more. I've always gotten the max storage. 16gb is available to those who are cool with streaming, iCloud etc. and have good wifi at home and work.

The reason people are mad is because Apple makes a huge profit by making the base model uncomfortably small in terms of storage in 2015. The steps up to 64gb & 128gb of flash storage is not even close $100 either, so basically Apple is forcing us into stuffing their pockets a bit more.

 

[Trik]

I honestly don't understand the hate. If you want more storage, buy more storage. You just want more storage at the same price point. Apple also wants you to have more storage, which is why the 16GB model is the base entry point, they want your extra $100. At this point, you need to think of the 16GB model as truly entry level. When you go to the dealership to buy a car, the base model is missing a lot of features that are almost considered standard by 2015. Keyless entry? That's extra... Power windows / door locks? That's extra. I tell my parents to buy the 16GB model because that's all they need. For the rest of us, there is the 64GB.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

Got my 6+ in November and I'm only at 12 GB used so far, so 16 GB is theoretically enough for me.

Having said that, I went for the 128 GB because my 4S had 50+ GB used up when I picked my 6+ model. I figured my storage requirements were only going up from there, not down.

About a month after I got my 6+ I swapped to Spotify Premium and my storage requirements plummeted from the 50+ GB I was at to the 12 GB I'm at now. Not needing music kept locally anymore causes a serious reduction in storage requirements. Now the biggest consumer of space is pictures and videos I take. The good ones get uploaded to Facebook and/or backed up on my iMac. The bad ones get deleted.

 

[MH01]

I thought that the most plausible explanation for why Apple ships a 16GB base configuration is this: There simply isn't enough supply of NAND in the world to add a 32GB chip to every single iPhone in the world.

If that were true, though, I am not sure they'd still be doing it again this year. I think that it's a business decision spurred by the knowledge that far more people will be willing to spend that $100 extra to jump from 16GB to 64GB. Still, if Apple values the user experience of their products above all else, that seems like a short-sighted move. Let's hope this gets improved upon when the iPhone 7 (or whatever it's called) launches.

Or a 16GB is more profitable move, cause people will go to the 64GB knowing 16GB is not enough for another £80. It vlever marketing to get more money from you.

 

[EricTheHalfBee]

The reason people are mad is because Apple makes a huge profit by making the base model uncomfortably small in terms of storage in 2015. The steps up to 64gb & 128gb of flash storage is not even close $100 either, so basically Apple is forcing us into stuffing their pockets a bit more.

If people were really mad they'd be buying Samsung or other phones. Apple sales records for the past few quarters suggests people aren't really mad at all.

 

[nouveau-apple]

I just want 32.

 

[MacOSXI]

However, now that there's Apple Music => no more music on your device, it means more space for apps, pics and videos.

 

[bniu]

How about make the top end 256GB? Clearly the 128GB folks aren't that price sensitive and/or want even more storage than 128GB. Make the lineup 16/64/256

 

[Ploki]

what a joke


2009 - 3G S - VGA video recording (640 by 480) - 16GB base storage

2015 - 6s - 4K video recording (3840 by 2160) - 16GB base storage

2009 - EDGE 128kbps internet and no cloud

2015 - 40mbit LTE internet* with 50gb cloud storage**

*that you need to pay for monthly and you likely don't get enough data to upload 4K videos anyway

**that you need to pay monthly

the asterisks are for explaining irony.

 

[bgraham]

I can't relate to all the hate for just making a cheaper 16gb version available?!?

If you want more get more. I've always gotten the max storage. 16gb is available to those who are cool with streaming, iCloud etc. and have good wifi at home and work.

Give it a break, making a 32GB base model will cost literally pennies for Apple, they're only doing it to encourage more and more people to jump up to the 64GB model allowing them to make more profit on every iPhone. Also, 16GB is not fine for many people at all, if you install all the social networking apps, music or video apps and then take a few photos you'll hit that limit easily, even if you stream everything else. There's very few people I know that don't regret buying a 16GB iPhone and that's exactly the kind of regret Apple wants to create to make more profit on their next purchase.

 

[spikesglaring]

If people were really mad they'd be buying Samsung or other phones. Apple sales records for the past few quarters suggests people aren't really mad at all.

Not really true at all. We aren't going to make a switch to a crappy phone just over storage.

 

[Quu]

16GB of storage again is ridiculous. They need to stop being so stingy.

 

[Zxxv]

While many have complained 16GB is not enough entry-level storage as HD video and space-hungry apps have proliferated, recently Apple SVP of Marketing Phil Schiller claimed the company's cloud-focused services, like the just-launched Apple Music, help alleviate some of the storage stresses on low-end storage configurations.

duh! only if its free

 

[Abazigal]

Makes no difference to me. I got the 64 GB iPhone 5s and this just means I get a 64 GB iPhone at a cheaper price than before.

Are people here really just whining over having to spend just a little more money to get a substantially better deal?

Makes me wish Apple would just drop the 16 GB model, offer the 64 and 128 GB models, and raise the starting price to $299. That would show everyone.

 

[Tubamajuba]

It would be nice if Apple made 32GB the base model. But since they won't, leave Apple some feedback if you care enough. And don't buy the 16GB model, or heck- just don't buy another iPhone altogether. If people keep buying 16GB iPhones, they'll keep making them.

 

[Rogifan]

Whelp, Apple have sort of put themselves in a tricky position.

By keeping it 16GB this gen, that encourages more people to make the jump to 64GB. Also the jump in storage tricks the consumers into thinking they're getting a better deal than they actually are.

By upgrading the base storage to 32GB on this gen, they know that'll mean less people will upgrade to the higher-tier. It also means less profits. Also as apps get larger and larger, making a massive jump in the base storage (to 64GB for instance) would mean a huge backlash by the community, as it'll dawn on them just how shafted they've been getting.

So keeping the same base storage since the 3GS was a profit-oriented move, as we all know. It just means they've put themselves in a position where doing the right thing (upgrading the base storage, as they should have in the first instance) will result in them looking bad no matter what they do.

In all honesty they could have avoided this whole thing just by upgrading the base storage to 32GB with the iPhone 6, as consumers will appreciate that's a modest upgrade that would be expected from a next-gen product. By making the profit-move to stick with 16GB instead of 32GB (costs them less than $1 difference between the two, by the way), it's put them in a much more awkward position.

Mind you, that's giving Apple an awful lot of credit; they're still selling phones with 8GB storage, so I don't think they give a toss about what experience the consumer will get when buying the lower-tier models.

This is 100% driven by finance and marketing. Finance wants higher gross margins and ASPs, Schiller is obsessed with upselling. So he can say hey you get 4x storage for only $100 more. And the thought is eventually enough people will have fallen for the upsell and will have put enough stuff on their device that downgrading isn't an option. That might take more than one year hence keeping 16GB for one more year.

 

[groovyd]

What I don't get is why would anyone complain about 16GB being not enough storage when they can just get the 64 or 128 and be happy. Who cares what memory an option you don't buy has, surely someone somewhere appreciates the 16GB option and the lower cost of it. Apple has a world of people to sell to now all with very different needs.

 

[keysofanxiety]

If people were really mad they'd be buying Samsung or other phones. Apple sales records for the past few quarters suggests people aren't really mad at all.

Really? People get invested in the Apple ecosystem. Macs, Watches, whatever. They need a new Apple phone because their iPhone 4 is unusable on iOS 7. They don't want to switch from Apple, it would be counter-intuitive to, and they don't want the 16GB because it isn't enough. So their hand is forced into forking up for 64GB. Just because there isn't a more suitable alternative on the market for some people doesn't mean that people 'aren't really mad at all'.

This sort of mentality is what caused RIM/Blackberry to fail. They knew people were too invested in the ecosystem/products to buy anything else, so they began to take advantage of their end-users and didn't treat them with respect. People finally jumped ship when a better alternative came out, and look at them now.

Apple need to step up their game and actually adhere to this 'we only think about the consumer' mentality that they so love to boast.

 

[OSXMavericks]

Im only going to be ok with this as long as the iPhone 7 base model starts at 64GB. Deal?

Deal

 

[Rogifan]

Makes no difference to me. I got the 64 GB iPhone 5s and this just means I get a 64 GB iPhone at a cheaper price than before.

Are people here really just whining over having to spend just a little more money to get a substantially better deal?

Makes me wish Apple would just drop the 16 GB model, offer the 64 and 128 GB models, and raise the starting price to $299. That would show everyone.

I can imagine Phil Schiller and Greg Jozwiack having this exact conversation. Of course Apple can afford to offer 64GB for the price of 32GB. They have a lot more margin to play with at the high-end. Tim Cook can say revenue is not Apple's 'North Star' but clearly this storage pricing is all about increasing margins and ASP's.

 

[Narrator Jack]

Whoa, a 9 to 5 chip.

 

[Abazigal]

I can imagine Phil Schiller and Greg Jozwiack having this exact conversation. Of course Apple can afford to offer 64GB for the price of 32GB. They have a lot more margin to play with at the high-end. Tim Cook can say revenue is not Apple's 'North Star' but clearly this storage pricing is all about increasing margins and ASP's.

Well, more revenue for Apple and more storage for users at the same price. Seems like a win-win scenario to me.

 

[KidAKidB]

I can't relate to all the hate for just making a cheaper 16gb version available?!?

If you want more get more. I've always gotten the max storage. 16gb is available to those who are cool with streaming, iCloud etc. and have good wifi at home and work.

It's 2015 not 2008. 16GB is a ridiculously low amount of storage especially if they will be upgrading the camera/video. It's definitely not cool to keep 16GB as the base model. 32GB should be the minimum