Agreed... I don't care too much what specs are on Android phones, I care that iPhones have sufficient specs to do the job (i.e.: what's expected of a smart-phone during it's life-span). And, since some people *do* shop based on specs, it wouldn't be a bad idea for Apple to somewhat keep tabs on what the competition is doing.
Who said we need 32 GB of RAM? We'd be liking 2 GB! 1 GB gives a reasonable user-experience, so far, but 2 GB should probably be the current target and would be better for multi-tasking (i.e.: apps wouldn't have to refresh so much).
Well, then as a developer, you're already screwed, as some Apple devices have 512K, some 1GB, some 2GB. But, I'm not sure why a developer would care if new devices had 2 GB. Newer devices are always going to have more RAM, CPU, GPU, etc. than old devices... any good developer knows how to deal with that and decides accordingly. No one is talking about making iPhones with all sorts of varying specs here!... in fact we're mainly talking about *storage* which is rather irrelevant to development (and if anything, more is better).
Yes, Apple *was* more efficient with their RAM usage, but there is a limit to how far that gets pushed.
And, the reason Android doesn't have as many apps is due to a lot of reasons... it isn't because they included more RAM. First, there aren't that many Android users, so there won't be so many developers. Second, the field of possible devices is a mess, as is OS fragmentation. Third, no good App store and eco-system Apple has. Fourth, the OS pretty much sucks... devs want their apps on a good platform, at least initially.
Well, that would be nice if everyone was a tech-aware as you and I, huh? The problem is that the average person isn't. They'll buy the 16 GB phone and then complain or not buy again if they feel they get burned by Apple. For less than $10, that's not a chance Apple should take.
And, no, I'm not sure Apple reads these forums, but if the user base makes a big enough fuss, maybe they'll take note eventually. And, I'm sure there were lots of internal debates... the question is whether user-experience consideration won out, or whether the beancounters won. It sure looks like the latter... and if so, we long-time Apple users are trying to sound the alarm.
So, you have an iPhone 5c, huh? Or, you can get really good used deals on iPhone 4. Give me a break. We're talking about enough storage here to have an average number of apps and actually, within reason, use the built-in camera or apps like Podcasts or Music.
Is that do damn hard to get?
For a developer, you're playing awfully fast and loose with how you talk about RAM. My parents (fairly tech illiterate) often confuse RAM and storage too.... hmm.
If you haven't noticed, App sizes have gone WAY up in the last few years... I'd guess by around 4x on average. Much of this is due to Retina screens. And unless I'm missing something, it seems like everything has gone Retina, so I don't expect App sizes to start shrinking any time soon.
And yes, as I said above, good developers are going to have to be conscious of older devices and their limitations, and make the decision how far back they intend to be compatible. Raising the base iPhone from 16 GB to 32 GB isn't going to make that much difference to the future of backward compatibility, but it will make a huge difference to the user-experience of the average iPhone buyer.
