Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
I take a lot of 4K video on trips so I’ve been hoping for a 2 TB iPhone. 🥳

The Optimize Photos options works ok, but oftentimes photos need to downloaded when browsing which makes for a clunky experience. Having everything local is definitely smoother. 🤓

I didn't realize how much space 4k 60fps video takes. I routinely record my climbing sessions and a 1:12 video I took a few days ago is 500mb... holy cow!

Do the phones get hot/overheat if you take long videos at high resolution?
 
  • Like
Reactions: fatTribble
I didn't realize how much space 4k 60fps video takes. I record some of my climbing sessions and a 1:12 video I took a few days ago is 500mb... holy cow!

Do the phones get hot/overheat if you take long videos at high resolution?
Yep they do take a lot of storage! I have a 15 Pro Max. It’s never run hot when shooting 4K. It’s always been fine.
 
I’m in for a 2TB phone. I will likely be skipping the 16PM one way or the other, but if a 2TB option doesn’t become available by the time we get the 17PM I’ll be skipping that upgrade cycle as well. The most significant upgrades they could make to an iPhone, for me, are increased storage and faster charging.
 
  • Like
Reactions: fatTribble
Basically the only way I will be spending the 2 grand Apple asks, until then, no new iPhones for me, will drag it until iOS is not supported anymore. (And I would rather get a Studio Display instead of a phone for that money)

And before you ask for what, not everybody is willing to spend the hundreds of dollars every month for renting stuff. And most of my stuff is not on Spotify anyway.
That’s where I am at this point. I upgraded to the 15 to get emergency satellite calling. Yes, completely niche as a reason but I watched that Netflix series about the girl who crashed in rural Alaska and the plane sank. Peace of mind right?

However there is absolutely no reason anymore to upgrade even every other year. I am now to my iPad reason for upgrading which is the same as you… the OS isn’t supported on my device anymore. RIP IPP 10.5.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SantaFeNM
That’s where I am at this point. I upgraded to the 15 to get emergency satellite calling. Yes, completely niche as a reason but I watched that Netflix series about the girl who crashed in rural Alaska and the plane sank. Peace of mind right?

However there is absolutely no reason anymore to upgrade even every other year. I am now to my iPad reason for upgrading which is the same as you… the OS isn’t supported on my device anymore. RIP IPP 10.5.
Devs easily have a reason to upgrade every year as well as creative professionals in which the prosumer specs are specifically enhanced to maximize the camera, video, and photo tech innovations available to mass manufacture at Apple’s scale
 
That’s where I am at this point. I upgraded to the 15 to get emergency satellite calling. Yes, completely niche as a reason but I watched that Netflix series about the girl who crashed in rural Alaska and the plane sank. Peace of mind right?

However there is absolutely no reason anymore to upgrade even every other year. I am now to my iPad reason for upgrading which is the same as you… the OS isn’t supported on my device anymore. RIP IPP 10.5.

It's not that niche, depending on what you do. The wife and often do camping/hiking trips where we will be off-grid, and away from cell service for a couple weeks at a time. We have a Garmin inReach which bluetooths into our phones, but built-in satellite functionally might be nice, so I'm somewhat looking into upgrading to the next model. We'll be off-grid for a couple weeks next month in the Nevada desert.

Couple things could hold me back, though. It sounds like the regular (non-emergency) messaging options are for iMessage only, which is a no-go as the people we check-in with don't have iPhones. Second is that she carries a Pixel so it would be my phone only. The Garmin works with either.

I'd like to see some more about the new satellite messaging features of iOS 18, but there hasn't been much coverage.
 
Last edited:
I guess it’s handy for people shooting in ProRes, but with the iPhone 15s adding support to filming directly to an SSD, I sort of wonder how necessarily 2TB is even for people using the format versus having multiple 2TB drives to film to. Given it’s a format intended for pros, having multiple SSDs seems realistic in many cases.

It’ll be a positive if we see a bump in storage at the lower ends but, including a bump to base levels.
 
I hope the phones don't follow the way of the iPad and the 1tb and 2tb versions have more cores.
 
If you're a creator in need for such massive mobile storage, just use an external SSD and record to it. It'd be cheaper, easier to transfer to your workstation and future proof.
 
  • Like
Reactions: uacd
Apple is also said to be introducing a new image format called "JPEG-XL." This addition to the existing lineup of HEIF, JPEG, HEIF Max, ProRaw, and ProRAW Max formats could potentially result in larger file sizes, making increased storage more necessary.
Afaik JPEG=JPEG XL in terms of file sizes and XL can yield even smaller files while increasing compression efficiency so that more details are being retained
 
Good for some people I guess. Not an option that I am personally crying for. I cannot imagine storing so much data in single place. Back in the days when I had 16g iPhones I had only one problem when transferring photos and videos: my HDDs constantly died and SSDs were very expensive. And now when SSDs are quite cheap, phone storage is so large (128 and 256g) that I ofter forget to make backups. And backups are a must, what if something happens to the phone?

Self-discipline is what everyone needs, larger storage won’t solve software issues with managing 2Tb library of shots. I am still in no favor of Apple’s Photos app and how hard it is to manage files there. This is one of the areas where I would much prefer Apple to copy Android – I would like albums to finally become folders. Also I would like to be able to turn off recently deleted as it just takes few steps I would rather invest in someting else. Also the AI object scanning just drives me nuts – I don’t want to be able to cut something each time I press and hold a photo
 
Sounds good to me. Having that option available for people who need it is a great idea.

If you really need more storage, simply pay for it. If you don't, save some money. Most consumers won't need it.

That's the way it works in life with every other consumer product (homes, lawnmowers, cars, shoes, bicycles, carpeting, furniture, hard drives/SSDs, and on and on and on). Submarines, too.
 
This is good news - not because I need it but this could ’help’ Apple keep the same prices with the same margins their investors are expecting
 
My 512GB 15PM costs me around $2050 in Sweden, 1TB costs around $300 more. So, a 2TB will cost at least $2700. I think I’m gonna keep my phone until it breaks. Battery health just turned to 99% now. My 12PM lost 8% of battery in a year so, this one is holding up pretty good.
 
Here’s the big problem aside from the insane cost etc for me

The way photo libraries work with Apple is it’s ALL or nothing. Ive paid for higher storage in the past thinking I could store more photos on the device. I thought I could toggle on download photos until it fills up, and then turn on iCloud library and it would clear room for what it needs. Makes sense, right?

Nope. Every iOS device I’ve had, it downloads till full and the device is unusable. Then toggle on iCloud photo storage and it offloads basically everything off the phone. So I have a higher storage phone I bought for my photo library sitting mostly empty because if I can’t fit my ENTIRE library on the device it’s 100% iCloud library.

Maybe this will change in iOS 18? But I’m not counting on it
 
I’m legitimately asking and not trolling.

Why does someone need 2TB on their phone. Laptop sure. iPad ok fine. But phone? Really?

If you’re professionally shooting video or raw photos you’ll probably have an SSD anyway to transfer files.

If you just want all your music saved - Apple says 10 GB for 1000 songs lossless so 2TB, minus say 200 mg for system files and other things, is 180000 songs, which, for an average of 3.25 mins per song, is 585,000 continuous hours of music or just over 66 years; so even if you were going to Mars for a 1 year mission, you wouldn’t need that much storage for music.

Photos: figure 100 mb for an uncompressed RAW file? So that’s 180,000 photos. If you’re shooting live at 1 second per photo that’s 50 hours of photography. If you’re just looking at store photos, you’ll have 180,0000 photos to look at? Maybe more. Again that’s assuming you want all your photos locally and never use the cloud.

Videos: ok so you want to watch movies or tv shows or whatever. at 30 gb/hr of 4k video, 1800 gb gives you 60 hours of 4K HD porn videos. I would submit that if you’re bringing your phone for a space mission or long camping trip, maybe bring your iPad for a larger screen instead? and if I were going to space, I’d probably bring a few SSDs with 1000s of hours of videos to entertain myself and the crew and they wouldn’t just live on my phone.

So in all seriousness, please. Someone help me understand why 2TB is needed on a phone?
 
I’m legitimately asking and not trolling.

Why does someone need 2TB on their phone. Laptop sure. iPad ok fine. But phone? Really?

If you’re professionally shooting video or raw photos you’ll probably have an SSD anyway to transfer files.

If you just want all your music saved - Apple says 10 GB for 1000 songs lossless so 2TB, minus say 200 mg for system files and other things, is 180000 songs, which, for an average of 3.25 mins per song, is 585,000 continuous hours of music or just over 66 years; so even if you were going to Mars for a 1 year mission, you wouldn’t need that much storage for music.

Photos: figure 100 mb for an uncompressed RAW file? So that’s 180,000 photos. If you’re shooting live at 1 second per photo that’s 50 hours of photography. If you’re just looking at store photos, you’ll have 180,0000 photos to look at? Maybe more. Again that’s assuming you want all your photos locally and never use the cloud.

Videos: ok so you want to watch movies or tv shows or whatever. at 30 gb/hr of 4k video, 1800 gb gives you 60 hours of 4K HD porn videos. I would submit that if you’re bringing your phone for a space mission or long camping trip, maybe bring your iPad for a larger screen instead? and if I were going to space, I’d probably bring a few SSDs with 1000s of hours of videos to entertain myself and the crew and they wouldn’t just live on my phone.

So in all seriousness, please. Someone help me understand why 2TB is needed on a phone?
I think a general use case could be someone similar to me with a photo library above 1tb because of the problems I bitched about above. Apple only lets you keep all or nothing with your photo library. So if someone wants to keep all of their music, movies and photos/videos on their phone for whatever reason

But you’re also right about what you said and how you’re thinking
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.