The 16gb Iphone 6s is a slap in the face to consumers

[eyoungren]

I think that Apple is going to release a 256GB version.

Right now there are 200GB micro SD cards and also a 512SD card. Also microdia is going to sell a 512GB microSD card for $1,000 dollars.

For Apple installing a 256GB memory card is not a issue on the new iphone 6S.

This makes sense because 4K video and a higher megapixel camera in the iphone 6S.

What you say makes sense. I don't see it though as Apple does not always follow sense.

A lot of people said the 6 and 6+ would have 2GB ram. It doesn't.

 

[DynamicSausage]

I can understand being young cost is a factor. I'm 33 and 10 years into a career so perhaps it's different among my age group? I'm not sure the preorder market mainly made up of 'hardcore' users though. When the iPhone is released it is marketed at just about everybody and carriers make sure everybody with a contract is informed.

The 16GB is perhaps more desirable to those who purchased the 5C and offers the new iPhone at the cheapest price point, as you say maybe younger people. I think it's good Apple have kept it on and it pushes the need for iCloud storage which can extend your space by double for around 15 quid a year. Still cheaper than buying the 64GB model.

I definitely agree. What I meant by 'hardcore' users is those who a little bit more excited by the prospect of having the latest and best tech on day one. From my point of view I'm the only person within my friend group that is looking forward to having the new phone on day one and I'm also the only person I know who is going to have more than a 16GB phone. Perhaps they are related, perhaps they are not, just an observation.

I didn't need a 64GB iPhone 5 in 2012. But I bought one. Because I wanted it. Not because I needed it.
I didn't need a 128GB iPhone 6+ (could have got just the 6 too) in March 2015. But I bought one. Because I wanted it. Not because I needed it.

It's this same thought process that has had a lot of people here on MR come down on me for buying more than they think I need. I don't care. I buy what I want when it comes to tech and if it turns out to also be what I need then so much the better.

I definitely agree that you should get what you personally want. I don't need more than 16GB but I will be getting the 64GB as a bare minimum because I want to know that it's there and I don't have to look at how much I'm using. You will get no unfair judgement from me regarding your choice of storage.

Since it's impolite to inspect people's phones and Apple makes no physical indicator of what capacity an iPhone is they get a bargain and no one knows they sprang for the base model.

Not that that matters to me, but there are some people out there who want to appear as if they are with the "in" crowd but can only afford to spend as little as possible. They are proud they have the iPhone but when you ask what capacity they got there is silence.

Again, not that it matters. To me at least. Just an observation.

Slightly irrelevant I think but definitely notable. I only know what storage my friends have because we talk about it and as close friends it's not really considered rude. Again, I will make no judgement on people by the storage capacity of there phone. I know that I will want more and others may not, just making small observations from my viewpoint as to what may influence people's choices.

 

[eyoungren]

Slightly irrelevant I think but definitely notable. I only know what storage my friends have because we talk about it and as close friends it's not really considered rude. Again, I will make no judgement on people by the storage capacity of there phone. I know that I will want more and others may not, just making small observations from my viewpoint as to what may influence people's choices.

I totally get that and among friends a lot is said about a lot of different things that would not ever be said to anyone outside of the group. Those in the group know the background and history behind the reasons and actions of most everyone in the group so it's all copacetic.

But outside of the group and this is why I know this mentality, admitting that you could only spring for the base model of the popular item isn't something anyone wishes to acknowledge, let alone justify (as if that is necessary).

My aforementioned co-worker only buys 16GB models and is always justifying that to me, even though it's not MY money she used to buy her phone and I have no stake in any of her personal decisions.

 

[5105973]

The interesting thing about threads like this one is that the overwhelming response is always in favor of Apple's perspective, and not the customer's. Even though we are all Apple's customer and except for a few shareholders sprinkled among our membership, none of us is going to benefit from this, only Apple. To a point. If other rumors about Apple TV are true, and looking back on other examples of Apple recently underspeccing devices for as long as they can feasibly get away with it, it seems Apple is getting away from this vision that made them:

 

[eyoungren]

The interesting thing about threads like this one is that the overwhelming response is always in favor of Apple's perspective, and not the customer's. Even though we are all Apple's customer and except for a few shareholders sprinkled among our membership, none of us is going to benefit from this, only Apple. To a point. If other rumors about Apple TV are true, and looking back on other examples of Apple recently underspeccing devices for as long as they can feasibly get away with it, it seems Apple is getting away from this vision that made them: View attachment 578866View attachment 578867

I can still hear the screams of utter indignation and rage when Apple killed off the floppy drive with the G3 iMac.

 

[Shanghaichica]

I think that Apple is going to release a 256GB version.

Right now there are 200GB micro SD cards and also a 512SD card. Also microdia is going to sell a 512GB microSD card for $1,000 dollars.

For Apple installing a 256GB memory card is not a issue on the new iphone 6S.

This makes sense because 4K video and a higher megapixel camera in the iphone 6S.

I wish they would. If buy it if they did.

 

[Newtons Apple]

It is hard to understand why the OP would be upset when he states he is getting a 128GB iPhone. Why get pissed over the 16gb?

I guess the madness is starting!

 

[The Game 161]

I dont know about everyone else, but i was originally planning to buy two iphone 6s 128gb phones but now that they released a photo showing that the new 6s is only 16gb i'm really turned off from apple from this point on. I understand the need to please shareholders, but there comes a point when the obvious (greed) becomes to much to continue to support.

I own alot of apple products, but now I'm definitely re-thinking every single apple purchase from here on out. Right now i have a 27" Imac, Two 8 Core Mac-Pros, Two 13 Mac Pro's, Two iphone 5's, Two Ipad Air's, Two Apple tv's, and an apple airport. I have always supported apple, but their come a point when its time to stop supporting a company that is out to screw the consumer. The iphone 6 has ton's of complaints about storage at the 16gb level and now with the increased megapixel's and 4k video 16gb will fill up so fast you'll be screwed in no time.

The only possible way for apple to redeem themselves from this problem would be to release the iphone 6s 16gb version at $549 and release the 64GB at $649. If the 16GB is $649 then their only motive is to force everyone to skip that model and buy a 64gb version making this the new "Base Model" I hope consumers fight back this time with their wallets this time and launch sales fail drastically. I plan to wait it out and see what happen, but I'm definitely not per-ordering it or buying it this month. If people dont wait and they still make record sales then you'll continue to see this bad behavior from apple and thjei fully expect a 16gb iPhone 7.

If you were buying 128GB anyway why on earth would you care if they were releasing 16GB or not? i certainly can understand those who are angry about 16GB but i'm not bothered as I'm getting the 128GB anyway.

 

[Applefan4]

It's a scummy business practice but Apple is in it for profit, they want you to get more expensive model obviously.

 

[eyoungren]

It's a scummy business practice but Apple is in it for profit, they want you to get more expensive model obviously.

Apple is a hardware company that just happens to sell software and bundle an OS with it's products. So, totally agree with you.

This is why Apple always pushes upgrades.

 

[Newtons Apple]

It's a scummy business practice but Apple is in it for profit, they want you to get more expensive model obviously.

There are people who the 16GB unit makes good sense and they do not wish to buy more than they will use.

I will trust Apple to know what they are doing and they should not be ashamed of making a profit! Apple is still giving the buyers choices!

 

[rui no onna]

I don't think we will ever see 32 for the current price of the 16. When Apple drops the 16 as the base I'm pretty sure it'll be when due to inflation they have to increase the price to maintain their margins and they'll upgrade the storage to 32GB as away of hiding the price increase.

Maintain their margins? If you check the teardowns, they've actually increased margins given the falling prices of components (NAND flash, in particular). While Apple's decision not to upgrade base model storage doesn't directly affect me as I tend to buy higher storage models, I think an upgrade from 16GB to 32GB on the latest gen iPhones and from 8GB to 16GB on the "free" with 2-year contract iPhones is long overdue. Even more so on the iPad. Apple hasn't increased base storage from the 3GS which was released, what, 6 years ago?

The interesting thing about threads like this one is that the overwhelming response is always in favor of Apple's perspective, and not the customer's. Even though we are all Apple's customer and except for a few shareholders sprinkled among our membership, none of us is going to benefit from this, only Apple. To a point. If other rumors about Apple TV are true, and looking back on other examples of Apple recently underspeccing devices for as long as they can feasibly get away with it, it seems Apple is getting away from this vision that made them: View attachment 578866View attachment 578867

I completely agree. I'm used to Apple being underspecced compared to other brands but not at the expense of user experience. Apple went with large, expensive internal NAND flash on the original iPhone versus 256MB or so internal NAND and microSD slot on Androids for better user experience. It's sad that the focus on user experience and customer service seems to be deteriorating in favor of increasing profit margins. Here's another casualty: Before, it was easy to get same-day Genius Bar appointments. Now, there's always like a 3-5 day wait.

Mind, I reckon if you contribute to a 401k, you probably do have Apple stock. Apple is like 3.7% of the S&P 500.

 

[rgarjr]

I like getting the bigger storage models but you do get shafted by the small amount of money u get when its time to sell.

 

[ucfgrad93]

Apple is simply offering a certain choice that some do not agree with.

And for some it isn't just a slap in the face, it is a kick to the groin.

 

[zhenya]

Why is it always 'a slap in the face' when Apple continues to build the phone in the storage configuration that is the most popular, by far, but relative silence when the vast majority of competing phones still don't offer anything more than 64GB today?

The reality is, with the state of cloud storage today, having a 16GB phone is a lot more practical today than it was just a couple of years ago. I'd say 80% of the people I know with iPhones have 16GB models, and other than my wife, they never complain about the storage size. And my wife no longer does now that we have her set up to no longer keep all of her photos and videos on the phone. Her phone was bought for her by her workplace, who buys iPhones by the tens of thousands. Do you think they care about the storage size or just want whatever is most cost-effective?

 

[eyoungren]

Why is it always 'a slap in the face' when Apple continues to build the phone in the storage configuration that is the most popular, by far, but relative silence when the vast majority of competing phones still don't offer anything more than 64GB today?

I think probably because those 'other' phones offer SD card capability.

If Apple allowed you to insert an SD card for additional storage they'd only sell one model, the 16GB. Which is probably why they don't offer that.

 

[zhenya]

I think probably because those 'other' phones offer SD card capability.

If Apple allowed you to insert an SD card for additional storage they'd only sell one model, the 16GB. Which is probably why they don't offer that.

Not anymore they don't.

*Yes, some do, but many flagships from other brands - Samsung, Google, etc. no longer do.

 

[eyoungren]

Not anymore they don't.

*Yes, some do, but many flagships from other brands - Samsung, Google, etc. no longer do.

Then the manufacturers have clued in to Apple's business/profit model.

 

[5105973]

If you were buying 128GB anyway why on earth would you care if they were releasing 16GB or not? i certainly can understand those who are angry about 16GB but i'm not bothered as I'm getting the 128GB anyway.

I always get the highest capacity model I can afford at any given time. I'm able to afford the 128 model.

Why I care is because there was a time I trusted this man Steve Jobs when he said this about his business, his passion, his products:

"Get closer than ever to your customers. So close, in fact, that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves."

To that end, he had his team design products that were specced well to work beautifully with the software. He didn't play games underspeccing to drive up margins. He knew he had to gain our belief and our faith by building devices and providing service levels that would exceed our expectations. If he could gain our confidence and our faith by doing the unexpectedly awesome thing, we'd be begging Apple to take our money.

The fact we still do when Apple is now demonstrating that it does play games to drive up margins is sad. The fact some of us do so because the competition is crap is sad. Now is NOT the time to take the side of big business. Apple is slowly not working as hard to keep the faith. We need to let them know we are noticing.

Lately, as Rui No Onna has pointed out we've gotten customer service waits that have gone up and become more bureaucratized instead of personal. We've gotten a generation of iPhones that can't properly handle web pages right out of the starting gate because Apple decided to withhold the much needed and anticipated RAM increase to the last possible moment.

We've gotten sour customer experience like that of my sister-in-law, who is not technical enough to understand the implications of the base model's 16GB of storage. As a result she couldn't understand why her iPhone was malfunctioning terribly. She never would have understood if her engineer brother hadn't figured out what her problems were. Meanwhile she was thinking and probably still thinks IPhone 6Plus is the worst engineered piece of crap ever because she got by fine on an iPhone 5s base model. She didn't understand her new phone camera was producing larger file sizes and that the features that made it more tempting as a content producing and consumption device were encouraging her to use it in a different way that was forcing her against the barriers of low storage. Had we known she was thinking of getting a new iPhone we would have advised her.

Make fun of her ignorance if you will but there likely are quite a few out there in the same boat. Not understanding what the cloud is, not understanding how to transition to streaming. They buy it and expect it to work like their iPhones have always worked. 32 GB would cover their modest requirements beautifully, cost Apple little, and keep customer faith. It should be a natural progression to increase the storage on the base model to keep up with the increased capabilities and file sizes produced by the higher specced camera. Apple should anticipate this need of its base model customers.

But no, they have apparently bought into the prevailing thought that it's all about the bottom line. That's so shortsighted. Steve knew that and that's what his Apple revolution and its success was founded upon: a new way of doing business where you place your faith in your product because you know it's the best it can be and your customers will discover and believe, too. And THAT relationship is what long term profitability is built on. It's what it was built on.

The way so many of you are speaking of the old school thought "Apple is a business, this is how you maximize margins" or denigrate the desires and hopes of customers as "whining and crying" exhibits a mode of thinking Steve demonstrated was outmoded. While he didn't design by focus groups and did do things his way, he did these things because he truly believed his way was going to give the customer the best experience. Provided they aren't "holding it wrong". Lol--hey, he's human and he strayed from his own good beliefs, too.

Which is why we customers need to be demanding, discerning, and look to our own interests and not Apple's.

 

[5105973]

Holy crap that was TL/DR. Sorry, it didn't look that way when I was composing it. Oh well. I'm off to dinner.

 

[buster84]

I always get the highest capacity model I can afford at any given time. I'm able to afford the 128 model.

Why I care is because there was a time I trusted this man Steve Jobs when he said this about his business, his passion, his products:

"Get closer than ever to your customers. So close, in fact, that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves."

To that end, he had his team design products that were specced well to work beautifully with the software. He didn't play games underspeccing to drive up margins. He knew he had to gain our belief and our faith by building devices and providing service levels that would exceed our expectations. If he could gain our confidence and our faith by doing the unexpectedly awesome thing, we'd be begging Apple to take our money.

The fact we still do when Apple is now demonstrating that it does play games to drive up margins is sad. The fact some of us do so because the competition is crap is sad. Now is NOT the time to take the side of big business. Apple is slowly not working as hard to keep the faith. We need to let them know we are noticing.

Lately, as Rui No Onna has pointed out we've gotten customer service waits that have gone up and become more bureaucratized instead of personal. We've gotten a generation of iPhones that can't properly handle web pages right out of the starting gate because Apple decided to withhold the much needed and anticipated RAM increase to the last possible moment.

We've gotten sour customer experience like that of my sister-in-law, who is not technical enough to understand the implications of the base model's 16GB of storage. As a result she couldn't understand why her iPhone was malfunctioning terribly. She never would have understood if her engineer brother hadn't figured out what her problems were. Meanwhile she was thinking and probably still thinks IPhone 6Plus is the worst engineered piece of crap ever because she got by fine on an iPhone 5s base model. She didn't understand her new phone camera was producing larger file sizes and that the features that made it more tempting as a content producing and consumption device were encouraging her to use it in a different way that was forcing her against the barriers of low storage. Had we known she was thinking of getting a new iPhone we would have advised her.

Make fun of her ignorance if you will but there likely are quite a few out there in the same boat. Not understanding what the cloud is, not understanding how to transition to streaming. They buy it and expect it to work like their iPhones have always worked. 32 GB would cover their modest requirements beautifully, cost Apple little, and keep customer faith. It should be a natural progression to increase the storage on the base model to keep up with the increased capabilities and file sizes produced by the higher specced camera. Apple should anticipate this need of its base model customers.

But no, they have apparently bought into the prevailing thought that it's all about the bottom line. That's so shortsighted. Steve knew that and that's what his Apple revolution and its success was founded upon: a new way of doing business where you place your faith in your product because you know it's the best it can be and your customers will discover and believe, too. And THAT relationship is what long term profitability is built on. It's what it was built on.

The way so many of you are speaking of the old school thought "Apple is a business, this is how you maximize margins" or denigrate the desires and hopes of customers as "whining and crying" exhibits a mode of thinking Steve demonstrated was outmoded. While he didn't design by focus groups and did do things his way, he did these things because he truly believed his way was going to give the customer the best experience. Provided they aren't "holding it wrong". Lol--hey, he's human and he strayed from his own good beliefs, too.

Which is why we customers need to be demanding, discerning, and look to our own interests and not Apple's.

Exactly. I didnt have the time to read most of the replies, but i did skim threw them and there was alot of people just telling me to buy the bigger one, or i was already planning to buy it and the 16gb version shouldnt effect my decision. Your post is spot on with exactly exactly how i feel about the direction of Apple. If a company is no longer following the original goals set forth by steve jobs then im no longer interested in their products.

The people who buy the bigger unit, or continue to buy knowing that apple is doing this on purpose are only giving apple more reasons to screw over their customers again in the future. By supporting this type of change and accepting it will promote apple to continue this type of bad behavior.

This would be like buying beef from a company who kills dolphins. Just because you like beef doesnt mean that you should support that company if they kill dolphins. Yes, in this scenario it's a little over the top, but that is no different than the new direction apple is heading. I'm going to wait for the official information about the 6S launch (maybe the 16gb is being released for less). If not and its exactly as i suspected then I wont be supporting apple anymore. Starting with my next phone purchase ending up being the LG G4.

I honestly wont be surprised at all if apple sells the the lowest amount of iphones they ever have before because of this. They already got huge outrage over the 16gb 6 version you can just imagine the outrage for the 6S with 4k Video and higher megapixels. Lets also not forget that most phone companies tend to keep the lowest GB version in stock (T-mobile for example) always does this) which means mean's that the mainstream version will be the 16gb version.

 

[rui no onna]

Why I care is because there was a time I trusted this man Steve Jobs when he said this about his business, his passion, his products:

"Get closer than ever to your customers. So close, in fact, that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves."

To that end, he had his team design products that were specced well to work beautifully with the software. He didn't play games underspeccing to drive up margins. He knew he had to gain our belief and our faith by building devices and providing service levels that would exceed our expectations. If he could gain our confidence and our faith by doing the unexpectedly awesome thing, we'd be begging Apple to take our money.

The fact we still do when Apple is now demonstrating that it does play games to drive up margins is sad. The fact some of us do so because the competition is crap is sad. Now is NOT the time to take the side of big business. Apple is slowly not working as hard to keep the faith. We need to let them know we are noticing.

But no, they have apparently bought into the prevailing thought that it's all about the bottom line. That's so shortsighted. Steve knew that and that's what his Apple revolution and its success was founded upon: a new way of doing business where you place your faith in your product because you know it's the best it can be and your customers will discover and believe, too. And THAT relationship is what long term profitability is built on. It's what it was built on.

The way so many of you are speaking of the old school thought "Apple is a business, this is how you maximize margins" or denigrate the desires and hopes of customers as "whining and crying" exhibits a mode of thinking Steve demonstrated was outmoded. While he didn't design by focus groups and did do things his way, he did these things because he truly believed his way was going to give the customer the best experience. Provided they aren't "holding it wrong". Lol--hey, he's human and he strayed from his own good beliefs, too.

Which is why we customers need to be demanding, discerning, and look to our own interests and not Apple's.

AMEN!!!

 

[5105973]

Exactly. I didnt have the time to read most of the replies, but i did skim threw them and there was alot of people just telling me to buy the bigger one, or i was already planning to buy it and the 16gb version shouldnt effect my decision. Your post is spot on with exactly exactly how i feel about the direction of Apple. If a company is no longer following the original goals set forth by steve jobs then im no longer interested in their products.

The people who buy the bigger unit, or continue to buy knowing that apple is doing this on purpose are only giving apple more reasons to screw over their customers again in the future. By supporting this type of change and accepting it will promote apple to continue this type of bad behavior.

This would be like buying beef from a company who kills dolphins. Just because you like beef doesnt mean that you should support that company if they kill dolphins. Yes, in this scenario it's a little over the top, but that is no different than the new direction apple is heading. I'm going to wait for the official information about the 6S launch (maybe the 16gb is being released for less). If not and its exactly as i suspected then I wont be supporting apple anymore. Starting with my next phone purchase ending up being the LG G4.

I honestly wont be surprised at all if apple sells the the lowest amount of iphones they ever have before because of this. They already got huge outrage over the 16gb 6 version you can just imagine the outrage for the 6S with 4k Video and higher megapixels. Lets also not forget that most phone companies tend to keep the lowest GB version in stock (T-mobile for example) always does this) which means mean's that the mainstream version will be the 16gb version.

I did read through all of the replies. They were very logical, well reasoned, and well thought out. And far more succinctly expressed than my long winded novel. I thank anyone who took the time to read it.

My problem with all of the replies was, as I said, that they represented an old fashioned pro-corporate industrial standard issue point of view. Steve and Apple gained such a tremendous edge over those companies who were enmeshed in it.

My dilemma as a customer is that the competition is no better, and actually quite a bit worse. Apple is falling but they haven't fallen yet. Samsung and Huwei are imitating all the wrong things: the look, the style, the superficial. They are too loathe to go all the way and embrace the substance: standing behind their products with excellent communication and service.

I'm very interested in many Android devices but when I go to read reviews and see how customers are ignored when parts fail or updates fail to make their way down the distribution channel, I am afraid to leave Apple.

At this point a boycott is not a practical option for me. I could perhaps write one of those infamous emails to Tim Cook. Of course I would have to work on my terrible writing first.

 

[rui no onna]

My dilemma as a customer is that the competition is no better, and actually quite a bit worse. Apple is falling but they haven't fallen yet. Samsung and Huwei are imitating all the wrong things: the look, the style, the superficial. They are too loathe to go all the way and embrace the substance: standing behind their products with excellent communication and service.

I'm very interested in many Android devices but when I go to read reviews and see how customers are ignored when parts fail or updates fail to make their way down the distribution channel, I am afraid to leave Apple.

This, unfortunately. Apple's getting worse but they're still far better than the competition.

At this point a boycott is not a practical option for me. I could perhaps write one of those infamous emails to Tim Cook. Of course I would have to work on my terrible writing first.

I think post #69 above is already pretty well written.

 

[redheeler]

We've gotten sour customer experience like that of my sister-in-law, who is not technical enough to understand the implications of the base model's 16GB of storage. As a result she couldn't understand why her iPhone was malfunctioning terribly. She never would have understood if her engineer brother hadn't figured out what her problems were. Meanwhile she was thinking and probably still thinks IPhone 6Plus is the worst engineered piece of crap ever because she got by fine on an iPhone 5s base model. She didn't understand her new phone camera was producing larger file sizes and that the features that made it more tempting as a content producing and consumption device were encouraging her to use it in a different way that was forcing her against the barriers of low storage. Had we known she was thinking of getting a new iPhone we would have advised her.

Make fun of her ignorance if you will but there likely are quite a few out there in the same boat. Not understanding what the cloud is, not understanding how to transition to streaming. They buy it and expect it to work like their iPhones have always worked. 32 GB would cover their modest requirements beautifully, cost Apple little, and keep customer faith. It should be a natural progression to increase the storage on the base model to keep up with the increased capabilities and file sizes produced by the higher specced camera. Apple should anticipate this need of its base model customers.

The problem is not just with iPhones. The mid 2014 21.5" iMac is hugely underpowered compared to the rest of the line, worse than a MacBook Air on a stand. But, I really feel sorry for those who purchase the $1999 Retina iMac expecting a fast machine for that much money, but instead find Yosemite performing slower than on a 5-year-old Mac with an SSD upgrade.

It seems like Apple shouldn't be offering such bad experiences, even on base model products. But the purpose, after all, is to advertise a lower starting price and force people to pay more to get a decent product. Profit over product at its finest.

At first, I refused to except the base model iPhone 6s would still have 16 GB storage. But recalling these examples, I now expect it. It's the direction Apple is headed toward, and any future Apple customers need to be weary of or completely avoid any base model products.