When I bought my first generation iPhone, with version 1.1.x (can't remember exactly) the capacity was higher, maybe 7.4. With every update to the OS, the capacity changes, sometimes gets higher, sometimes lower.
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True 'Capacity' of 8GB iPhone
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When I bought my first generation iPhone, with version 1.1.x (can't remember exactly) the capacity was higher, maybe 7.4. With every update to the OS, the capacity changes, sometimes gets higher, sometimes lower.
Now I'm gonna have to go back and disagree with this. They shouldn't have to take out the OS (or any other application) from the file size. That IS like the whole furniture thing said above.
What they should do is report formated size. So an 8 GB chip is reported at 7.6 GB, and that's what should be on the box. The fact that the OS takes up another 1/2 GB, I don't think that needs to be listed.
7.45 GB, actually, and I'd have no problem with that, but it will never happen. Because unless everybody spontaneously decided to do it, people'd buy the "8GB" model over a competing "7.45GB" model, even if they contained the same exact amount. We're stuck with it. Of course, OS makers could just start using multiples of 1000 instead of 1024, so the numbers would match again.
In reality, the 8GB iPod does have 8 billion bytes (minus OS room), so it's legitimate. The 7.45GB measurement is really a computational artifice most consumers don't understand.
I think you mean if they used 10GB drives, used 2GB for the OS, and sold it as a 10GB device. Which is what they all do. The capacity is always the unformated capacity in bytes and never includes the OS room or formatting overhead.
But according to who?
YOUR very own posts states that the drive has 8,000,000,000 bytes ... why should Apple have to state anything else, then? they have an * with fine print on the box defining the difference between GiB and GB, you know.
EDIT: I'm going to have to put it out there I really don't agree that MY furniture in a house is analogous to the OS. The OS, to me in this house example, is the plumbing and walls and sinks and light fixtures etc. If I choose to sit on milk crates and watch a 13" TV in a 2000 sq ft house (small apps) OR a giant sectional with a big coffee table and 90" plasma (lots of big apps) that's up to me.
On most advertising showing the space and capacity of the phone, iPods, and HDD spaces of macs, there is a * stating that the size is in Billions of Bytes and actual formatted capacity is less.
Personally? I think that one or the other should change to make it uniform. A GB is 1024 MB whatever way you look at it. It's not the computers fault that a GB is that much.
And a lot of confusion here could be cleared up, on the iPhone that is, if iTunes TOLD US how much space is taken up by the OS. We have an amount for "other", and if that isn't the OS, what the hell is it that's taking up about 200MB of space on my phone?
All that being said, I don't remember a lot of people complaining when our two MB floppy disks only allowed us to get 1.44MB of data on it. ..
Personally? I think that one or the other should change to make it uniform. A GB is 1024 MB whatever way you look at it. It's not the computers fault that a GB is that much.
And a lot of confusion here could be cleared up, on the iPhone that is, if iTunes TOLD US how much space is taken up by the OS. We have an amount for "other", and if that isn't the OS, what the hell is it that's taking up about 200MB of space on my phone?
All that being said, I don't remember a lot of people complaining when our two MB floppy disks only allowed us to get 1.44MB of data on it. ..
I don't think the size of the OS matter on the capacity ratings on the box etc as this is likely to change with each new firmware and they can't keep changing that amount.
And most people who buy computer products with hard drive space all know that the file size is different that on the box due to it being 1024MB per GB so that doesn't really bother me.
And most people who buy computer products with hard drive space all know that the file size is different that on the box due to it being 1024MB per GB so that doesn't really bother me.
I don't think the common drive decimal marketing BS has any bearing here.
The iPhone has a memory chip. It is NOT REPEAT NOT a flash "drive", which could indeed fall subject to the binary vs decimal counting method.
The flash memory chip used has binary 8GB. That is, 2^33 = 8,589,934,592 bytes. Not 8,000,000,000.
However, flash file systems typically take around 15% for overhead. (Also, flash chips must be erased & written to in 256KB chunks... even if you change just ONE byte in that whole chunk.)
Kevin
(who has written flash drivers)
The iPhone has a memory chip. It is NOT REPEAT NOT a flash "drive", which could indeed fall subject to the binary vs decimal counting method.
The flash memory chip used has binary 8GB. That is, 2^33 = 8,589,934,592 bytes. Not 8,000,000,000.
However, flash file systems typically take around 15% for overhead. (Also, flash chips must be erased & written to in 256KB chunks... even if you change just ONE byte in that whole chunk.)
Kevin
(who has written flash drivers)
That makes sense to me, but the iPod touch tech specs page has this note:
Or a mistake on the page.
You have sharp eyes. Yes, I knew about that, but I do think it's a mistake on the page... just something that Apple marketing plunks down everywhere without thinking.
For example, because the chip actually contains 8,589,934,592 bytes, then according to the decimal method, the iPhone would be an 8.5GB device. Heh. Not.
The only other explanation would be that Apple deliberately ignores 0.5 GB of memory for no reason whatsoever. (For a while I thought it might be because each 8GB of Flash can come from the factory missing 200MB and still be considered a "good chip". This is how prices are kept low. Perhaps Apple buys even less capable rejects. But I doubt it. Flash file overhead nicely accounts for it all.)
What irks me is that, even if you take into account formatting overhead and the OS taking up part of the room, you often STILL don't get the capacity stated on the box for many electronic devices (not sure if this is true for the iPhone, but it is certainly true for a bunch of flash drives I've bought. The most generous interpretation you can come up with still doesn't add up to the number on the outside of the box -- the device is physically smaller.
That's the thing you're not getting. A file isn't the same size on a computer with binary as it is in decimal form. It's a different form of measurement. That's like complaining it's ice cold when it's 50 Celsius (which is over 100 when measured in Fahrenheit), purely because the Celsius number is lower. Think of the differences as metric and imperial. They accomplish the same thing in different ways. And if you think about (and convert the sizes from binary to decimal form) a 4 megabyte mp3 file will show up on your computer as a different number, you're still getting nearly 8 gigs of storage space, because if you calculate everything the hard drive will be holding the amount Apple says it holds. 1/2 = 4/8, that 4 MB song is 3.81469727 MiB.
8 divided by 1.073741824 (the number that converts GB to GIB) = 7.4505806
My 750 GB hard drive is exactly 698.491931 GiB
My 16 GB iPhone is exactly 14.9011612 GiB. 14.9011612 - 14.64 = 0.2611612. That's the exact size of the OS.
I assure you I already got this. I have designed large scale computer software systems for the last 15-20 years and before that got a PhD in Mathematics. I know the difference between binary, decimal. octal, what have you, and have taught it to others.
My point was even if you take all of that into consideration, it still often doesn't add up. The device is physically smaller.
I believe there is a certain amount of underhandedness going on. The hardware manufacturers have come to use the general public's acceptance of mysterious things in the computer industry (such as decimal to binary conversions) against them. Consumers no longer notice.
Go ahead and check some of your recent flash drive purchases. Do all the math. Did you get what you paid for, even when all the overheads are taken into account? I bet some of you didn't.
As someone with a degree in Mathematics you should understand this. Multiply 698gb by that number I posted (I forgot it) and you get 750GiB, the advertised size. Do the same with 14.64gb and you get 16 GiB. Like I said before, 35 Celsius isn't colder than 95 Fahrenheit.
That was really aggravating. Reading into this post, the first few replies I thought were very well thought out and intuitive. But why does everyone have to be such jerkoffs about it?
Things are made for you to buy more stuff. Things are made to be broken. Computers are made so they can get viruses, and have errors, and breakdown. If they didn't, I wouldn't have a job.
Accept things as they are, this world sucks. The 8Gig isn't really for your 8Gigs of data. But a mear 7 gigs, plus allowing 1Gig to hold your Operating System that runs your data. Too bad. Seriously. If you really want to complain about not having the full 8 Gigs for your own space...why didn't you buy the 16gigs and be done with it? Probably because if you did, you'd bitch about not having the full 16 gigs.. What we all need to do is quit being so spoiled. Be happy with what you have and be done with it.
Moral of my rant is...nothings perfect.
I apologize in advance if I came off in a bad manor.
Things are made for you to buy more stuff. Things are made to be broken. Computers are made so they can get viruses, and have errors, and breakdown. If they didn't, I wouldn't have a job.
Accept things as they are, this world sucks. The 8Gig isn't really for your 8Gigs of data. But a mear 7 gigs, plus allowing 1Gig to hold your Operating System that runs your data. Too bad. Seriously. If you really want to complain about not having the full 8 Gigs for your own space...why didn't you buy the 16gigs and be done with it? Probably because if you did, you'd bitch about not having the full 16 gigs.. What we all need to do is quit being so spoiled. Be happy with what you have and be done with it.
Moral of my rant is...nothings perfect.
I apologize in advance if I came off in a bad manor.
I can't say for sure about the iPhone sizes but from a HD stand point and 8 gig drive is an 8 gig drive. To explain why it shows smaller in the OS you have to take into account the MFT and the partition information. A drive mfg can not account for this because depending on what file system is used the amount of space will vary. I would assume that the iPhone using a pre generation 1 SSHD would still be using the basics of I/O and File systems.
And just for fun, something you can do, to see what I am talking about.
Get a 40 and an 80 gig HD, format them both with your favorite file system. Make sure you do the same file system to them both. Then look at them in your OS of choice. You will see the difference between the Dive size (as reported by MFG) and drive size in your OS grows along with the size of the drive.
Example
40 gig drive formatted with NTFS = 38.6 gig
80 gig drive formatted with NTFS = 76.3 gig
And just for fun, something you can do, to see what I am talking about.
Get a 40 and an 80 gig HD, format them both with your favorite file system. Make sure you do the same file system to them both. Then look at them in your OS of choice. You will see the difference between the Dive size (as reported by MFG) and drive size in your OS grows along with the size of the drive.
Example
40 gig drive formatted with NTFS = 38.6 gig
80 gig drive formatted with NTFS = 76.3 gig
That's what you're not getting. The reason for the size difference is the way you measure them. 1 inch is 2.54 cm, and even though the numbers are different the length is equal. Different sets of measurement give difference numbers, but equal values.
I think what he means is that if you do indeed multiply 698 by that number that you posted...SOMETIMES...emphasis on that Sometimes. you will not get 750GiB. I think and maybe he thinks, if a company doesn't EXACTLY make a 750GiB HDD, they make..lets say 743.5GiB they will still sell it to the retail companies, which in turn we'll buy from.
The 8GB number is only indirectly related to the flash drive's exact actual physical or logical size. More likely it's the largest number that they can quote without the FTC being able to crack down and win a case against them for false advertising, done that way to stay level with the competition which gets away with the same practices.
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I've probably owned 10 hard drives and have used or worked on plenty of other computers, and not a single one of them has been an exception to the 1.073741824 rule. All 750gb hard drives are 698.491931 GiB, and here's proof...
I currently have a 500, 750, two 250's, and a 200 in use. All drives are Western Digital except the 750, which is a Seagate. They all fit the formula. It's a no brainer that you're not being lied to and that there isn't a massive conspiracy to give you smaller hard drives for the same price.
200 ÷ 1.073741824 = 186.264515
250 ÷ 1.073741824 = 232.830644
500 ÷ 1.073741824 = 465.661287
750 ÷ 1.073741824 = 698.491931