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What do people do with more than 16 GB of storage space?

My mom and grandma use it as their only computer. They keep running out of storage space because they use it to save photos from their digital cameras. My mom is by no stretch of the imagination a power user, but she is always running low on her 32GB iPad 4th gen. I've got my grandma setup with Dropbox on their 16GB iPad 4th gen, but will probably switch them to iCloud Photos when that goes live because it's a lot easier to manage and automatically keeps cached versions in their camera roll.

As for me, I keep a cache of my Lightroom Library on my device which takes up several gigs. I usually have a movie or two for the airplane, a few large Rdio Playlists cached offline which takes up a few gigs, a bunch of photos and videos I take of my baby daughter and wife, sketches that I make with Adobe Ink & Slide, AAA 3D games like Bioshock, and bunch of cached iMessages (hopefully this will be lower with the new iOS 8 settings—but I wish there was a 3 month setting instead of 1 year and 1 month), apps like iWork and iLife take up a lot of space, along with some reference guides like Peterson birds and FontBook—as well as offline maps in Navigon in case I get into a situation where I'm lost without a data connection. I also like having a lot of extra space so that I can dump my RAW photos from my DSLR. I just wish Lightroom Mobile would update so that it can import those, let me organize them and sync them back to my Mac while I'm on a trip. Apparently iCloud Photo Library will sync the RAW files up and back to the Mac, so I'm definitely going to use that when it comes out. I've already purchased 200GB of iCloud storage. I'm really glad that I got the 128GB iPhone 6 Plus because now I don't ever have to worry about managing space. I'm probably considered an iOS power user.
 
Ooohhh...one more "since I don't use it that way, no one else should" thread.
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Do you travel much?

Do you use your phone to create/edit documents/presentations?

Do you keep media files stored locally via dropbox or another service for offline use?

There are a MILLION reasons why people might need more space than you.

Heck, I can remember when my 250MB Macintosh Performa HDD was da bomb, too!
 
PLEASE READ THE EDIT TO MY ORIGINAL COMMENT!!!

A lot of you seem to have missed my follow up replies where I clarified my question, so I edited my original post so that you can't miss it. Please, no more comments saying "I have 8 zillion GB of movies stored on my phone."
 
motulist said:
I understand that videos take up space. But you haven't answered my question, which is why do you need several seasons worth of tv shows stored on your phone at all times?
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Need?

I don't need to store anything on my device. I want to store that much on my device. Just because it's what I want. I don't need a 64GB iPhone either. I could do just fine with my old Sanyo Katana. But I wanted a 64GB iPhone.

I think this is where a lot of people get tripped up around here. They buy phones based on what they need. I have a need for a phone too, but I buy my phones based on what I want and as long as the primary need (making phone calls) is met I don't care if I need the rest of it or not - it's what I want.
 
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I couldn't justify paying another $100 for the additional space, even though it's a better deal for the 64gb. I'm using around 5gb of space on my 16gb Plus, and will probably never go over that. I use Spotify for music and sync one playlist at a time for offline use, my photos all sync to Dropbox and eventually get removed, and I watch videos on my iPad. I may hit 6gb used, max.
 
Why do I cary a lot of music and photos on my iPhone? Simple: because the phone isn't always connected to the network. If I want to show photos or listen to music I don't want to have to rely on a data connection to do it.
 
Because I can't stream my library without paying for iTunes Match. Because the quality of streaming media cannot compete with the quality of music stored on the device. Because I have a limited data plan (you'd think 15GB is enough, but alas -- netflix is a killer). Ever tried to stream ANYTHING using airplane WiFi?

I also take tons of photos of my daughter. Tons. Videos are a killer also. Combine this with iMovie and edited versions of your videos.

Apps take up a lot of space. Somebody mentioned Infinity Blade .. Just one of many games that are larger than 1GB.

That said, I have a 16GB iPad mini with no media on it and no photos. Just apps. Couldn't upgrade to iOS 8 OTA without deleting apps. Never again.
 
motulist said:
---EDIT--------------
I'm very well aware of how much space you CAN fill up by loading your phone with 50,000 songs, or 10,000 high res photos, or several seasons worth of tv episodes, etc. The question is why do you store all that stuff locally on your device instead of just having a few of those items stored locally for the rare occasions when you don't have net access to stream them? Even out in the country where I am, pretty much everyone has DSL with wifi, and in town you even get some cell data. So for the vast majority of the population you're going to have net connectivity that's at least as good as that, and usually much better.

-------- original comment below -------------



I've had a 16 GB iPad for 3 years and a 16 GB iPhone for a year, and I've almost never had a problem of too little available space. I have many many apps installed, including a couple of big games, I keep about 10 music albums and a few podcasts stored for those rare occasion when I don't have cell or wifi net access available, each week I take about 30 pictures and a couple of short videos, I'm running iOS 8 which supposedly eats up over 1 GB more than 7, I only sync with my computer to offload the pics and videos every couple of months, and even with all of that I still have like 4 GB of space free. What are other people storing that eats up so much more space that it requires 32 or 64 GB of space?
Click to expand...

motulist said:
PLEASE READ THE EDIT TO MY ORIGINAL COMMENT!!!

A lot of you seem to have missed my follow up replies where I clarified my question, so I edited my original post so that you can't miss it. Please, no more comments saying "I have 8 zillion GB of movies stored on my phone."
Click to expand...

This thread sucks.
 
motulist said:
PLEASE READ THE EDIT TO MY ORIGINAL COMMENT!!!

A lot of you seem to have missed my follow up replies where I clarified my question, so I edited my original post so that you can't miss it. Please, no more comments saying "I have 8 zillion GB of movies stored on my phone."
Click to expand...

Then to your follow-up question I say this: because my time is also valuable and spending a bunch of time on my phone deleting and re-downloading things is well worth $100 extra every two-three years. In fact, it's so trivial next to the value of my time that it's a no-brainer.
 
My first iPhone was a 3G 8GB. I thought with regular access to my desktop, I'd be fine. Hit that 8GB really quick and always regretted it since. So, since then, I've gotten the most space I could (32GB on my 4, now 128GB on my 6+).

My iPhone 4 lasted me four years. I fully intend this one to last me at least three to four years.
 
I wish they'd make a 256GB iPhone. My music collection alone is about 200GB. I'm sad my iPod Classic no longer works.
 
If you can't imagine why others might want/need more space, you probably won't be convinced when they attempt to explain it to you. I really doubt that there are use cases beyond your imagination; some legitimate need for more space that hadn't occurred to you. In the meantime, be glad that 16GB works for you, since it's the best bang-for-the-buck.
 
I have zero movies, zero tv shows, only 36 songs on my phone. With that said, 16gb is still way too small for me.

I had about 600 pictures on my phone, have a 4 month old son who gets a lot of pictures taken of. Plus the apps I have, only like 2-3 games, but one game(KOTOR) is 2.3gb, and my other apps easily out me over 16gb. 32gb would have been enough for me, but 64gb is the next step up now.

I have my pictures backed up on my rMPB but it's convinent when I want to see my pictures now that I don't delete them off my phone.
 
well listen here every iphone i had 16 gb,this year i said hey let me go get 16 gb guess what wasn't enough ,long story short,so got the phone 11 gb after it was open since ios is 5.0 gb

1001 songs another 5 gb few apps left m with 4.5 gb,after using ios for a few days all the cache etc left me with 3.9 gb ,in a matter of months a few updates and more apps i would of been done,sold the 6 and got the 64 gb can't use a 16 anymore
and some people rather have everything stored on phone for quick easy access and one of those

people are me,i never store anything to the cloud only pictures etc. for backup but music is needed as i hit the gym 3-5 times a week
 
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I travel a lot for business, even when a flight has wifi, its barely good enough for web browsing. Forget trying to stream music. And they don't allow video streaming.
 
Really depends on the user. My wife could care less about apps, games or movies. If I was to upgrade her phone it would be for a 16GB model. Last week when I upgraded her iPhone 5 to iOS 8 I checked to see how much space was left and she had 6.8GB; the phone is now 2 years old. If you look at the big picture the people that visit this site are above average users. There is a huge pool of Apple customers that have very basic needs.
But for me I’m in paradise with 128GB. It really does make the phone more enjoyable. I have 77.9GB left and that’s with not one movie or song on it; all apps. It was miserable having a 16GB iPhone 5s last year. At least this year $100 quadruples your space so it’s not that bad.
 
I never watch videos on my phone. I can only enjoy videos on my 50" TV, at home, when I have time and when I can.
I don't play silly games on my phone, too.

It's curious to see people watching videos and playing games on their tiny screen, on the go.
 
ZBoater said:
And that's great. 100 albums, 100 podcasts, and 50 TV shows don't.

Why would I leave myself at the mercy of connectivity performance and availability when I can have it locally? :confused:
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This. And as it is, a lot of my music is in iCloud but I'm still at 15gb - I should download some of my songs before I go travelling in a week or two!
 
I have currently, on my 32GB after having a bit of a clear out following a forced restore:

- 6.5 GB videos
- 4GB music
- 909MB photos

A 16GB is only about 13GB of usable space. That's getting close without apps.

I upgraded from a 16GB last year as that was getting full. I love the luxury of not having to swap things around. I just like the convenience of having things stored locally. Where I am, there isn't much free wifi.
 
LostSoul80 said:
I never watch videos on my phone. I can only enjoy videos on my 50" TV, at home, when I have time and when I can.
I don't play silly games on my phone, too.

It's curious to see people watching videos and playing games on their tiny screen, on the go.
Click to expand...
I'm with you, but on occasion I have to wait for my wife to pick me up. I don't watch on my phone that frequently (that's what my TV is for) but it's nice to have something to occupy the time while waiting.

Also, and this was more when my kids were younger, having videos or the ability to stream content was nice because it occupied my kids whenever we were somewhere we had to wait a while. They are older now so they have other things to amuse them while waiting, but it proved useful for a short time.
 
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