Apple calls 128GB 'lots of storage' in new iPhone 15 ad | AppleInsider
Apple calls 128GB 'lots of storage' in new iPhone 15 ad | AppleInsider
The entry 128GB storage tier for iPhone 15 hasn't stopped Apple from claiming its latest models have "lots of storage for lots of photos."
The ad says "Lots of storage FOR PHOTOS", specifically.
If we assume that the typical iPhone photo is 4MB (they're almost always less), and you use half your storage for photos, ((128/2)*1024)/4 is 16,384 photos.
I'd argue that's quite a lot.
Idunno if technically correct is the best route to go here. But sure, if you wanna defend more bs marketting from a huge ass company, you go.
Lemme explainw hy the rest of us find this a little dumb to see. Iphone is famous for being the best phone in the world at recording video, which is not nearly as small, especially at high resolutions.
For context, a 4k60fps video is 400MB per minute, which would fill up the phone in less than 5 and a half hours. You can record less than four of your kids soccer games with that. If you go with 4k24fps (135MBpm), you can get 948 minutes of video which is 11 soccer games. You'll probably get most of your kids soccer games, but you'll have to dump the video if they get to the playoffs.
If you got noticably shitty quality at 720p30fps, (why would you do that on the phone camera with the arguable best video recordings in the world?!) you get 53 hours of video recording time.
Look, its a lot compared to vhs, which could do up to 240 minutes, or vhs-c, (the mobile vhs) which could do up to 60 minutes of video.
It's a lot compared to phones from ten years ago, even. But it sure as fuck is not a lot when you compare it to literally any other phone from the same price bracket and age range. Thats the point. The storage is fucking average compared to competitors. If you use the phrase 'a lot of storage' you damn well better be doing at least twice what your competition is doing for me to agree with you.
It’s really your choice to buy the model you need and can afford. Apparently enough people do that they know exactly where to price their models.
They do have marketing people employed that are far more experts than you and me how to squeeze customers for maximum profit. If people weren’t buying low storage models, they wouldn’t make them.
Since they are, they’re obviously selling them. My parents regularly buy the lower storage models quite happily.
So I’m not sure what point you’re making? They should cut back on their profits because “some reasons” or for the good of the world? lol no.
Not so much for 4k60 video
I'd argue your counting is flawed. That storage is used for OS, updated applications, caching, system data, videos, music you listen to, etc. When you buy 128GB you never get more than 100, and it only keeps getting smaller the more you use it. And iPhone's default video FPS is 60. See how many of those can fit on that storage.
It is a lot. I have now 48/64 GB storage used on my iPhone from 2020. Photos/apps are also offloaded to iCloud to save local storage, the system automatically helps you. I sat down once to delete big unused videos or multiple photos, but other than that I don’t actively manage it
I did the same thing, 64 GB, offloaded photos to iCloud, it worked for about 2 years, then it became a constant struggle for the next 2 years. Could not install updates unless I deleted a bunch of apps first. Let iOS manage which apps are installed? Great idea, flawed in execution. It would delete apps that I never open but are necessary for some Shortcuts to run. Also the apps themselves don’t use that much space, it’s the data they store. Now I have 256 GB. I think 128 might be fine but I thought the same thing with 64 GB back then.
The storage space on the phones themselves is not really a problem.
The default storage for iCloud is borderline criminal and should be targeted for regulation by the government.
The true problem is how hard to move your data out, or to able to choose your own cloud service
It was that very reason that I didn't take regular backups of my iPhone 7+ at the time, and then the bastard thing just died completely, losing very precious photos and videos. Never an iPhone again after that. I love being able to just plug a USB flashdrive into my Pixel to easily transfer photos over to a more reliable medium, although in more recent times I now have a server for this.
To be fair, the 5gig is free, and you can still back up your phone via a windows or Mac computer.
The 5 gigs of storage is really only good enough for things like system and device setting, and keeping preferences unified across devices. It’s not really a great solve for media or file backups. For that you either need to pay Apple, pay another cloud backup company, or backup locally to a computer.
I was surprised how quickly it filled up without me even thinking about it that I ended up disabling it. I just wish syncthing equivalents were better supported, since my Android, Microsoft, Steam Deck, and MacOS sync files without me having to really think about it.
But, iOS and iPadOS due to file access restrictions don't work well with it, so it's like they try to push you into iCloud by making everything annoying when it comes to files sync even with just the base iCloud. Good thing though is I just use an iPad now, which I use more as a media consumption device. No need to deal with iPhone annoyances, which would be much more important in trying to sync and transfer files as a multi platform user.
Apple does have a setting for regular, automatic, local backups. Though I wish they could do that while also automatically backing up to iCloud. My iCloud backup is under 5 but that’s partly because lots of stuff is already stored in iCloud. I think the real issue for a lot of people is when they have multiple devices, like work and personal phones and/or iPad or two, that all want to backup to that 5 GB. I always thought a compromise like the first 5 GB of a devices iCloud backup doesn’t count towards the iCloud storage. This solves the multiple device backups issue and still keeps a modest base amount of storage so people with just one device still have an incentive to purchase additional storage.
Maybe I'm weird, but I feel entitled to significant storage (options) on my device, but I don't feel entitled to free cloud storage (of significant size)
Totally agree. I'm not entitled to free anything, but I feel like I shouldn't be paying ridiculous markups for internal storage and should be given the option to use MicroSD cards (spoiler alert: I've used MicroSD cards extensively in my last 4 phones). I'm also making use of both my M.2 slots on my laptop, for a total of 3TB.
This guy gets it.
Uh, I still find that lots
Right? My Pixel is also 128GB. I've got like 5 or 6 thousand Spotify songs, 3 gigs in my pocket casts cache, about 10 gigs of emulated games and dozens of apps and games. If you're struggling with 128 gigs on your phone, clean some shit off there. I've still got 30 gigs free.
It's lots until you realize they are upcharging you over 1000% on the higher storage trims
I really enjoy my Apple devices, but to call 128GB a lot is ridiculous. Storage has absolutely stagnated. It’s 2024, these phones should be coming with 256 or 512GB for the insane price they cost. iPhones shoot 4K60 HDR video now, that space is hardly enough. Good for getting you onto an iCloud plan, though.
They even disable recording in prores on lower storage phones.
If only there was some kind of expandable storage slot that I could add a terabyte for like 50 bucks. One u just pop in and pop out that's like the size of a fingernail..Maybe we'll make some kind of technology like that one day. I'm sure the good folks at Apple aren't just scamming every fart smelling consumer by telling them the storage they pay extra for is reasonably priced.
I know you're being facetious but not gonna lie, the progression from a 5.25" 1.2MB floppy to a modern micro SD card with a practically infinitely bigger amount of storage is one of the things that blows my mind most about how much technology has evolved
And to think the physical bits on that floppy still would've been invisible to the naked human eye.
Well, they don't want to because fans will gladly pay 200$ or more for extra 128GB and call them revolutionary.
128 GB has been more than enough for me for over 8years ? I haven't gotten a phone with more than that.. I am currently at 72GB/128GB storage and most of that is Apps. I do go and archive photos and videos off my phone from time to time however.
If you NEVER delete anything, sure, you will run out. Or if you are super heavy into photos and video maybe but it is still A LOT of storage on a phone.
One hour of 360 video is roughly 60GB. Process that video and export it and you get a lot of data as well. I would not call it being super heavy on video to have one hour of source material on your phone, which you could not do right now.
360 photos are roughly 150MB each.
Storage is cheap, but sold at a very high mark-up.
128gb is plenty unless you’re storing a lot of photos on device. If you’re storing > 100GB of photos on your phone and they’re not backed up somewhere else, you’re really setting yourself up for disaster
It's those moving pictures that really get you. And our phones now have very high grade cameras on them, so it's very easy to exceed. Cloud storage fills quickly, or butchers the resolution.
Cloud storage fills quickly
Apple provides up to six terabytes of cloud storage (for a monthly fee, obviously). And if you have a family account, individual members of the family can pay for even more storage (by default though, the entire family has a shared pool of storage).
But yeah — I'm pretty sure Apple ProRes RAW video can be hundreds of gigabytes per minute of footage. If you're choosing that then yeah, you're going to have to find another cloud provider. And it's going to be very expensive. Most people don't shoot video in ProRes RAW though.
My 4-5 year old OnePlus 8T phone has 256GB storage.... Are you fucking kidding me, Apple? Can you at least try?
OnePlus had 128gb as their base config until the 12 was released a few months ago. The specs for the OP 7 through 11 all had a base 128gb config.
A lot of phone manufacturers still have 128 as the base config (like Google). That said, they don’t charge $1000 for that base config. They’re usually $150 to $200 cheaper.
I’m only using 92 GB, and am not careful about storage other than deleting pictures I don’t want. I don’t mind them starting at 128 GB.
That said, as cheap as memory is, going to 1 TB should not cost hundreds.
Especially since other flagship phones are $150 to $200 less with that storage option.
It’s plenty for me.
yea it is. I'm chilling at 42gb, and 10 of that is just downloaded music
20gb of downloaded music for me, and I’m surprised it’s that little.
yeah I used to have more, like all my albums, mut nów its just my playlist (30hrs)
I don't have an iPhone but I just wanted to say that 128 is not enough, at least for me.
I had to delete so much stuff.
On my iPhone it's more like:
- 5GB downloaded podcasts
- 4GB offline maps
- 2GB photos
- 2GB music
- 1GB health data
- 1GB messages
- The core operating system uses about 10GB
- About 10GB of or so of other stuff.
In total, I'm using a bit over 30GB.
I had to delete so much stuff.
The thing is, an iPhone does that for you.
My full photo library is huge — terabytes, and i have a bunch of large apps (especially games) on my phone that I never play - it automatically removes them but leaves the icon in the launcher. It'll simply re-download them if you do tap the game. And if the game is well designed, it won't be a single download - it'll be a minimal download for the game then within the game each level or area of the game will be downloaded separately as you play.
I have a 64GB phone, and the storage management makes sure I have 20GB or more of free plenty space for large video recordings, software updates, etc etc. If I had a 2TB iPhone, I'd probably have the same 20GB or so of free space since my photo library is that big.
I guess it would be nice to be able to look at a photo I took six years ago and not have to wait a tenth of a second for it to download. But I'm not willing to pay for that. Even if more storage cost 10 bucks, I wouldn't be willing to pay.
My 13 Mini is 128gb. I’ve had it a year and it still has 20gb of free storage.
128gb would suck ass in a MacBook, but in a phone it’s fine for most users.
If they make the storage small on the phone then people are more likely to subscribe to their cloud storage solution and pay more money!!
My Android device has 128GB of internal storage, and I still could not imagine not having a MicroSD slot for additional storage.
We've finally reached a point where I have more storage than I need on my devices. But I pay way too much for it. Apple needs to stop embarrassing themselves with storage and RAM on entry model devices.
For some. If you start to record video, that SSD gets eaten up real quick.
i have never had issues with storage on my ios devices.
I mean, it is lots of storage. Not anywhere close to what you should get for that price, but lots nonetheless.
Maybe I'm in the minority, but I treat my phone like an old school digital camera. I routinely use Image Capture to export my photos/videos to my computer and/or external HDD. I've got a 256GB phone, but I'm never using more than 1/5 of its storage space at any given time
I used to do that that, but having everything automatically accessible and indexed in the cloud is so damn handy.
It used to be a lot for me, until I did entire backups with Swift Backup in my device too (cloud was my main).
How much of that is gonna be used by the system and not be usable by the user?
Stop taking photos of every meal you have and you’ll be fine. If the battery didn’t wear out, I would still be on 64GB now and use maybe 3/4 of it, max
"Stop using the device you paud more a thousand dollara for. Then you can admire it from a distance and not run into manufactured problems".