Dear Apple, why is my iPhone always full?

Dear Apple, why is my iPhone always full?(givemeicecream.com)

21 points by petenixey 11 years ago | 26 comments

azurelogic 11 years ago |

This article is ignorant in so many ways.

1) Apple did see this problem coming. See iCloud Photo Library.

2) Before smartphones, we had digital cameras, and what did we have to do with them? That's right, we took out the card and copied the photos to our computers. Just because your smartphone acts like a computer doesn't mean that you should treat it the same. Copy. Organize. Curate. Sync. Done.

3) What does one of your people's opinion of the iTunes logo have to do with the price of tea in China? Moreover, it cements the impetuous and immature tone of the article. Whining "look at me" is not how to get things done. Grow up and prove yourself.

Ladies and gentlemen, please think before you blog.

jeanbebe 11 years ago |

If Antenna Gate served as a template for how they could respond, the Jobsian answer would be one of: "upgrade to a larger phone", "use iCloud", or "don't take so many photos".

ceejayoz 11 years ago |

The 16/64/128 GB lineup for the iPhone 6 ensures this is only going to get worse. Why they didn't bump up to 32 GB as the base level is beyond me.

berberous 11 years ago | |

Almost everyone I know was bumping up to the 16GB limit on their iPhones, largely because by this point people have 2-4 years worth of photos on their devices.

If Apple moved to 32/64/128, nearly everyone would have gotten the base model. Instead, for the first time ever, people like myself, and even my mother, decided to bump up to the next tier, which is not only plenty of room for most, but 4x the storage instead of 2x (actually, it's an even higher multiplier when you factor in the storage for the OS itself).

In other words, margins.

baldfat 11 years ago | | |

My wife burns through 2 gigs a month with photos.

The actual profits for making people pay so much for 64 gigs is crazy.

daigoba66 11 years ago | |

My cynical view is that this is a way to increase the price of the iPhone without it seeming like it.

For example, in the past I've always purchased the "base" model. First 8GB then 16GB. But now, for me, 16GB is probably 1/2 my ideal storage size, so I'd probably purchase the more expensive 64GB model.

The new "base" model is effectively $100 more expensive.

dhm 11 years ago | | |

I think it's a huge hit to their brand image with consumers if this is true, because they haven't sold woefully underprovisioned current-model-year iPhones before, at least that I can recall.

I have heard the argument that they offer the smaller storage devices for institutional bulk purchase (think high school iPads with a narrower range of use cases and a managed and/or limited base of installed software), but if that's the case they should stop offering those models to consumers in general.

wlesieutre 11 years ago | | |

I was in the same boat. Instead of buying an iPhone 6, I saved $250 (500 vs 750) and got a Z3 Compact instead.

It's not perfect (the camera is garbage in low light), but it has a MicroSD slot, fits in my hand, and costs a lot less. And I can pick what app I want to use for web browsing, mailto: links, maps, etc.

I'm betting Apple finally concedes default apps in iOS 9, but I don't see them ever adding expandable storage.

sigzero 11 years ago | |

I have only ever gotten the 16GB iPhone and I have about 4GB left on the one I have now. They didn't bump it because it is the most popular configuration. That said, I have no idea why the 32GB didn't become the base except maybe "cost".

wil421 11 years ago | |

Apple knows that no one would buy the mid range if 32GB was the base option. 32GB is the sweet spot for most users but I doubt Apple wants to get up the $100.

Remember that hardware sales are what Apple is making the most money off of.

Doctor_Fegg 11 years ago | |

Not everyone needs masses of storage on their phone - I know I don't. I'd rather not pay a premium price for an extra 16GB of storage I don't need.

cujo 11 years ago | | |

That may be true, but I'm willing to bet that most people are going to buy the cheapest iPhone they can get, specs be damned. Then, within a short time, they've filled up the available storage, can't take pics, update software, etc and it becomes a headache.

scrumper 11 years ago |

You can turn on iCloud Photo Library (Beta) which does pretty much exactly this - keeps low-res images on the phone and keeps the high res original in iCloud. (Since it's an Apple cloud-based storage product I don't trust it completely, so I also have Dropbox Photo Sync).

Don't really understand what the Steve Jobs email is doing in there either.

baldfat 11 years ago | |

Why don't you use Google+ photos? It really is the best thing ever and your photos never count against your storage.

You get unlimited photos backup on you can just delete any photos on your phone and just look them up on Google+ which has the best photo search ever and also has albums, edit and folders.

jeremyswank 11 years ago | | |

does it have an option not to make the photos public?

foldor 11 years ago |

That survey seems entirely misleading. It doesn't even have an option for never running out of space. I don't own an iPhone, but i have an android device with 16GB of space and can manage my own space myself so I never run out.

mwexler 11 years ago |

Dunno, I find that Photos aren't that hard to manage for me as I don't take too many and delete bad ones quickly (though only through a Windows File Explorer; hard to mount into other programs) but I ALWAYS appear to have a 3GB "Other" space in my phone (according to iTunes) that I can't seem to shrink. It's the only reason I want to jailbreak my phone, to get in there and see just what's in there.

I'm sure I'd fill up that space with apps and photos, and be right back where I started... but at least I could try to manage it, vs. just staring and wondering...

brador 11 years ago |

The limitation on Apple storage is a bad business decision in my opinion. Once my storage got full I simply stopped buying apps unless absolutely necessary. Before that I purchased everything I could find that looked mildly interesting.

It also means I never buy movies from Apple because there is simply no space on the device to download to.

IMO bad business decision.

mmoche 11 years ago |

An app that reduces photo memory requirements is a nice start, but the only long-lasting solution to this problem is by allowing the hardware to accept memory upgrades.

It's a pipe dream to expect Apple to allow external storage on their phones, so this is likely to be the last iPhone I own. It's simply not a tenable situation.

joezydeco 11 years ago |

Turning off Photo Stream helps bigtime. I'm surprised the article didn't mention that.

If there was some way to adjust the stream buffer down from 1,000 photos that would probably help a lot of people. But you (still) can't change the number.

imron 11 years ago |

Dear Apple, please buy my startup.

mml 11 years ago |

Epic whining.

millzlane 11 years ago |

Why buy a product from a company that doesn't care about your choice? An example would be how just about every smartphone on the market is capable of MicroSD storage but the iphone is not. I have a 128GB SD card in my phone.

quonn 11 years ago | |

Well, my choice is a phone _without_ an SD card reader. So why would I buy "just about every smartphone on the market", which does not respect my choice?

Memory is not expensive. It would be far easier for Apple to simply put in 128GB by default, not an SD card reader.

aroch 11 years ago | |

Erm, most Android flagships (and many non-flagship phones) don't support expandable storage and Google is going out of their way to remove support from Android itself.