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Comment by Someone1234 | Hacker News Reader

Neat. Now when will they dump this antiquated 16GB lowest tier for their devices? About 20% of that is lost to the OS, and an addition 5-15% when you download an OS update [0].

While there are Android devices who still come with 16GB, most flagships have moved to 32 GB baseline and may or may not come with a micro SD card slot on top of that.

Apple's devices with 16GB are actually legitimately painful to use after about a year or more. They really are ruining the customer experience, and I bet if Jobs were alive they would have moved to 32GB long ago.

It isn't like Apple needs the money.

[0] http://www.theverge.com/2014/12/31/7474947/apple-sued-over-1...

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I bet if Jobs were alive they would have moved to 32GB long ago.

I know this is just an aside, but it's really tiring to see people evoke "Steve Jobs would never have stood for this!". You have no idea, and he isn't around to tell you.

Fair enough.

But everything I know about the man, he was all about the user experience from top to bottom, end to end. Apple's entire modern reputation is built on that "promise."

The iPhone and iPads deliver on that in many ways, but the 16GB models and the laughable 8GB 5c, fail and they fail hard. The user is often distracted by this limitation, and many have remarked that they haven't install iOS 8 (Apple's latest and greatest) because they cannot.

Jobs was definitely around while they were shipping 16GB and even 8GB devices. But that was a very long time ago and the OS data and apps both continue to grow, while the devices sit dead in the water.

> many have remarked that they haven't install iOS 8 (Apple's latest and greatest) because they cannot.

This is the key bit, and it already has caused some changes from Apple - 8.1.3 requires less free space to update.

The 8gb 5c is a terrible user experience though, and it really surprises me that they haven't discontinued it.

Yeah but speculating on what a dead man would do is sort of talking about nothing. It reminds me of when people say what Ronald Reagan would do in a situation.

But yes I wish they would offer more storage on their product. The 8GB 5c was a weird step backward. Hopefully the next round of phones will address some of the flak they have gotten over storage.

Believe it or not, the iPhone 5c ONLY comes in 8GB. On a brand new iPhone 5c, you would be able to just barely install one of these 4GB apps. The user experience tradeoff of selling new phones with so little storage seems very short sighted.

Youre just not the type of user that those devices are made for.. Personally, I always buy the smallest iPhone because I store very little on my phone (like 1-2gb total).

I see no reason I should pay more so that my phone has 28gb free instead of 12gb

If you want more space.. Thate why they sell larger sizes.

Edit: and if there weren't plenty of people like me.. Apple wouldn't be able to sell it and would stop making it.

> I see no reason I should pay more so that my phone has 28GB free instead of 12GB

If Apple made the 32GB the base model and sold it for the same price as the 16GB model, you wouldn't have to pay any more money. It's about time they did this since flash memory is dirt cheap.

> If Apple made the 32GB the base model and sold it for the same price as the 16GB model, you wouldn't have to pay any more money.

That's not how {Apple,the World,business,life} works, young grasshopper.

Multiple smart phone manufacturers have already begun doing exactly that, young grasshopper.

Note 4, Nexus 6, Lumia 930, YotaPhone all come with a minimal capacity of 32GB.

You're not comparing like-for-like: Samsung, LG and Microsoft all produce other devices that come with less than 32GB of space. If you need 32GB, Apple provides a device for that (as do other manufacturers). If you don't need that much but want an Apple device, you can buy a 5C.

First of all, short and long sightedness are part of the world industry. Giving people a bad experience on an 8gb device can set you up for future resentment. Not all consumers understand what 8 or 16gb means and trust any iPhone to be good.

Moreover Apple could easily double their smallest tier and still have the largest margins in the industry.

not sure thats correct. i have a 16gb 5c, and when I bought it the guy who sold it to me said for an extra £15 you can get 16gb.

You seem to be forgetting that if you want more storage you are free to choose a larger model.

There are a range of customers for whom the built in apps, plus a few big names like Facebook and Uber, and maybe google maps, are more than adequate.

Yes, 16GB isn't great for large music or photo collections, but those are solved problems. You can choose from a wide range of streaming options for music, and you can use iCloud Photos to offload your photo storage from the device.

Perhaps what Someone1234 would like, is if the 32GB model became the baseline in both pricing and model--instead of the 16GB model.

Though the latest update on iOS for 16 iPads was specifically to make updates in the future smaller. (I have one and that's what was described in part of the update)

The problem is that Apple's pricing is pretty static: "lowest end is this, next is that, next is that."

Doesn't matter -what- the lowest end is, they seem to always set the price in the same place.

Upshot is that dumping 16GB has a pretty high chance of effectively bringing the price of the entire line down a notch.

So this whole line of argument simply boils down to wanting a 64GB iPhone to be $100 cheaper?

(edit: downvote by all means, but I don't see any other logic at work here - anyone feel like explaining?)

Why not ? The storage upgrades have a BS price that haven't changed anyway.

Why is the price BS? It doesn't seem to inhibit sales.

While true, this is a pain point for Apple and app developers. The upgrade rate to iOS 8 is hurt by the large number of people that do not have enough disk space left available on their phone. In retrospect, 16GB is penny wise, pound foolish for Apple.

I agree, I imagine Apple will be doubling their memory offers now.

I don't know why you're being downvoted. Everything you said is true.

I wonder who the downvotes are from?! Personally, I've got a 16GByte iPad. I find this plenty, and I appreciated the lower cost compared to the 32 or 64GByte version. People like me do exist!

I use it all the time, but only for browsing the web and for Twitter, and sometimes I'll try the odd game that's getting good press. I don't use it for photos and I don't use it for music.

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