Why the iPhone 6 Has the Same Base Memory As the iPhone 5

Lucas123 writes When the iPhone 5 was launched two years ago, the base $199 (with wireless plan) model came with 16GB of flash memory. Fast forward to this week when the iPhone 6 was launched with the same capacity. Now consider that the cost of 16GB of NAND flash has dropped by more than 13% over the past two years. So why would Apple increase capacity on its $299 model iPhone 6 to 64GB (eliminating the 32GB model), but but keep the 16GB in the $199 model? The answer may lie in the fact that the 16GB iPhone is, and has been, by far the best selling model. IHS analyst Fang Zhang believes Apple is using that to push users to its iCloud storage service. Others believe restricting storage capacity allows Apple to afford the new features, like NFC and biometrics.

Comments

Memory doesn't cost that much.

[NotInHere]

Its only to drive people to use cloud services and buy the expensive model for more capacity. Apple would be stupid to satisfy its users.

Re:Memory doesn't cost that much.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are missing the point. All of my Android phones include the ability to add a MicroSD card. I don't care how much memory is on the phone, my data (pictures etc) doesn't reside there. Apple's continued refusal to add a MicroSD slot is just more of their way of ripping off their customers.

Re:Memory doesn't cost that much.

[sribe]

Apple's continued refusal to add a MicroSD slot is just more of their way of ripping off their customers.

Or, it's just more of keeping things simple. Not requiring users to keep track of what's where, nor which flavor of memory can used to store apps, nor what will disappear when the card is pulled out to replace it and what will remain.

I don't *want* to use a MicroSD card in my phone. (This, coming from a guy who just built his own ZFS-based 28TB server at home...)

Re:Yes and yes...

[laird]

Best selling means that most actual consumers think that 16 GB is enough. That means that while _you_ want more storage in a smartphone, most people don't. That doesn't make them wrong. :-)

Re:It costs power

[NotInHere]

Yeah, don't store the stuff locally because that needs power and then stream the content over the air instead, because that doesn't need power.

Re:It costs power

[Sarten-X]

That's about right. I just checked my iPhone (4s), and in over two years of use, never cleaning anything, I've barely passed 5GB. By far the biggest use of space is recorded videos, followed by photos, then several big apps.

I'm not going to say "16 gigabytes ought to be enough for anybody," but it is enough for many people right now. Maybe they use ICloud, or maybe they're following good habits to move photos off of their easily-lost phone, or maybe like me their primary usage model is streaming and other ephemeral data. I just don't see a pressing need to add more memory on the low-end model. There doesn't have to be some sneaky marketing plan to say "this is good enough for now."

Memory?

[Torp]

The iPhone 6 comes with 1 Gb of memory. And has options for 16, 64 and 128 Gb of storage.
Why does this even get published?

Re:lockin

[Bing Tsher E]

You're using the word 'powerful' to describe an Apple Laptop, aren't you. As in 'powerfully overpriced.' Or 'powerful' in the sense that Limburgher Cheese has a powerful smell. Right?

Because power in computing is defined by what the user does with the hardware using software, not what some marketing price point dictates. And a powerful laptop ten years ago is still powerful today, thus a $300 laptop from WalMart is powerful in the right hands. A $1600 Mac Book Pro in the hands of the typical user is no more powerful than a $200 chromebook. But it looks shiney.

The downside of SD cards

[sjbe]

Then add a microSD slot with support for 64GB memory slot.

You seem to think that a microSD card is an unambiguously positive feature. It is not. You seem to understand the upside but let me lay out the downsides:

1) It adds bulk to the phone for a feature that most customers do not care about and will not use
2) It adds to the cost of the product for design, manufacturing, warranty, and support (again for a feature few will actually use)
3) It reduces the reliability of the device by a small but statistically significant amount. When you are selling these in the millions that adds up to substantial expense.
4) Adding the microSD card comes at the expense of other features that could occupy that space such as additional battery capacity.
5) It is a vector for dust and debris to enter the phone (see point 3 above)
6) It requires supporting third party hardware that may have compatibility issues
7) SD cards come in a variety of speeds and people will inevitably buy SD cards that are not fast, incompatible or have other performance issues
8) It complicates the software on the device and almost certainly will result in bugs.
9) The functionality can be replicated in other ways that may (and in fact are) preferable to other people such as wirelessly syncing data to other devices.
10) SD cards basically are modern day floppy disks. Do we *really* need to go back to those?

I can keep going. If you want a microSD card on your phone because that is critical to you then there are plenty of excellent options available to you, particularly among Android phones. Pick one and stop trying to tell everyone that they are stupid because they don't care to do things just like you would.