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Apple Faces Class Action Lawsuit For Shrinking Storage Space In iOS 8
An anonymous reader notes that Apple is being sued over claims that iOS 8 uses too much storage space on the company's devices.
"Ever wonder why there never is enough space on your iPhone or iPad? A lawsuit filed this week against Apple Inc. alleges that upgrades to the iOS 8 operating system are to blame, and that the company has misled customers about it. In the legal complaint filed in California, Miami residents Paul Orshan and Christopher Endara accuse Apple of "storage capacity misrepresentations and omissions" relating to Apple's 8 GB and 16GB iPhones, iPads and iPods. Orshan has two iPhone 5 and two iPads while Endara had purchased an iPhone 6. They contend the upgrades to the operating system end up taking up as much as 23 percent of the storage space on their devices."
The quality of removable storage media, especially SD cards (and derivative formats) varies drastically. Apple likes to ensure a consistent ecosystem so that all users have as consistent an experience as possible.
Apple wants to avoid cases where users blame Apple for sluggish application performance, skipping music/video, bugs, etc... that are a result of something that Apple can't control or exert influence over.
And how do you figure they are wasting space? Ever examined the content of their apps?
It's all about distribution issues. One-size-fits-all ends up requiring App developers to ship with 1x, 2x and now 3x bitmaps for the artwork. This does inflate apps, just as having multiple interface files specialization for multiple device sizes (~iphone & ~ipad xib files, or the bloating AutoLayout + Size Classes super storyboards). It's inevitable.
But Apple is also taking steps towards reduced bitmap footprints.
As of iOS 7, there has been FAR fewer bitmaps in the core OS in favour of lighter (visually and storage-wise) user interfaces.
With the introduction of PDF-based image assets that auto-compiles all the required resolutions, developers are now in a position to gradually rid themselves of the burden of maintaining multiple bitmaps (those where getting quite a hassle in large projects where every image was a trio of increasing sized bitmaps).
In OS X, PDF images are rendered natively and bypass the asset compiler. In iOS 8, the path is paved for abandoning bitmaps altogether.
So, no, Apple is not making their OS fatter on purpose. It's the cost of added features and backward compatibility that does that.
Just for reference, Orshan is a bankruptcy lawyer, but, while he's a named plaintiff, there are other lawyers handling the case. Christopher Endara was VP of a generic orthopedic screw manufacturer (Internal Fixation Systems, OTC stock IFIXQ) that went bankrupt; the company assets were bought up by US Orthopedics.
The class action filing can be read at https://cdn2.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/2893306/1-main.0.pdf .
Not that anyone cares, but background is fun; let the fanboi wars begin.
Well, you can put apps on SD cards now. At least since ICS, anyhow.
But still, user experience is pretty poor because now the user has MANAGE the storage. Where did you want to put the photo? Oh, internal storage is full! Please pick external storage! Oh doing so lost the image you took, Sorry.
Then there's the whole "where he (*@&#% is the file" issue - put some files on SD, some on internal storage, and the file will be in the wrong place when you need it. So now you need a file manager to manage moving files between SD and internal storage. Another user headache who just wants to use their device.
And nevermind that SD cards rarely use permission-based filesystems, so now any app using SD cards can access all data on SD cards. Given iOS perchant for security and trying to keep user data isolated by app so no app can access anyone else's data except through well defined APIs, well, an SD card is the perfect way to violate that. A malicioius app may decide to corrupt a data file of another app to do stuff it wants - perhaps that app holds passwords, so it writes a corrupt password file that causes it run code that passes it the password and the secured password store.
Here is the tech spec page for Microsoft Surface: http://www.microsoftstore.com/...
Note that it clearly states how much storage is actually available for use, accounting for the OS and other software.
Here is the tech spec page for Apple's iPad Air 2: http://www.apple.com/uk/ipad-a...
Note that it doesn't mention how much usable space you have after the OS and all their bundled apps have taken their share.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Every iCloud user has 5gb for free. You remember 5gb, it's 3gb more than DropBox starts with. 20gb is a buck a month.And 1tb costs identical to DropBox's 1tb plan. It's really not all that expensive.
iOS used to be a pain to transfer files via USB. You had to use iTunes, and you could send files into specific apps only. The new iCloud Drive isn't quite as versatile as a DropBox, but it's awfully close, especially for simple things like copying a file in (without needing the cable, btw).
I don't know. I make my living in IT, but I manage to use Finder without buying a third party file manager. But even if I did, I'd probably go right to PathFinder, which I owned a copy of years and years ago when Finder truly was much worse than it is today. And incidentally, it's available without the App Store and Apple makes no cut on the sale of it.
Nobody begrudges you sticking to Linux on a laptop or refusing Apple products because they have limitations. Well, obviously this is Slashdot, someone will very violently begrudge you, but that's unavoidable. Most people don't care / don't mind. But the truth is, for the vast majority of people, off the shelf, non-rooted or jailbroke Apple or Android phones do 99.9999% to 100% of what most people care about.
Believe me, I'm not (strictly) an Apple apologist. My phone is the 2014 Moto X (no flash slot, by the way, just like the Nexus and many other non-Samsung phones). My current laptop is a Surface Pro 3. And my current tablet is an iPad Air.
It's all balance. I loved my old MacBook Air, but for $200 more than a new one I chose the Surface Pro, which is lighter, has the stylus I wanted for taking notes in meetings without banging on a keyboard, and has a high definition screen. I loved my old iPhone, but the Moto X was far cheaper when I went to upgrade (under $400 unlocked, contract free thanks to the Black Friday $150 coupon), and let me do some customization I really wanted to do on a phone. And on the Tablet side, I wasn't interested in an Android tablet (I've certainly tried my fair share), because for media consumption, there's nothing that compares to the library of apps that are iPad native.
Nexus doesn't. Moto X doesn't. Samsung does. Apple doesn't. LG does. It's not like the entire industry either does, or does not supply removable memory. And even those that do, who says it's easy? For awhile, I had a Sony Xperia Z Ultra. I sold it on eBay for a slight loss because I got tired of it. Quickly. Only had 16gb, but I didn't care, because it had that vaunted memory slot. Then I got the phone, and perhaps it's easier in Android 5.0, but on 4.X here's what I had to do to get things off of internal memory:
1) Insert a Micro SD card formatted with two partitions, one Ext4 for app storage and one FAT for data storage.
2) Root my phone.
3) Install a SU utility.
4) Purchase and install an app that would let me "link" app data to the SD card, since there was no built in way to move apps (I understand some phones have the capability, others don't).
5) Purchase and install FolderSync to handle application data moves, for apps that didn't support specifying a non-standard directory.
Then I had to live with the fact that I could no longer stream TiVo content to the phone, thanks to step #2 above.
So while my Sony had 16gb internal and 64gb external, and the performance on the external was actually pretty good, since I bought a quality, premium, fast SanDisk Ultra MicroSDXC card, and actually became terrific after installing and configuring a tuning app that let me change the caching settings and other parameters, I have an easier time today with my Moto X 32gb. Less storage, less headaches. And TiVo works again.
I understand some of the why (try to make casual pirating of apps harder by keeping them on a partition type that most people outside of Slashdot won't be able to read), but frankly it just wasn't worth it. I'm a techie. I had no trouble getting those steps figured out. I just don't want to do that. Then Lollipop was about to ship, right after I sold my phone, and I thought "I wonder if all those apps still work, or what the new process is". I just didn't want to go through with that. Kudos to Samsung for support SD slots. I hope moving apps is easier, but I hate their UI so I never consider their phones. Had an S3 once. Hated it. I'm sure TouchWiz is much better now, but I like Google's own interface best. So I had a Sony Xperia GPE and now a Moto X Pure edition.
Incidentally, Microsoft has figured it out better than Apple or Google and their phone OEMs. Got my kids a Lumia (hard to pass up for under $50 at their age when they just want to play the few games that exist for every major platform anyway). Just tick a box and all apps default to SD storage, except for an occasional app whose developer prohibits the behavior, in which case you're prompted and allowed to install it on internal memory.