Slashdot Mirror


iPhone 7 To Start at 32GB Storage, Says WSJ (time.com)

An anonymous reader writes: It appears Apple has finally decided to do something about the not-so-enough 16GB storage on its base iPhone model. According to a report on WSJ, the Cupertino-based company's next smartphone -- expected to be named iPhone 7 will have 32GB internal storage on the base model.For years, Apple has offered a 16GB iPhone version for those who were on a budget or just didn't necessarily need too much storage. But as we moved forward -- the iPhone got better cameras and improved video recording capability and apps became more sophisticated and ate more storage -- we really reached a point where 16GB wasn't enough for most people. In many cases, people were unable to update their iPhone to the latest version of iOS because there wasn't enough storage left on the device. It's a welcome move, and something millions of people will appreciate.

235 comments

  1. Probably an excuse to jack the price. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    32 MB should be a rock bottom minimum in this day and age.

    1. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by Yvan256 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yes it should.

      If we were still in 1996.

    2. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by Rik+Sweeney · · Score: 1

      32 MB should be a rock bottom minimum in this day and age.

      Pfft. 32KB should be enough.

    3. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      I got 8GB free on my 16GB iPhone. Not sure why I would want 24GB free on a 32GB iPhone.

    4. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Perhaps think about it even for just a moment. Or if that's too much, perhaps read the summary that helpfully provides several reasons.

      Sure, there are a couple people who won't benefit from it. There are also a couple people out there still using rotary phones on a landline.

    5. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Or if that's too much, perhaps read the summary that helpfully provides several reasons.

      The problem I see with many people using the iPhone is that they're too lazy to manage the space that they have. A friend with an 128GB iPhone can't update iOS because he ran out of space from having too many apps, pictures and music files. If Apple offered a 256GB phone, he would run out of space in six months or less. The idea of — gasp! — removing unneeded apps, photos and music seems incomprehensible to some people.

    6. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by Immerman · · Score: 1

      Maybe because 32GB of flash costs $10, and everything else is gratuitous markups on Apple's part?

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    7. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Maybe because 32GB of flash costs $10, and everything else is gratuitous markups on Apple's part?

      What does that have to do with the fact that I have 8GB free space on a 16GB iPhone?

    8. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why is how much storage you have free on your 16GB phone at all relevant to the conversation?

      You are aware that there are people who are not you, yes? And they may have different needs?

    9. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by MitchDev · · Score: 1

      There's a difference between the user being stupid and not managing their space, and Apple being scumbags not offering enough RAM in the first place and not providing a MicroSD slot for simple space upgrade.

    10. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by known_coward_69 · · Score: 1

      i have 30GB free on my 128GB iphone. why would i want to rely on the cloud for anything? especially with data limits the way they are?

    11. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Why is how much storage you have free on your 16GB phone at all relevant to the conversation?

      Because having more isn't always the answer. Most people don't deal with what they have, always yearn for what they don't have, and make life miserable for everyone else.

      You are aware that there are people who are not you, yes? And they may have different needs?

      I'm just offering my opinion. If you don't find my opinion useful, I'm sure someone else will.

    12. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Apple being scumbags not offering enough RAM in the first place and not providing a MicroSD slot for simple space upgrade.

      Nothing is stopping you from buying an Android phone.

    13. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm just offering my opinion. If you don't find my opinion useful, I'm sure someone else will.

      I'd love to hear from the "someone else" who thinks that creimer's opinion that he doesn't need more storage space is useful to them.

    14. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      I'd love to hear from the "someone else" who thinks that creimer's opinion that he doesn't need more storage space is useful to them.

      If this was a business meeting, you would be the bullying boss who ridicules someone for asking a stupid question that "someone else" was afraid to ask for fear of being ridiculed. You're the problem, not the solution.

    15. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I got 8GB free on my 16GB iPhone. Not sure why I would want 24GB free on a 32GB iPhone.

      Oooh, look, it's personal anecdote time!

      Here's mine then! I am currently using 84 GB of storage on my phone. And yes, I know what is using it, and yes, I want to be storing that data on the device.

      See? Just because YOU don't need more than 8 GB doesn't mean NO ONE does.

    16. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      See? Just because YOU don't need more than 8 GB doesn't mean NO ONE does.

      When I had a first-generation 8GB iPod Touch, I only used 4GB on that device. I had the Touch for eight years before the battery died and I replaced it with an iPhone, which was cheaper than the current generation iPod Touch at the time.

    17. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by tripleevenfall · · Score: 1

      It's not "just an excuse to jack the price" if usability on the latest iOS would be limited by having only 16GB, for example

    18. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by MitchDev · · Score: 1

      I wouldn't buy an Apple phone...

    19. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by Immerman · · Score: 1

      Because it's difficult to anticipate future needs, and paring down to just the 8GB you're using probably still costs you $8. It almost always never makes sense to aim below the current cost/benefit "sweet spot". Same reason it's usually silly to buy a hard drive under 1TB (maybe 2TB these days, I haven't ben paying attention for a while) - you pay almost as much for considerably less capacity. Even if you don't immediately need the extra capacity, you get it almost for free and it dramatically reduces the odds that you'll feel the need to upgrade in the mid-term future.

      In the case of Flash memory with it's finite number of write cycles, that excess capacity also translates directly to longer operational lifespans and often slower performance degradation. In some cases the controller will even use that excess capacity to considerably boost performance as well, as unused mlc/tlc cells can be dynamically repurposed as much faster slc cache. (admittedly I've only heard of that being done in some SSDs rather than in gadgetry like phones)

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    20. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not useable with 16; it always has been an attempt to shake down people Just like the walled garden of the app store.

    21. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Because it's difficult to anticipate future needs, and paring down to just the 8GB you're using probably still costs you $8.

      My iPhone came with 16GB. The cost for the memory was included in the price. That I only use 8GB doesn't mean it cost me more.

      [...] maybe 2TB these days, I haven't ben paying attention for a while [...]

      Last year I replaced the five 300GB hard drives in my file server with five 1TB hard drives that I picked up for $50 each. Most of the 300GB hard drives were failing after five years of 24/7 service. Now I have three times the extra space that I had before in a RAID-6 configuration. I'm not going to spend $500 on 2TB drives to have six times the extra space. In five years, I'll buy whatever hard drive capacity is on sale for $50 each to replace the current drives that I now own.

    22. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      I wouldn't buy an Apple phone...

      Yet, here you are, bitching about Apple phones that you don't plan to buy.

    23. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

      Thank goodness they haven't sullied the iPhone with something so crude and pedestrian as a Micro SD Card slot. The beautiful sleekness of the Shiny(tm) is blissfully unmarred by something so ugly and practical.

      If they built in a card slot then people would just plug in as much memory as they might want or need, and we can't have that, now can we?

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    24. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by Yvan256 · · Score: 1

      Sir Jonathan Paul "Jony" Ive would never allow something like a "slot" on his beautiful designs.

      After all, form is above function. The latest Mac mini update is proof of that. We can't have the users upgrade their own computer's RAM!

    25. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by amRadioHed · · Score: 1

      That may be true, but a reasonable person with a not extraordinary amount of apps, photos, and music can fill up a 16GB phone pretty easily these days.

      --
      We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
    26. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

      Nothing is stopping you from buying an Android phone.

      You're right, and I did.

      And it comes with a new-fangled MicroSD slot so I can save as much stuff as I want and then swap cards from time to time without losing anything or having to transfer the stuff I want to keep. A 128GB microSD is only about $30 or so. A 256GB is about $80 or so. For me that would take a hell of a long time to fill up, but not for other people.

      So yeah, for the the choice was obvious, plus having a replaceable battery is a nice feature. When it starts to get fuzzy, $25 gets me a new one and several more years of use.

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    27. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd love to hear from the "someone else" who thinks that creimer's opinion that he doesn't need more storage space is useful to them.

      You won't, because in the real world there are no such people. Everyone wants more storage space even if they know they'll probably never use it.

    28. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by amRadioHed · · Score: 1

      I'm sorry, but you're opinion is pretty unhelpful. Just because there are some people that can waste any amount of storage their phone has doesn't mean that everyone who needs more than 8GB is being wasteful. That's just nonsense. Maybe more storage isn't always the answer, but it's certainly more likely to be the answer than less is. And people getting more storage isn't going to make anyone else's life miserable, so not sure what that's about.

      --
      We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
    29. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      'm sorry, but you're opinion is pretty unhelpful.

      That's your opinion. But I'm not going to tell you that you shouldn't have expressed your opinion even though I don't find it helpful.

    30. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And it comes with a new-fangled MicroSD slot so I can save as much stuff as I want and then swap cards from time to time without losing anything or having to transfer the stuff I want to keep.

      And, you get the deluxe Asperger's experience by being able to:
      1) Catalog all the shit that you've put on each 15mm x 11mm x 1mm bit of plastic, so you can keep track of what's on each;
      2) Not LOSE any of the cards as you gallivant around all day swapping cards in and out for endlessly expandable storage;
      3) Pay way more for less convenient storage that is not replicated anywhere, and if you lose it, it's completely gone;

      I pay $36/yr for 200 GB of iCloud Drive storage. That's accessible on every device I own, and syncs automatically to my laptop and desktop. If you really hate iCloud, you can get Dropbox instead for comparable sizes and prices. That's less money / gigabyte than you pay, and about a thousand times less hassle.

      plus having a replaceable battery is a nice feature

      Yes, for instance, with the extra bulk of all the additional plastic casing required, you can use your phone for self-defense, as if it were a brick. And if you love carrying around extra battery packs, when you could instead buy a battery pack with USB ports on it - which can then be used to charge any usb-cabled device you own - you're stuck in the past.

      1993 called, Gramps. It wants its Nokia flip phone back.

    31. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      That may be true, but a reasonable person with a not extraordinary amount of apps, photos, and music can fill up a 16GB phone pretty easily these days.

      What's the point of bitching about the iPhone for having limited memory when buying an iPhone with the least amount of memory available? Run out of space, manage it. Need an iPhone with more memory, upgrade on the next cycle.

    32. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by amRadioHed · · Score: 1

      You get gouged if you want to upgrade the storage on your device. Setting a low amount of storage on the base model forces people to spend an extra $100 or more to get a usable amount. It's just a marketing trick to make the price of the phone look lower than it really is.

      --
      We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
    33. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by butchersong · · Score: 1

      Music streaming services and photos/video. Music streaming (as unintuitive as it sounds) because everyone has their music in the cloud but still wants it sync'd for offline use -to avoid data charges and failure due to dead zones. You end up with even more stored locally than you did when you had to download mp3s. Given what Apple charges for their base model phone and the current increase in music streaming and photo quality, 32GB is really the minimum they could include and still call themselves a flagship phone.

    34. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by ravenscar · · Score: 1

      I think it's a valid point. Most of my photos, music, contacts, and other files are available in the cloud. I keep a minimum of stuff on my phone (which is an Android OS phone BTW) because there's no need for more. I keep some stuff around for those times when I'm offline, but those times are few and far between and I certainly don't require immediate access to 100+GB of data during those times.

      All things being equal, more storage is better. Still, all things are never equal. I'd rather see the manufacturer spend money on a number of other things instead of additional storage (battery, screen quality, camera, amplifier, etc.).

    35. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by Captain+Splendid · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Commenters bitching about tech they have no intention of using is this website's business model. Be nice.

      --
      Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
    36. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by Immerman · · Score: 2

      You seem to have misunderstood - I meant that the cost of a quality 8GB chip might be around $8, while a 32 GB chip would be only $10 or so, so 25% greater expenditure on a relatively inexpensive component gets you a 400% increase in capacity. In that case, it would be foolish to buy the 8GB chip unless you were completely certain you would never use the extra 24GB during the life of the device. Unless of course the manufacturer used the distinction as a completely artificial delineator between product tiers and charged a massive premium for that extra $2 worth of capacity. In which case, personally, I'd question whether I wanted to support that company's exploitative business model with my purchase

      If 2TB drives are still costing 2x as much as 1TB then obviously they're beyond the sweet spot (or I suppose within it, really) - but the fact that you didn't save yourself some money by going with 500GB drives for $40 each suggests that either you understand my basic point, or know for certain you're going to want the extra capacity.

      All I'm really saying is that there's typically a wide range of products at the low end where slight increases in cost net large increases in value, just as at the high end you reach the point were large increases in cost net only small increases in value (a 10TB drive will cost a heck of a lot more than 10 1TB drives). In between lies the "sweet spot", where cost and value scale roughly linearly. In general, there's very little reason to buy outside the sweet spot unless you are absolutely certain your usage justifies it. Which typically means either extreme high- or low-end products - neither of which is particularly relevant to the range of flash capacity in your typical smartphone.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    37. Re: Probably an excuse to jack the price. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This. Most people store files on the cloud. Lots of local storage isn't important, the way it was a decade ago on your ipod.

    38. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by MitchDev · · Score: 1

      I feel bad for the Apple sheep. Someone has to try to protect the stupid and hipsters from themselves

    39. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      You seem to have misunderstood - I meant that the cost of a quality 8GB chip might be around $8, while a 32 GB chip would be only $10 or so, so 25% greater expenditure on a relatively inexpensive component gets you a 400% increase in capacity.

      Because I'm using 8GB out of a 16GB iPhone, you inferred that I wanted an 8GB iPhone? You misunderstood me. I got a 16GB iPhone because that was the base model. When I trade in this iPhone, the next base model will have 32GB (or maybe 64GB). But I'm not going to lust after the 128GB iPhone. I can't even fill out the space on the iPhone that I got.

    40. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by Tourney3p0 · · Score: 1

      That's less money / gigabyte than they pay per year, but substantially more than they'd pay over the life of the phone. Also, just about nobody wants a replaceable battery so they can swap it out in the field in the middle of the day. They want a replaceable battery for when theirs dies in a couple years. Frankly, it's pretty weird that people have swallowed the marketing that these 800 dollar pocket computers should be disposed of every year or two.

    41. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You forgot C) Get an Android and double your storage at a whim for 15 dollars.

    42. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by CastrTroy · · Score: 1

      This outlines the problem right here, for a flagship phone, it's ridiculous to charge so much and have such a small amount of storage and no means of upgrading it. iPhone, Nexus, and others are all guilty of this problem

      Really, I have no problem with the fact that phones exist with 4GB or 8GB of storage. But for $700, it's just kind of stupid. The 8GB phones are cheaper Android ones that you can add an SD card to if you decide you need more storage later. But if Apple and Google (Nexus) are going to charge $700 and insist that you can't put in an SD card, then they should be giving you at least 64 GB to make up for the price and limitations. A good 128 Micro SD bought at retail only costs $40. They could easily afford to put the equivalent amount of storage in their phones by default. A $700 phone should easily come with as much storage as a $200 phone + $40 storage card.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    43. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're right. This is all opinion. Except that you're in a very, very small minority. Your opinion does not matter. This is a fact.

    44. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      On an iPhone, that would get filled up pretty quickly, particularly if one uses things like WhatsApp and doesn't delete photos or video messages from family or friends. Which I don't. Add to that the fact that there are no SD cards here, and a mere 5GB of free iCloud storage (maybe more sometimes) and that easily justifies having as much storage as needed.

    45. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      You're right. This is all opinion. Except that you're in a very, very small minority. Your opinion does not matter. This is a fact.

      So what? This is Slashdot.

    46. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Frankly, it's pretty weird that people have swallowed the marketing that these 800 dollar pocket computers should be disposed of every year or two.

      From what I read in The Wall Street Journal this morning, more iPhone users are taking three years to upgrade. I usually trade in my phone after 3+ years.

    47. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by Dog-Cow · · Score: 1

      Frankly, it's entirely expected that idiots on Slashdot, who apparently never interact with human beings, believe that most iPhones are disposed of every two years. Sure, those who still take subsidized phones may replace them, but those phones aren't disposed of. They get refurbished by the carrier, or sold by the owner. The phones are in use for probably 5 or 6 years, depending on how well they are cared for.

      This is really no different than the early PC market. Those with cash and incentive (game players, CADCAM users, etc) would upgrade annually or bi-annually. The replaced PCs would be refurbished or handed down to others who didn't need the latest. Did you go on about how weird it is that people swallowed the marketing that those $3000 computers should be disposed of every two years?

    48. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by Dog-Cow · · Score: 1

      When buying new phones for my wife and myself, I chose the 16GB model. Once in a while I have to do an iCloud backup of pictures, but for the most part I don't have to deal with space directly. I'm just not a heavy user, and I don't really miss it. I suppose I would use it if were there, but I don't feel constrained in how I use my phone.

    49. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by Immerman · · Score: 1

      You seemed to be asking why you would want larger storage when you weren't filling what you had. I answered: because you're not sure what the future may hold, and the cost difference is negligible. I quite agree with not lusting after excess capacity, but if the 128GB phone were only $5-$10 more, as component prices would justify, would you really decline to spend the extra couple percent on purchase price to increase the long-term functionality? (not to mention resale value).

      Heck, if it weren't for Apple's insistence on lockdown they'd make wonderful portable storage devices - I loved being able to use my early iPod as an external hard drive in a pinch - I didn't need 40GB of portable storage often enough to justify buying or carrying around a device that size (I think I carried a 512MB flash drive at the time, plenty for 99% of my needs), but it sure was nice having the space available when I needed it, even if it sometimes meant temporarily wiping out my music collection (and often it didn't, I think I had a good 25GB free).

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    50. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why did you replace your 300GBs with 1TB? Why didn't you just stick with sales on 300 or 500GB and pay, say $45? You'd save $15 and you're now wasting 3.5TB of drive space and a few dollars. That's what the respondent is getting at - you clearly didn't need the extra space (especially considering JUST the free space is now 3 times more than what you had combined.)

      He also mentioned (which you seemed to ignore) that the manufacturer seems to be gouging if you're being charged a large amount for something that should only be a few bucks more expensive (i.e. it should be 300GB @ $45 compared to 1TB @ $50, not 300GB @ $45 compared to 1TB @ $100. The super-low-end of most things are really only a few bucks more than medium range.

      As a real example, a 16GB and 32GB SSD are now the same price if you look for sales (or a dollar or two more expensive) because the components are now that cheap to manufacturer. Why would you or a manufacturer choose the 16GB? Moreover, why would you let the manufacturer charge you $100 more for the 32GB version?

    51. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The difference between 8GB and 16GB is neglible. Hell, it's probably more expensive to make 8GB because nobody uses those things anymore.

      It's insulting to offer 8GB even if you waste the space for 16GB on a high-end device.

    52. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      LMFAO, you do realize that the cost was simply amortized over the course of your contract, right?

      That's why people off-contract/BYOphone often are just straight up given discounts. Your phone has always costed $650+ - marketing just covered that up and you wound up believing it. No company in their right mind would offer a phoneleess version of their device for cheaper (assuming both were near-spec-for-spec).

      LOL

    53. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Why did you replace your 300GBs with 1TB? Why didn't you just stick with sales on 300 or 500GB and pay, say $45?

      The Western Digital 1TB Red NAS drives were on sale.

    54. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's less money / gigabyte than they pay per year, but substantially more than they'd pay over the life of the phone.

      Make up your mind - the poster I responded to specifically said that 128 GB or 256 GB wouldn't be "too much" for most people, and in fact, would be filled up pretty quickly, so you're probably looking at needing multiple SD cards, if we accept his assertion as accurate. If we DO NOT accept his assertion as accurate, then I'm left wondering why anybody needs multiple large SD cards to swap in and out, when you can simply buy a phone with the same 128 GB on-board storage since we're assuming that most people WON'T fill it quickly, or need more than that. You can't have it both ways - either you need a bunch of cards to swap in and out, or you don't, and the on-board storage is good enough, making removable media a moot point.

      Also, just about nobody wants a replaceable battery so they can swap it out in the field in the middle of the day.

      Are you reading the same comments here that I am? People have specifically opined about how "field replaceable" batteries are critical.

      They want a replaceable battery for when theirs dies in a couple years. Frankly, it's pretty weird that people have swallowed the marketing that these 800 dollar pocket computers should be disposed of every year or two.

      You can replace the battery on an iPhone, too - at no cost within year 1, no cost within year 2 if you extend AppleCare coverage, or $79 if you're not on AppleCare. Yes, you have to pay more, and you can't do it yourself on the side of the street, but there is no "need" to replace it with another $800 unit simply because the integrated battery is dead.

      And yes, you can keep a cell phone for longer than a year or two. But if you have the disposable income, what's the issue? People buy new things they like all the time, "just because I want it" - I'd happily wager good money that a lot of the early adopter Android lovers here upgrade pretty frequently in order to get the newest shiny as well, so it's not as if Apple users are the only ones susceptible to it.

    55. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

      We can't have the users upgrade their own computer's RAM!

      OMG, don't even say such a thing!

      Now I must go purge myself of the Bad Thoughts(tm) by acquiring a new iPad, maybe two of them. Three of them should do it for sure, don't you think?

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    56. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by Karlt1 · · Score: 1

      Yes this. Because half of the population in the U.S. are hipster and stupid....

    57. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by MitchDev · · Score: 1

      Better than half are stupid, have you seen the options for the upcoming presidential election?

    58. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by Yvan256 · · Score: 1

      And yet yesterday I installed 16GB in my 2010 Mac mini. The new models with on-board RAM are the worst possible idea.

    59. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by godefroi · · Score: 1

      Toshiba FLASH 32GB (4GBx8), MMC interface - $5.38 in ones, $3.42 in 5k quantities. I spent about 45 seconds looking. This is not the cheapest available.

      http://www.digikey.com/product...

      By the way, 16GB (2GBx8) MMC is essentially the same price.

      --
      Karma: Poor (Mostly affected by lame karma-joke sigs)
    60. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by godefroi · · Score: 1

      You're overestimating the cost of flash memory by at least 2x, and overestimating the cost difference between 8GB and 32GB by an order of magnitude or more. Just to reinforce your point here.

      --
      Karma: Poor (Mostly affected by lame karma-joke sigs)
    61. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      My 16G 4 worked fine, but I kept putting things on it like more music and lots of apps, and it became inadequate. My wife bought a lot fewer apps and had no problems.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    62. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      I feel bad for people with so little empathy that they don't even try to understand why people make the decisions they do.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    63. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Setting a low amount of storage on the base model allows people who aren't going to put many apps or much music on their phones to save money, too.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    64. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by amRadioHed · · Score: 1

      They can still save money by buying a base model that happens to have more storage. The memory itself costs a few bucks, it's not going to make a real difference to the cost of the phone.

      --
      We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
    65. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by MitchDev · · Score: 1

      I've never done heroine, yet I can't really feel for the people dumb enough to do so...

    66. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by DutchUncle · · Score: 1

      Then you're not using enough crap. Go download more crap and get with the program!

    67. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by DutchUncle · · Score: 1

      Incorrect punctuation. This . . . . . Is . . . . . SLASHDOT! Though I'm not sure how you're going to kick your opponent down a well here . . .

    68. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      You appear to be saying that Apple should increase the amount of storage in their low-end phones. Fortunately for you, that's what they're doing. There's still a lot of people out there who don't use their 16G, and now they'll have another unused 16G, which isn't a problem as long as they don't have to pay more.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    69. Re:Probably an excuse to jack the price. by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      In other words, you have no sympathy for anyone in a bad enough situation that heroin looks like a good idea? You don't care about why people use it? How do you expect various people to deal with heroin and try to minimize its harm without understanding why people take it?

      Disclosure: My experience with illegal drugs is limited to having smoked marijuana once. I didn't like it.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  2. How about having a user accessable mem card slot? by xystren · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And let the consumer decide how much memory they want/need? Ohh, wait, that's not the Apple way. Silly me.

  3. Nothing new by Bert64 · · Score: 1

    They used to offer 4GB and 8GB models too, the 16GB was actually the highend model a few years back.
    Storage capacities increase, not really news...

    --
    http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
    1. Re:Nothing new by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      News because Like 4GB, 16GB is not very usable on a modern phone.

    2. Re:Nothing new by Teckla · · Score: 2

      They used to offer 4GB and 8GB models too, the 16GB was actually the highend model a few years back.
      Storage capacities increase, not really news...

      I think the news is that it took Apple so long to increase the storage on their entry level iPhones to something resembling reasonable.

    3. Re:Nothing new by alvinrod · · Score: 1

      I'm somewhat surprised that they would upgrade it though. Typically, the base model is there so they can claim an entry price of $699.99 or free with contract, but it has something like the low storage that makes it unappealing enough that they can get a lot of users to buy the $100 upgrade which costs Apple an extra $4 in component costs if that, which is another $96 in profit. Do that a few million times and you'll need a bigger pool to have the afternoon money fights in.

      The real question is whether or not that they're also increasing the other size tiers to compensate. 16 GB to 64 GB would get a lot of people to upgrade. Going to 64 GB from 32 GB isn't going to hook as many people. The only way it makes sense for them to start at 32 GB is if the next tier up is 128 GB and the top model is 256 GB. Most people probably don't need 128 GB, but the disparity seems so great that many people will drop the extra $100, even though they might not need it.

    4. Re:Nothing new by powerlord · · Score: 1

      Most people probably don't need 128 GB

      You've obviously never met people who never take any pictures/video off their phone. There are more of them than you'd expect.

      --
      This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
    5. Re:Nothing new by dfghjk · · Score: 1

      but it's not "most people". Most people do not need 128GB, that's a simple fact.

    6. Re: Nothing new by thundercattt · · Score: 1

      These "most people" that take 10 million photoa have it all sync'd with Instagram, Facebook, Dropbox. So you still wouldn't need the excessive space, unless you're too lazy to clean out the storage.

    7. Re:Nothing new by DutchUncle · · Score: 1

      Part of the problem is the way iPhones sync their data. If you delete it off the phone, iTunes deletes it from your computer backup. Yes, I know, one can copy the data elsewhere in between (and I do); but a lot of people assume that an iTunes "backup" is a BACKUP rather than a mirror, and are surprised when things disappear from the capacious computer drive after making space on the little phone.

  4. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    No it's not. It's why they have over 90% of the profits in mobile, with such a small market share.

    Now, which way is more stupid - large market share, little profit, or the reverse. I'd say Apple has it figured out, the rest not so much.

  5. Well that solves that mystery by Duds · · Score: 1

    I assume they need to remove the headphone socket to make way for all those RAMs.

    1. Re:Well that solves that mystery by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      flash != RAM

      leave your nerd card at the door on your way out

    2. Re:Well that solves that mystery by Immerman · · Score: 1

      Of course it is. It's not *dynamic* RAM (DRAM), or even the much more expensive static RAM (SRAM, which still requires constant power to retain data), but it's undeniably Random Access Memory - you can access any location in roughly constant time regardless of what the last-accessed location was.

      It's not what most people mean when they refer to RAM, but it's well within the technical definition.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    3. Re:Well that solves that mystery by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's a reason it's not called RAM in electronics. Flash is NOT RAM. You can't access any single part of the storage randomly, you have to access complete blocks of it. It's two completely different technologies.

      Or are you going to argue that mechanical hard drives are flash storage, too? And ROM is the same as RAM? Or EPROM is the same as EEPROM?

      I thought this was a website for nerds. Sheesh.

    4. Re:Well that solves that mystery by Immerman · · Score: 1

      News flash - you have to access complete blocks of system DRAM too - typically either 32 or 64 bits these days. And there is Flash out there for embedded applications that uses 8bit or smaller blocks as well. Changing the size of the block changes nothing about the fact that there's a fixed delay to access any random bit of storage, which is what RAM specifically refers to. Contrast that with a fully sequential memory such as tape drive, which involves radically different access times for block #1,000,000,001 depending on if the previous block accessed was #1,000,000,000 or #1. Hard drives, being an evolution of the same basic technology, have similarly variable delays, though not nearly so pronounced - accessing sequential blocks will still be far faster than accessing them in random order (hence the benefits of "defragging")

      The fact that (most) Flash is addressable only in large blocks, along with it's write-cycle limited lifespan, makes it generally unsuitable for usage as system memory, but the term RAM refers specifically to the access delay characteristics. That it has become largely synonymous with "system memory" in casual conversation is largely a historical accident due to the dramatic differences in performance and cost compared to sequential technologies.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
  6. nice article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    web design http://ezindagi.in/

  7. who stole my purple Nikes?!! by Thud457 · · Score: 1

    Apple! Apple! Apple!
    iPhone! iPhone!...
    PHEH!
    Who am I fooling here, the cult just hasn't had their heart in it since Dear Leader ascended to a higher plane, abandoning us this vale of tears.


    Elon! Elon! Elon!
    Spaceship! Spaceship! Spaceship!!!

    --

    the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

  8. Yawn by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 1

    So, it will have 32GB of storage. Every generation has increased storage capabilities. The only reason this is important for iPhone users is the phone is stuck with the amount it had when purchased. What would be exciting news is if the new iPhone let the user add there own storage. User replaceable battery would be newsworthy, too.

    1. Re:Yawn by D.McG. · · Score: 1

      The problem with removable SD cards is the performance.

      Samsung's latest EVO Plus 256 GB microSDXC card is capable of 95 MB/s read and 90 MB/s write (Class 10 U3 rating). Compare that to their PM971-NVMe which can store up to 512 GB of data and offers up to 1500 MB/s read and 900 MB/s write. 10-15 times faster. Only catch is it must be soldered on; due to the high pin count BGA.

    2. Re:Yawn by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 1

      The removable storage would be in addition to what was built into the phone. Storing pictures, music, etc. wouldn't be a problem at 95MB read.

    3. Re:Yawn by DutchUncle · · Score: 1

      Performance might be an issue while actively taking video, but not for saving and transferring data. The performance would also be good enough for things like all of the cached data during web browsing or map directions, most of which is useless after a single access.

  9. People will like the roominess. However... by sehlat · · Score: 1

    I can guarantee their wallets won't appreciate it. Apple has made price gouging into an art form.

    1. Re:People will like the roominess. However... by amRadioHed · · Score: 1

      Increasing the storage on the base model isn't price gouging, having an unreasonable amount of storage on the base model and then forcing everyone to pay $100 for an extra 16GB to make the phone usable is how they gouge you.

      --
      We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
    2. Re:People will like the roominess. However... by sehlat · · Score: 1

      What part of "art form" did you not understand?

    3. Re:People will like the roominess. However... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or... the base price is the expensive one and Apple gives you a huge discount if you buy the lesser model.

      Perspective is a bitch

  10. 16 GB flash is 2$ by tommeke100 · · Score: 2

    A quick search reveals that 16 GB flash is like 2$ on Alibaba, and that's as an USB stick. This is like a 1$ manufacturing cost for Apple. Big Deal!

    1. Re:16 GB flash is 2$ by Aaden42 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Flash *does* come in more than one grade, interface type, speed, etc. The crap(*) they put on a $2 USB stick isn’t the same thing that’s in even a cheap smartphone. If you don’t believe there’s a difference, buy a cheap micro-SD card and a good one, then compare benchmarks. You’ll easily see 5-10x increase in throughput on the good one.

      (*) And that’s even assuming you’re getting an actual 16 GB module instead of a counterfeit with 2 GB of actual flash and a controller reprogrammed to make it look like 16 GB.

    2. Re:16 GB flash is 2$ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is like a 1$ manufacturing cost for Apple. Big Deal!

      Yeah, but they're targeting the budget oriented consumer, so MSRP will only increase by $74.99.

    3. Re:16 GB flash is 2$ by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      A quick search reveals that 16 GB flash is like 2$ on Alibaba, and that's as an USB stick.

      Do us a favor, buy one and test its actual capacity, and then get back to us so we can have a good giggle.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    4. Re:16 GB flash is 2$ by sims+2 · · Score: 0

      Whatever the lowest GB model is always seems to outsell any of the others by like a 10 to 1 ratio. This has to do with people buying on price alone. Ooo it's the new one who cares if it only has 8GB of memory it's $50 cheaper than the one that has a usable 16GB.

      It's probably much less than a 1$ cost for apple.

      But this is a case of everyone getting charged a bit more and having something that will still be usable in 2 years.

      Like I know some people personally that don't understand broadband speeds.
      for example here ATT 0.512Mbps dsl is $5 cheaper than $30/mo 6Mbps so they have the cheaper one.

      By contrast the city decided that no one should have less than a 10Mbps connection so they hiked their lowest plan $1 and made it 10Mbps $35/mo uncapped.

      I keep trying to tell them that's why their computer is so much faster here at the shop than at their house but oh well.

      --
      Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
    5. Re:16 GB flash is 2$ by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Sure, but the stuff they put in an iPhone doesn't cost more than a tiny fraction of what they charge for it. And they could easily provide an SD card for data only, where speed isn't that important.

      Any way you look at it, this is just customer-hostile gouging.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    6. Re:16 GB flash is 2$ by Immerman · · Score: 1

      Given the ridiculous premiums Apple charges for a few bucks worth of storage space, can you really blame people for going for the cheapest model? Unless you actually have a compelling reason to store massive app, video, or music libraries you may well never get your money's worth out of the upgrade. Especially considering you'll have to upgrade in a few years anyway since your current phone will be rendered obsolete by iOS's bloat and revolving-door APIs.

      I'll give folks the benefit of the doubt and assume they have a compelling reason to get an iPhone at all - between social pressures, lock-in, and UI familiarity such reasons do exist. Not my thing, but hey, I'm a geek with a $10 Android on a prepaid plan that does everything I want from it wonderfully, obviously I'm not the target audience.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    7. Re:16 GB flash is 2$ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The actual capacity is going to be correct. The quality and general longevity can be argued but you're a fool if you think Apple pays significantly more considering their purchasing power and the amount they buy. This is a trivial change for Apple that is being hyped as something significant to their sheep customers because that's what Apple does. They give you something everyone else already has and charge you out the ass for it. But it works for them.

    8. Re:16 GB flash is 2$ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "and that's as an USB stick"

      Proof that you don't understand what you're talking about and why the only mods you're going to get is from Apple bashers and wanna-be geeks.

    9. Re:16 GB flash is 2$ by Aaden42 · · Score: 2

      Clearly their customers (self included) disagree. The number of co-workers I've heard complaining about the SD slot on their phones flaking out after a few months makes me content to pay a little extra for soldered on flash. I'm willing to pay for good UX.

    10. Re:16 GB flash is 2$ by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Not only the capacity, test the speed. Flash comes in a really REALLY large number of varieties.

    11. Re:16 GB flash is 2$ by sims+2 · · Score: 1

      No I can't its something apple has done internationally as the storage space is the only defining difference in any model line.

      I've seen first hand with a few apps installed and a few pictures there is not enough space left on an iphone 8gb model to update the software.

      As it is apple could probably just sell each model in just one size say 128GB for the same price as the 32GB model now. without significantly changing their profit. My understanding is that they do it because people want a variety (and someone complained that they would never need that much space and should have to pay less) but no one ever stopped to think that flash memory is not actually a sigificant cost of the device.

      Personally I think 32GB is a very reasonable amount of storage for a base model.

      I'm still using a ipad 2 16gb model (ios 6.1.3 jailed) and a ipod touch 4th gen 32GB (ios 5.0.1 jb)

      I hate what they did to the UI in ios 7 so I'm not sure what they will get replaced with.

      For a phone I have a samsung convoy 3 because I need mmy phone to work as a phone.

      As for ios from my experience you can update at most 2 major ios versions before it slows down terribly ipad stopped at 6.1.3 (last before new ui) ipod stopped at ios 5.0.1 (jb mainly but they screwed up the app store browing in ios 6 on the ipod touch in ios 5 and below you got 5 results per page but in ios 6+ it was changed to just one result per page)

      --
      Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
    12. Re:16 GB flash is 2$ by Immerman · · Score: 1

      I suspect they really do it for the same reason you see ads for fully tricked-out cars with all the extras practically nobody buys, or "digital only" magazine subscriptions listed for $120 next to the $30 paper and $40 digital + paper "special deal" bundle: It's a well established psychological/advertising trick that having an expensive product listed alongside a much cheaper one makes people considerably more likely to buy the cheap one since it's "such a good deal". If I recall correctly I think the trick can generally be tuned to get a 50-100% increase in total sales compared to only listing the (comparatively) cheap one.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    13. Re:16 GB flash is 2$ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yeah mechanical hdd and ssd worth same if their storage spaces are identical right?

    14. Re:16 GB flash is 2$ by Immerman · · Score: 1

      What do HDDs have t do with anything? Everything I said was with regards to flash (And for that matter I'm don't think iPhones have SSDs either, though I suppose could be wrong - those are far more sophisticated pieces of electronics than your typical embedded flash storage device.)

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    15. Re:16 GB flash is 2$ by chispito · · Score: 1

      Clearly their customers (self included) disagree. The number of co-workers I've heard complaining about the SD slot on their phones flaking out after a few months makes me content to pay a little extra for soldered on flash. I'm willing to pay for good UX.

      Yes except that if Apple allowed the SD slot, you could have both. SD for music or video storage, onboard for apps. If it craps out it craps out. Buy another cheap card.

      --
      The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
  11. Steve would be so proud. by CaseyB · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's inspiring to see that Apple can still Think Different, and radically reinvent its products generation over generation. Who could have predicted such a groundbreaking development?

    1. Re:Steve would be so proud. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Whoa there, cowboy! Storage is a new invention. Apple's reality distortion field says so! In another decade they'll invent SD cards (but they're be slightly non-standard and will require Apple's retarded "SD" instead (at only thrice the price)).

  12. You know what I'd like even more? by _xeno_ · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You know what I'd like even more?

    A removable memory card slot. Wait, it's Apple, so if I say that we'd end up with iMemoryStick. I mean a microSD card slot.

    If Apple is going to pretend that their phones double as cameras and throw in things like 4K video support, they should have removable media support. No photographer is going to use a camera without removable media. (Or field-replaceable batteries, but that's a different issue.)

    --
    You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
    1. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No photographer is going to use a camera without removable media.

      What does that have to do with iPhones? A photographer will use the right tool for the job, which presumably would be a camera with different lenses, battery packs and memory cards.

    2. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by dfghjk · · Score: 1

      "No photographer is going to use a camera without removable media."

      BS.

      Phones are viable for some photographer work and "photographers" use them. These phone are not limited to removable media varieties, a feature that enjoys far less success than forum posters would like you to believe.

    3. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by _xeno_ · · Score: 3, Interesting

      What does that have to do with iPhones? A photographer will use the right tool for the job, which presumably would be a camera with different lenses, battery packs and memory cards.

      Agreed. But if you ever watch any of Apple's keynotes about their phones, they always inevitably contain a section where they gush about the camera and show pictures shot "by a professional photographer" with the phone.

      Apple loves to pretend that their phones are totally amazing cameras that can completely replace that DSLR the pros use.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
    4. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Will never happen.

      We've gone over this for years.

      Added BOM cost, reduced reliability, added software and hardware complexity, more failure modes.

      SD cards are shit. They are slow and unreliable and users blame the product when the card cause failure.

      To top it all off, most users never use them. Less than 5%

      Why would apple waste all that money so a few geeks can stuff movies on their phones?

    5. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If Apple is going to pretend that their phones double as cameras and throw in things like 4K video support

      Give credit where credit is due - according to Flickr's data suggests that they're not just pretending - people actually are using the phone in such a way that the phone doubles as a camera. iPhones occupy 4 of the top 5 "most popular camera" rankings there.

      They should have removable media support. No photographer is going to use a camera without removable media.

      Several questions. First - Why? What magical feature does a microSD slot give you that you can't get in any other way?

      Second - why not upload to dropbox or icloud, with no need to juggle little bits of plastic, risk losing or damaging them, and also feed the photos into a computer when you get back home? Personally, I rather like the convenience of having my photos already loaded on my laptop and waiting for me when I return home.

      Third - how many of the MILLIONS of phone owners do you imagine qualify as professional photographers? I'd wager that, comparatively speaking, you're looking at perhaps a few (single-digits) percent might try to make money off photography in some way. The rest are amateurs who simply want a quick point and shoot, and in that sort of use case, the best camera for the job is the one you have with you at the time you want to take a photo.

      Or field-replaceable batteries, but that's a different issue

      Again, this is baffling. I have a 6ft lightning cable and an 18k-20k-ish mAh battery pack that gives my iPhone 6s+ at least 4 full charges. It weighs about 12 ounces, and fits easily in a pocket. If I'm taking photos, and running low on battery, I hook the cable up, and leave the battery pack in my back pocket, and can continue using the phone while it's charging. Compare that with carting around chargers and 4 extra battery packs, and I'm pretty sure I get the better deal in terms of the convenience of field replaceable batteries. In addition, my battery pack can also be used to charge literally any other device that has a USB charging cable, versus your need to carry around 5 "field-replaceable" batteries for every device you own. Furthermore, your need for field-replaceable battery packs also adds weight and thickness to the device itself, making the all around experience more clunky than mine. Why do you imagine that field-replaceable batteries are an issue, when a $40 external battery pack and a $6 usb-lightning cable will last you for several days worth of charging?

      Repeat after me: "My use case is not the typical, or even a COMMON, use case."

    6. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by known_coward_69 · · Score: 1

      so you connect the phone by usb to a computer and get the photo off? or use some cloud syn service?

    7. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by ganjadude · · Score: 1

      right but when you can fill a gig up in a matter of minutes now adays, removable would be nice even for the non professional

      --
      have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
    8. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That would require them paying for the patent license... can't have that.

    9. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      But if you ever watch any of Apple's keynotes about their phones, they always inevitably contain a section where they gush about the camera and show pictures shot "by a professional photographer" with the phone.

      Professional photographers would recognize the limitations of using the iPhone for photography. Only amateur photographers who can't afford a decked out DSLR would whine that the iPhone wasn't a decked out DSLR.

    10. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      right but when you can fill a gig up in a matter of minutes now adays, removable would be nice even for the non professional

      Get the Lightning to SD Card Reader adapter. Not all solutions need to be built into a phone.

      http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MJYT2AM/A/lightning-to-sd-card-camera-reader

    11. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by Immerman · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Heck, why exactly do you suppose they gush about the "professional photographer" aspect? It's actually a disclaimer covered in glitter - professionals are the only ones who could coax such a nice picture out of it.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    12. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by CastrTroy · · Score: 1

      If you just buy the cheap $200 Android phone that works perfectly fine as a phone, like the MotoG, then you could spend the remaining $500 and get a DSLR Camera. Not just the camera, but just about everything you need to start taking really good pictures.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    13. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A removable memory card slot.

      The market has spoken on that. It's going the way of the dodo.

      People would rather have the physical robust devices and not have to worry about managing exactly where all their data is stored, and having to deal with problems when the storage is removed and suddenly the apps have the data disappearing, etc.

      You are in a tiny niche that wants removable storage. Sorry, but the market will cater to the 99%. That's just how it goes. Google is pushing heavily away from removable storage too: Nexus phones don't have and they are pushing the 3rd parties to go to pure internal. Simpler, less to go wrong.

    14. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most people don't want to use cables any more...

      Plugging devices in is very early 2000's.

    15. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The best camera is the one you have with you.

      I'm sure a lot of photographers use phones, point & shoots, and other non-ideal cameras every once in a while due to convenience reasons.

    16. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      If you just buy the cheap $200 Android phone that works perfectly fine as a phone, like the MotoG, then you could spend the remaining $500 and get a DSLR Camera.

      My current iPhone was $200 with case and screen protector. Since I'm not a professional photographer, I'm not going to spend $500 on a DSLR. The people I know who are professional photographers own $1,000+ DSLRs.

    17. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by avandesande · · Score: 1

      The funny thing is that a good photographer could take better picture with iPhone than average user with SLR.

      --
      love is just extroverted narcissism
    18. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No photographer is going to use a camera without removable media.
       
      And most photographers worth their salt aren't going to use single SD cards and the kinds of gimps who want to compared a camera phone to a real camera also shouldn't talk about photography.

      I do some amateur-but-still-high-end photography and I can tell you straight out that you don't understand photography gear if you even try to talk about that little CCD in your phone with a plastic lens being comparable to even the most basic DSLR in any fashion. But you keep trying to convince yourself that your trifles with cell technology in any way compares to the needs and wants of serious photography. You guys are always a good laugh.

    19. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by AvitarX · · Score: 1

      I worked with a guy that got amazing photos from a middle end point and shoot.

      they were all daytime still photos, and he would work for the perfect angle, often slithering through thorn bushes, etc.

      Sure, there's plenty of photography that requires a better camera, but there's plenty that doesn't too.

      --
      Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
    20. Re: You know what I'd like even more? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sometimes I wish I were famous. Then I would not have to settle for crappy photos taken with a selfie stick because some professional photographer would always follow me around and take magazine quality photos of my every waking moment sometimes even offering to pay me for the privilege.

    21. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by ravenscar · · Score: 2

      It's much easier to remove your phone case, pull open the media card slot, eject the card via software (assuming that is even still necessary in Android), remove the micro sd card, put the card in a card adapter, insert the card in the reader, and read the media. Then follow all the same steps in reverse. Yeah, that's way better than plugging in a cable or using wifi.

      I assume SD cards are the "thing" for real photographers using real equipment, but I also see that they aren't nearly so great when applied in the phone world.

    22. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by CastrTroy · · Score: 1

      How did you manage to get an iPhone for $200? Either you're paying the carrier more than you should be every month, or you bought a used one off somebody else. Even getting last generation's model of iPhone or the iPhone SE is going to cost quite a bit more than $200.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    23. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      How did you manage to get an iPhone for $200? Either you're paying the carrier more than you should be every month, or you bought a used one off somebody else.

      The $200 is what I paid upfront for the iPhone and accessories on a two-year-contract. Being a Sprint customer for 20+ years and that I kept my last phone for three years probably helped.

    24. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What? I-phones don't have microSD card slots? My Nokia N900 (from 2009, bought second hand for 60 euro's including shipping), has a microSD card slot, and also 32 GB build-in storage that you can SSH scp to and from, over wifi.

    25. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Umm.... That doesn't allow writing to the SD card. Only reading. Try again.

    26. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by Pulzar · · Score: 1

      The $200 is what I paid upfront for the iPhone and accessories on a two-year-contract.

      Yeah, and I paid $100K upfront for my house, and a 30-year contract.

      It doesn't mean that I got the house for $100K, and you didn't get an iPhone for $200.

      --
      Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 filled with CD-ROMs.
    27. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, and I paid $100K upfront for my house, and a 30-year contract.

      A down payment for a home is not the same as a payment for a phone.

      It doesn't mean that I got the house for $100K, and you didn't get an iPhone for $200.

      That's funny. Sprint has never wanted any of my old phones back after I owned them for three years. I still have several older phones in my drawer.

    28. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Heck, why exactly do you suppose they gush about the "professional photographer" aspect? It's actually a disclaimer covered in glitter - professionals are the only ones who could coax such a nice picture out of it.

      Professionals could coax a nice picture out of a potato. Having f/1.4 and ISO 128000 is nice, but if you suck at composition it won't matter too much:

      * http://austinmann.com/trek/iphone-6-plus-camera-review-iceland

    29. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by Immerman · · Score: 1

      exactly.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    30. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Are you being deliberately dense?

      What was your monthly charge and plan? What was the price difference between your plan and one without a subsidised phone?

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    31. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 1

      No photographer is going to use a camera without removable media

      Note that iPhone can also make a copy to iCloud instantly.

      --
      Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
    32. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by Uberbah · · Score: 1

      Are you being deliberately dense?

      Are you? You do know that equivalent Fandroid phones cost the same and are also subsidized, yes? Or is this one of those things thats only an issue when Apple is involved?

      What was your monthly charge and plan? What was the price difference between your plan and one without a subsidised phone?

      With Sprint? Most likely nothing. Thus making his phone $200, unless he wanted out of his contract.

    33. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      A helper. How nice.

      Anybody who thinks their 'payment' to start a 2 year contract is the price of the phone is dumb.

      In this case we're dealing with an Apple Fanboi.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    34. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      The camera on my iPhone is amazing, considering its inherent limitations. It's excellent for the photography I do.(by which you can tell I'm not a professional), and I have no need for a DSLR. Since Apple presumably whats to show what it can do, they find photographers who are better than I am to showcase the pictures. I don't see the issue here.

      If I wanted to take the best pictures, I'd have a DSLR. Since I want to take decent pictures, and don't care about really high quality, I use the phone I always have with me, even if it doesn't have fancy lenses or other equipment, is very space-limited, and isn't easy to hold still for photography. It's a very good solution for my use case.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    35. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      This is the United States, not a really civilized nation. There often isn't a price difference between a plan with a subsidized phone and one without. It's possible to get a lot cheaper plans if all you want to do is make phone calls, but if that's what you wanted you wouldn't buy an expensive smartphone in the first place. It's often possible to change carriers, but someone might have reasons for wanting to be on a particular carrier.

      It's very possible that the subsidy was free in the sense that GP couldn't get a cheaper but still adequate plan without it.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    36. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by DutchUncle · · Score: 1

      My wife and I prefer to think of them as "pretty good point-and-shoot cameras that we always happen to have on hand" (as opposed to the much-better point-and-shoot and the excellent DSLR that we carry when we expect to take real photos).

    37. Re:You know what I'd like even more? by Uberbah · · Score: 1

      in this case we're dealing with an Apple Fanboi.

      Says the Apple Hateboi who's way too impressed with his own pedantry.

      Anybody who thinks their 'payment' to start a 2 year contract is the price of the phone is dumb.

      You're dumb. When he's talking about the $200 cost of the phone, he's talking about how much it costs him. Personally. To walk out of the store with that phone. If the difference in price for him for a contract without a phone, and a contract bundled with a phone, is $200.....that means.....drum roll.....the phone cost him $200.

      The "but but that phone is subsidized" canard only affects how much the phone costs Sprint, not creimer.

  13. OK, but bizarre editorializing in the summary by magarity · · Score: 1

    Well, never mind that a lot of big companies use the things as on-call, etc, devices and those don't need a lot of storage for personal snapshots and movies. The really wierd part is the bit about "millions of people will appreciate". Can't they have just bought their current model with more memory? The fact that they didn't says the exact opposite; "millions of people won't get a new one because the lower memory model was the one in their budget" ?

    1. Re:OK, but bizarre editorializing in the summary by magarity · · Score: 1

      Never mind, there must be special versions for corporate purchases; this model 6 my employer gave me says its capacity is 12GB, never mind the 16 the summary is complaining about.

  14. I wonder... by mandark1967 · · Score: 1

    ...if they put the extra 16GB of RAM into the spot where the headphone jack used to be...

    Now I have twice the MP3s I can't hear! w00t!

    --
    Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
  15. Just in Time !! by dr.Flake · · Score: 1

    Someone at Apple must have realized that it wouldn't look good when competitors were to have more RAM than iPhone would have in storage Flash. (OnePlus 3 having 6G, likely to start a race to the top)

    So Yes, it was time to raise the minimum amount of storage.

    --
    Why are other peoples sig's always more witty ???
  16. New model size skip by NetNed · · Score: 1

    Will they do the convenient size model skip that they usually do? I.e. they skip 64 Gb this time around so if you have a 64Gb phone you will have to go to 128 Gb or delete all kinds of stuff till you get down to 32Gb? They have done this like 4 times.

  17. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by HornWumpus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Apple owns the chump market. Duh.

    It also caps their market share.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  18. Just put an SD slot on the damned thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just put an SD slot on the damned device and have done with it.

    I can't for the life of me see why anyone buys into (cr)Apples "walled garden" approach to everything.

    Oh wait... they're mostly morons... and it's shiny...

    1. Re:Just put an SD slot on the damned thing by known_coward_69 · · Score: 2

      the latest anandtech review says apple's way is still the fastest for performance. micro sd is ok for streaming but sucks for putting apps on the it

    2. Re:Just put an SD slot on the damned thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh wait... they're mostly morons... and it's shiny...

      You know that several studies have shown that Apple users are more educated than Android users, correct?

      So no, it would seem to be the other way around from your claim: it's the Apple users who tend to be smarter, more educated, and more financially successful. That makes sense, because they can afford a more premium device.

  19. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And let the consumer decide how much memory they want/need?

    Ohh, wait, that's not the Apple way. Silly me.

    Oh good, I was about to post "Oh, but what are we going to bitch about then?"

    Thanks!

  20. and apps became more sophisticated by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You mean bloated?

  21. About freaking time by ilsaloving · · Score: 1

    I was pissed that the only options for the iPhone SE was 16 and 64. It struck me as a cheap cash grab.

    Wasn't pissed enough to not get one, mind you. But it was still annoying. Of course, it wouldn't be an issue if current apps weren't so breathtakingly bloated.

    I mean, Facebook alone, with it's separate client and messenger apps, can easily hit a *gigabyte* all on their own. I can't even fathom how breathtakingly badly you have to code something to end up needing that much space.

    So I am making due by configuring itunes to autoconvert all my music down to 128-bit AAC from the ALAC (Apple's version of FLAC, because they're a special snowflake). The quality is still perfectly good enough for when I'm walking about, and the compression bluetooth uses negates the benefits of a higher quality source file anyway.

  22. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by narcc · · Score: 2

    That's fine from Apple's perspective. I'm not so sure it's a net positive for consumers, however...

  23. Re:Apple products are all shit sold by a fag perio by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "It is just a walled garden made in china sold by homosexuals to homosexuals and the uninformed."

    Funny all those homosexuals and uninformed people seem to be far more successful then you.

  24. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by ilsaloving · · Score: 4, Informative

    Having used android devices with SD Card slots, I will never again consider an SD card slot to be a worthwhile feature. Not being able to offload applications was a big one. Having to play games like "Where the f__k is my data?" was another.

    The hoops you had to go through to work with the things was just awe inspiring, and even then they didn't work reliably. I'd rather pay the premium and get more internal storage to begin with. At least then I know what to expect.

    I understand that the most recent versions of android deal with external storage in a much more sane way, but that doesn't mean much when said versions of android have 10% penetration despite having been out for over a year.

  25. Sour Grapes? by Holi · · Score: 0

    I often hear from you techno weenies that iPhone users are morons, yet studies (ok study) tend to show the opposite.
    Are their any studies that show the opposite?

    http://www.ign.com/articles/20...

    --
    Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
    1. Re:Sour Grapes? by butchersong · · Score: 1
      While I don't agree with labeling an entire user base morons, I expect the obvious reason for results in studies like that is that Android is an open platform with very inexpensive phones. If you controlled for income and looked only at flagship models you might get a different result.

      On the other hand, there might be an element of vanity at work skewing those numbers too. If you're intelligent enough to be super self conscious about your image and subtleties about the way people perceive you, you might be more apt to purchase an Apple device. Probably the same reason pretty people statistically tend to be more intelligent. It correlates mainly to bearing and hygiene and grooming...

    2. Re:Sour Grapes? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      I'm highly intelligent, and I don't particularly care about my image. If you like me the way I am, fine. If not, you can go away. As an introvert, I have all the good friends I really need (although I don't mind picking up more). I suspect you'll find this is true for lots of highly intelligent people on the autism spectrum.

      I don't need to go cheap on a purchase of less than a thousand dollars I make about every three years, and so I get what I want. I have an iPhone, a cheap Android tablet, a Windows laptop, and an Ubuntu desktop, and all of these are very good at what I want them for.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  26. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by Drethon · · Score: 2

    All I remember running into is plugging in to charge and my SD storage was gone. Change USB plug in settings and never had a problem.

  27. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That is because "mobile" operating systems are junk.

  28. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Having had contacts on removal cards wear out while in a mobile device and fail (SIM cards included), I'd actually prefer something with fewer mechanical links which is soldered on. More drop safe.

  29. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    The non-removable battery, the sturdiness of a paper card, the walled garden were Apple instead of me decides what I may run, and of course what I MUST run and can't get rid of, on the phone, a repair policy where only "licensed" shops may open the holy grail (where "licensed" means that they threw money at Apple, not that they'd know jack shit about the device)...

    Need I ponder this for a few minutes or is that enough to talk about? It's Apple after all, you really think we run out of things to complain about if we bought it and to ridicule those over who did if we didn't?

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  30. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by irrational_design · · Score: 1

    It's not only Apple. My Nexus from Google doesn't have a memory slot either. Why!?

  31. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by CastrTroy · · Score: 1

    Most of those just sound like bad implementation on the fault of Android. I have a Windows phone and I have no problem putting apps on the SD card. Android used to have this feature and for some stupid reason they removed it. I don't really have a problem finding my data, just like I don't have a problem finding data on my desktop PC or Laptop which have much more complicated needs for managing my files.

    --

    Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  32. Re:Apple products are all shit sold by a fag perio by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    You may be joking, but bluntly, I prefer hiring gay people. For the obvious reasons: No kids, none to be expected (at the very least with a WAY lower probability) plus it makes your company look appealing to the hipster crowd if you have a pro-(whatevergender) outlook. Plus, for whatever reason, I have no idea why, the ones I know who're gay are also the ones who are incredibly good at their job.

    Yes, I want my coworkers FABULOUS!

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  33. I love IPhone users... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I know just who not to take seriously from a technological point of view; Conversely it's also a good sign for identifying trend followers.

    Retail Kingston/PNY MicroSD's are $4.95(16gb)/$29.95(128gb) from Amazon(I own a few and they are real/tested not fake).

    Personally when I buy a phone I'm looking for Qwerty physical KB, USB, HDMI, Audio jack, and removable battery...I'd pay a fortune for the above with x86 chip and legacy bios, and an extra micro usb port(one for charging).. Still waiting... (a modern OQO)
    .

  34. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by aardvarkjoe · · Score: 1

    Apple owns the chump market. Duh.

    It also caps their market share.

    I'm pretty sure that the "chump market" is way bigger than the 15% market share that Apple currently has.

    --

    How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
  35. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's for large data collections.

    For example, on my phone i have my entire music and audiobook collection, and also pushing 35 GB of offline maps ("online" maps are not acceptable for mapping applications, since you often don't have internet access when you need the maps).

    It has been exactly zero trouble to manage those data collections on removable 128GB SD media.

  36. Hear, fucking hear! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Android handling of SD card storage has been TERRIBLE for years. I know, as the comment above states, that it's finally supposedly gotten to the point of having single logical volume, but before that it was almost useless on a phone with small internal storage.

    Even with their crappy limited base model storage apple has had that down better from the start

  37. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by JoeyRox · · Score: 1

    Why woulkd you never again consider an SD card when you already acknowledged that Android deals with the issue in a much saner way today (http://source.android.com/devices/storage/adoptable.html)? That's like saying you'll never drive a car again because people died 65 years ago before the invention of the seatbelts.

  38. And the Best News by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... they still charge only $50 per GB!

  39. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by avandesande · · Score: 1

    Sounds like an OS problem, not hardware.

    --
    love is just extroverted narcissism
  40. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is an issue with Google, not with SD cards per se.

    I have a 64GB SD card in my phone. There allowed with almost every app is a "move to SD card" button, graciously allowing me to move my apps off my limited internal storage, expanding my phone's functionality considerably.

    Oh wait. With the latest Android update, it "virtualizes" half my internal storage, and now "move to SD" moves it to... some absurd partitioning of the same internal storage.

    Investigating how to get around this ludicrous and disabling anti-feature, I research and find... I have to root my phone, install a separate app like Link2SD, along with an undefined amount of additional screwing around with it to have the same functionality I had with previous Android versions in an utterly straightforward manner.

    From 'net discussions, it seems clear this was a deliberate decision on Google's part, now informing us we get the memory their phone vendor agreements say we get to have, and will migrate to "cloud storage" when they want us to, and they're disabling cheap SD cards to ensure we have no straightforward alternatives.

    Yeah, I think this kind of B.S. has the distinct scent of "evil" in line with the corporate pivot to "do no evil... unless it's sufficiently profitable".

  41. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My experience with Android with SD cards is less than stellar. I recommend not using them for anything more than media that you're ok with not having access to. It's nice to load some songs but you best have a backup. SD cards are, and will likely remain, a questionable storage solution. Even in my DSLR (which wasn't cheap) it's highly recommended (and with good reason) to have a backup card installed. I know a number of photography pros that would have lost everything if it weren't for a redundant card.

  42. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by ranton · · Score: 0

    I'm pretty sure that the "chump market" is way bigger than the 15% market share that Apple currently has.

    True, they only have the chump with money market.

    --
    -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
  43. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh wait. With the latest Android update, it "virtualizes" half my internal storage, and now "move to SD" moves it to... some absurd partitioning of the same internal storage.

    They should definitely revert this.

    It makes it amazingly difficult to install malware on a suspects phone by slipping in an SD card and running a program off the SD card.

    Won't someone please, think of the FBI?!?

  44. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by tlambert · · Score: 2

    It's not only Apple. My Nexus from Google doesn't have a memory slot either. Why!?

    You got sent the one without the slot because you are on the "don't slot list". You probably dropped you phone in the toilet while in a drunken stupor at some point in the past (that's how most people end up on the "don't slot list").

  45. "became more sophisticated and ate more storage" by tlambert · · Score: 1

    "became more sophisticated and ate more storage"

    I think you meant to say that Apps are more poorly written today, and thus take more storage.

  46. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by thegarbz · · Score: 1

    Not being able to offload applications was a big one

    Errr there's a lovely button next to every application listed call "Move to SD card". The only applications you couldn't do that were the core system image applications.

    But what interests me more than you complaining about an issue which isn't an issue is the thought that this was an all or nothing approach. Why not just get both. Refuse to load your silly overside applications on your SD card and use it to store video, images, sync with your cloud of choice etc.

    I'm never again buying a phone without an SD card slot. Regardless of how big it's onboard storage is.

  47. 5 years late.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Seriously, Apple is always late to the party. Now it's all about 64GB base model.

  48. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by thegarbz · · Score: 1

    Android used to have this feature and for some stupid reason they removed it

    And yet it still exists on every phone I've used recently including my own running Lollipop and my partner's running Marshmallow.

  49. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by thegarbz · · Score: 1

    Sounds like a user problem. Move to SD card is a feature in Android. Maybe sounds like a crap phone from a crap vendor problem.

  50. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by grumpyman · · Score: 1

    Ditto x10. This is the exact problem I have with my previous SD-enabled Android phone. The SD memory is treated as a secondary storage with bunch of limitations. What I find unhelpful is the way Android manages files - they're just everywhere. Not sure where to look for what, how the storage gets eaten up by who....etc.

  51. ugh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As much as it pains me to say this, I believe iPhone is the superior phone. However I'm so sick of their marketing BS. 32gb??? 16gb??? Why would the price from a 16gb to a 132gb be so drastically different. Storage is so amazingly cheap. I hate apple for their bullshit, but I do like their phone

  52. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's great on my BB. I wish my BB would last forever ... sigh

  53. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Isn't that why they usually have 3 different levels of phone memory?

    The consumer does decide which amount of memory they want.

  54. what is the fuss about lowest storage by u19925 · · Score: 1

    How does it matter what is the lowest storage? What should matter is highest storage because that is the real limitation. iPhone already offers 128 GB which is more than most latest Android phones and definitely more than any cell phone which was available at the time of iPhone 6 was released. No one is forcing anyone to buy 16 GB but the fact that people buy tells that there are lots of people for whom it is not worth extra money for extra storage.

    Android and Windows have 32 GB because many of them come with bloats. I have used Android for 3 years and iPhone for 4 years. On Android (Google Nexus) if I leave my gps app open, my battery used to drain in few hours. I had to make sure to kill all unused app all the time to get 1 day of battery life on brand new phone. With iPhone, I get two day battery life running equivalent apps without worrying about shutting down each app every time.

    I don't about SD card experience since my Nexus 5 didn't support it but my Windows phone (yes, I have used that too for 18 months), the SD card was flaky. Sometimes it will use it and other time it will just give error that I am out of memory even when the SD card was almost empty.

  55. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Past Android devices had issues with artificial limits on the amount of SD storage that could be recognized - some as menial as 16GB. But that has nothing to do with the OS. I'm glad that Marshmallow has enabled one to buy, say, a 256GB SD card and make it the primary storage, if one so desires. Windows 10 Mobile would do well to follow suit.

    SD cards are very much worthwhile. What if you want to reset your phone w/o losing data, and you're not near one of your regular carriers? I was in that situation last week, and the SD card was a godsend. I reset my Lumia twice - once in Zurich and once in DC - w/o losing any of my music or photos. Only issue - not being able to run applications that are downloaded to an SD card. Like I said, Windows 10 Mobile should take a page out of Marshmallow

  56. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have a Windows Phone as well, and I too can put apps on the SD card. Only problem - I can't run them from there, unless I save it onto the 8GB main storage of the Lumia 550.

  57. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That was the case when I had a Verizon Ellipsis 7. It had a mere 8GB of storage, and couldn't support more than 16GB of SD card. And there, I could not move stuff to the SD card, despite the tablet being woefully short on storage. I now have a 10 with Lollipop, which does a better job in allowing me to save things to the SD card. Now, if only they allowed as much storage as 2^63GB

  58. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by acoustix · · Score: 2

    Having had contacts on removal cards wear out while in a mobile device and fail (SIM cards included), I'd actually prefer something with fewer mechanical links which is soldered on. More drop safe.

    On the other hand, you can't replace the soldered mem cards by yourself. Which is worse, having removable memory that can wear out (but you can back it up), or having non-removable memory card go bad?

    --
    "A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
  59. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Plugging in only OFFERED you the option to mount the SD card on the computer instead of in Android, so your memory must be going in your old age ;)

    The phone would show up as a USB memory card and would not support simultaneous writes because it was using FAT16/32.

  60. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by sean.peters · · Score: 1

    Dude. Apple made a conscious decision not to do removable storage because it made the device bigger, and they were aiming for as thin as possible. Don't like that? By all means, buy an Android device. Not that big of a deal.

  61. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not sure what you mean. I've been using Android since my Nexus One.

    Apps that state they will automatically support running off of an SD card will automatically move there. Ones that might cause performance issues you'll have to do yourself. As of Marshmallow, you can "fuse" your SD card and internal memory so it's seen as one big drive. The disadvantage, of course, is like in Windows Phones - you can't pull out the memory card and temporarily use it for other things.

    As for "where the f__k is my data?", not sure what you mean. The photo, video, and music galleries have always showed up regardless of where they are - it automatically finds them.

    Everything else defaults onto the internal memory unless you specifically say to. Apps can save into the proper folders (instead of Internal/DCIM, it'd save in External/DCIM folder, not that it matters because the photo gallery app would treat it the same).

    If things were scattershot all over your SD, it's because you told them to go there or the app you're using decided to put it in a really weird spot without telling you (in which case, you should remove that app or complain to the dev). At this point, access to the SD card is restricted unless you specifically point to the folder -- you should know where everything goes.

  62. iPhone SE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yet another illustration that Apple should raise the storage in their low-end iPhone SE to this same 32 GB. They're ticking off a lot of first-time buyers shipping a phone that's inadequate out of the box.

  63. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Now, which way is more stupid - large market share, little profit, or the reverse.

    How is IBMs hardware division doing these days?

  64. Not surprising, my 5 SE has 64 GB Storage by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

    This is not that surprising, the very popular iPhone 5 SE (which came after the iPhone 6s) comes with two memory configs: 16 GB or 64 GB storage, so starting the iPhone 7 with 32 GB seems reasonable.

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  65. Re:Apple products are all shit sold by a fag perio by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

    What about those of us that aren't working as interior decorators?

    In my experience, gay women are good techs/programmers, gay men...mostly useless. Decent enough admins though, neat freaks.

    Anecdote battle on.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  66. "Where the fuck do you get 16GB anymore?" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fuck it, Apple saw the writing on the wall and realized keeping 16GB would likely cost them more money down the line than switching to 32GB. These lines have to be around for awhile, and while 16GB is still commonplace now...

  67. What about a 3.5mm headphone socket? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It would be nice to be able to plug any set of headphones into an iPhone 7.

  68. No one ever went poor betting against stupidity by rsborg · · Score: 1

    I'm pretty sure that the "chump market" is way bigger than the 15% market share that Apple currently has.

    True, they only have the chump with money market.

    That's a large and growing market.

    --
    Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
  69. Re:Apple products are all shit sold by a fag perio by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They did -1 and nobody debated anything except state they love fags.

  70. The only comment that makes sense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    32GB is pretty much the minimum for a flagship phone these days.

  71. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "The only applications you couldn't do that were the core system image applications."

    That's a load of bullshit. I've got a 8GB interal + 64GB SD phone and I can only have a dozen (if that) of worthwhile apps installed. In my experience, not very many. Can't remove a lot of Google's own bloat. Can't actually use the last 500 MB or so, because Google doesn't know how to manage that space for updates; instead trying to download and install multiples at a time and failing since it's using too much temporarily. Moving stuff to the SD card is often not supported by applications or moves some and leaves a significant amount (or caches) on the internal storage. If this wasn't an actual problem I doubt they would have added the ability to format the SD card (if it's fast enough) as internal storage. Their solution prior to that (like a lot of things Google does) is garbage.

  72. Re:Apple products are all shit sold by a fag perio by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    Actually it's been mostly gay men in my experience that make incredibly good mathematicians. Turing being one of them.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  73. Re:Apple products are all shit sold by a fag perio by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Every homosexual goes to Hell, no such thing as a successful homosexual.

  74. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by Drethon · · Score: 1

    Trust me, it didn't ask first. I would be reading a kindle book on my phone, which would vanish as soon as I plugged it in. Took a bit to figure out why my book was suddenly unavailable as I didn't realize the books were stored on the SD car (didn't even think about having an SD card as it came with the phone). It might have asked me afterwards but the first thing was my book vanished.

    Of course my memory wasn't even great at a young age ;p

  75. I will agree and disagree by DarthVain · · Score: 1

    You're right in many ways the SD card slot seems to be an afterthought. I suspect this is because a lack of competition, and that those that buy a phone to get it, are just happy they can, even if the functionality isn't all that great. I've been buying phones with an SD slot back to a Nokia with a 2GB card. At the time it was for pictures, and it worked just fine. I briefly went to an Apple 3GS, and while a good phone, the closed market, and iTunes being a big POS drove me away. I had a Samsung G3 which I put a 64GB card into, and since moved to a LG G4 with the same 64GB card (BTW what is with the "G" in phones, move on companies!)...

    Anyway I did have some problems with the 64GB card on the Samsung. Sure it was a bit annoying that most applications do not support the SD card, however other than a few crazy outliers like HearthStone taking up like 3GB of storage, it is really a moot point as most are small, and how many applications do you really need? Cleaning up crap I don't use every now and again solved application related issues. No what I used my memory (and likely what most people do), is for media storage (as that is what it is for), so pictures, movies, and music. Now to the main issue, which is of performance. Basically the Samsung 3G just didn't have the performance horsepower to handle a file system of that size. I loaded about 40GB of music on mine (i.e. a lot of little files), and for the little phone to parse that amount of data, or perform any actions on it were... frustrating. Also the transfer using USB didn't work so fast either and is flaky. Once you got stuff on there, it was more less fine to use, but making changes was a major hassle and after I had it loaded it remained pretty static. Oh one other thing that was really dumb, was that the Samsung would cache, or save an amount of storage on it's internal storage to handle music, which on 40GB amounted to almost 2GB on the internal as well which kinda sucked.

    Fast forward to my new LG G4, and there is a big difference. The processing power has caught up to the storage, and it seems to handle the file system much better. However, the USB transfer mechanism is still flaky and frustrating as hell. Also the Camera doesn't like to natively save photos to the card either which is kind of silly. You can however just archive them there if you like, but really photos aren't so big or numerous for me to be a major issue. I'm still trying to figure out if I can get the USB transfer process to work better where the connection isn't lost, or hangs, or whatever, and I've only tried it really once so far so perhaps I can figure out a way to make it work better.

  76. Re:Apple products are all shit sold by a fag perio by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

    You don't look that old.

    Face facts, you don't know who did the actual work at bletchley park. All we have is the 'story', which is almost always bullshit or at very least a comic book version of history.

    I can list off dozens of mathematicians that contributed more. But they don't fit the narrative so we never hear of them.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  77. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by ilsaloving · · Score: 1

    You're right. It was a crap vendor. It was Samsung.

  78. Re:Apple products are all shit sold by a fag perio by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    Anecdotic as fuck, I know, but when I ponder the people I know and the quality of their work, gays do deliver better stuff on average. Again, just my personal experience. Still funny.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  79. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    My anecdotal evidence is that I've never had an iPod, iPhone, or iPad memory go bad. It's easier for removable memory to get damaged or lost. Both have advantages.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  80. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    Removable batteries are a tradeoff, and not everyone wants one. My iDevices are and have been much sturdier than paper cards, and indeed keeping cards in my pocket next to my iPhone seems to help protect them. I really haven't found anything I want to run on a phone that's not in the App Store, and I haven't yet had anyone from Apple show up, hold me at gunpoint, and force me to run all of the Apple-supplied software, which doesn't take up that much of my storage anyway. There's plenty of Apple Stores around where I live, and they've always been fairly fast, courteous, and reasonable on the rare occasions when I've needed repair.

    When I've called Apple's support lines, I've talked to native English speakers who know what they're talking about and try to be helpful. This doesn't seem to be universally true in the field.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  81. Re:Apple products are all shit sold by a fag perio by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    What do you mean by "the actual work at Bletchley Park"? I'm not suggesting you get your information from the movie "The Imitation Game" (which gets the imitation game itself way wrong), but it's been long enough for some serious history to have been done, and that's less likely to be "bullshit" than what someone who calls the serious history "bullshit" says.

    Turing did a lot of good work, including a method of mathematically representing computation that we use extensively today.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  82. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by thegarbz · · Score: 1

    Galaxy S4, and S6 owner here. Girlfriend is the S5 and S7 owner. All 4 of our phones have always had the ability to move apps to SD card and we do that frequently with most of our installed games.

    Try troll harder.

  83. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by ilsaloving · · Score: 1

    Blah blah blah. Why is it when someone gives people like you information you don't wanna hear, they're immediately "Trolls"?

    Have you actually paid attention to what happens when you migrate apps to SD card? They don't get completely migrated. The amount that is moved depends on the app, and that amount can very greatly. Sometimes it's so little that it's not even worth trying. This is a fact. Period. Reality Distortion Fields arn't limited to Apple devotees, apparently.

    Maybe Android has done a better job of it in it's most recent incarnations, but I stopped caring at approximately v5 when Google changed a whole bunch of stuff around but still hadn't done jack to deal with Android's overwhelmingly greatest faults, namely non-existent privacy, and power management so poor that the user had to manually babysit their device in excruciating detail just to get a days worth out of it.

    But I'll take a guess and assume your android reality distortion field means you refuse to acknowledge those problems exist either.

  84. Meanwhile, My 2-Year Old Note4 Has 232 GB by meehawl · · Score: 1

    Needed more space for GearVR stuff. Popped out 128GB card, dropped in 200GB card. $60. Less than a minute and... Done. Always amazed otherwise reasonable people tolerate Apple'$ extortion.

    --

    Da Blog
    1. Re:Meanwhile, My 2-Year Old Note4 Has 232 GB by Uberbah · · Score: 1

      Until your cheap flash card lives up to its price and dies on you, and you have the Fun Project of figuring out what was stored on the card, and what was stored on the devices built-in storage. Then there's the fact that plenty of Android devices come without a card slot or a user-replaceable wankery.

      Always bored by Apple Hatebois.

  85. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    Do you happen to work for a computer magazine or are you known for making widely popular reviews of hardware? A lot of Apple users want to know!

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  86. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    No. I'm claiming that removable batteries are not an unalloyed good, that the iPhones and iPods and iPads I've seen are more than adequately sturdy, that the App Store is adequate as is for quite a few people, and that you don't need to run the Apple-supplied stuff after all. I've had excellent customer service from Apple, considerably better than average. In other words, there are very good reasons to buy an iPhone or iPad. There are very good reasons to buy an Android phone or tablet also, of course, and in fact my tablet runs Android.

    In other words, I'm trying to be reasonable, as objective as I can be, and to relate my personal experience. If that suggests to you that I'm a shill, you might want to try to expand your thinking. I recommend a practice of assuming for the sake of conjecture that people know what they're doing, and figuring things out from that. It's worked well for me.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  87. Re:How about having a user accessable mem card slo by thegarbz · · Score: 1

    Blah blah blah. Why is it when someone gives people like you information you don't wanna hear, they're immediately "Trolls"?

    Actually it had nothing to do with what I did or didn't want to hear. It was about posting blatently false information in a trollish tone of voice that made it a troll post. Nothing more nothing less.

    So what you're complaining about is that system isn't 100% perfect in moving all user data but none the less achieves the intent of moving the majority of it and thus freeing up large amounts of usable system space. Good to hear you're on board.

    Now as for privacy, what leaky apps are you installing? and what are you doing babysitting your device to get a day's battery life out? You're doing it wrong. My girlfriend is doing it right, so what makes that luddite so much better at it than you?

    Note this is a troll post, the key was in the last sentence, just so you can tell the difference.

  88. Re:Apple products are all shit sold by a fag perio by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Pictures of Turing with a homosexual in a sex act or it didn't happen.