[afreak]

$399 USD is great, but why are we still stuck with 16 GB of storage on base model phones? You can barely put a day's worth of music on your phone and you cannot always stream via services like Spotify.

Spotify accounts for 2 GB of traffic per month on my phone and some plans are barely affordable when you want more than that--fortunately I can do up to 6 GB before I am traffic shaped, but that isn't the say the same for all carriers in this country.

[devy]

It's only $60 [1] or less to replace the iPhone NAND Flash Memory from 16GB to 128GB at Shenzhen's Huaqiangbei[2], labor included.

Obviously, it's advisable to do the upgrade after your warranty has expired. ;)

[1] http://9to5mac.com/2016/02/03/iphone-flash-storage-upgrade-s...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huaqiangbei

[devy]

And as it turns out, Qihoo 360, one of the largest security software vendors in China [1], officially offers this iPhone NAND Flash memory 16GB -> 128GB upgrade service backed by a 30-day warranty under its subsidiary 360 Bang for RMB 399 (roughly $60). 360 Bang is a BestBuy GeekSquad-alike Mail-in repair service. [3]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qihoo_360

[2] http://bang.360.cn/huodong/up128

[3] http://bang.360.cn

[samstave]

That is awesome! I wish ifixit would train some people to do this.

I have an iPhone 4s that is "the kids phone" for my two-year old so she can watch YouTube and Netflix. I'd love to upgrade that so I could put all the other movies she likes on there as well.

[devy]

Yup. Equipments and tools aside, the BGA IC chip soldering / desoldering skills you've seen fast forwarded through the clip are some serious skills that take time to practices.

PS: This technique has been around since April 2015. A Youtube search yields roughly 8000 videos. I wouldn't be surprised that there are dozens or even hundreds [1] of this "repair shops" in Shenzhen's huaqiangbei or Beijing's Zhongguancun [2] electronics market.

There was even a similar video tutorial made by iFixit Vietnam;) [3]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=iphone+nand+fla...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhongguancun

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQFpay9HgEk (by iFixit.vn)

[yuvadam]

That usually requires significant soldering experience with SMT components and can possibly require soldering a BGA which is crazy hard (up to impossible) if you're not a machine.

[devy]

Yup! The technicians shown in the video said they usually have around 50 "upgrades" a day done in the shop and this techniques has been around since April 2015.

Worst comes to be worst, Huaqiangbei has tons of vendors who sell iPhone scrape parts so an accidental damage can be easily "replaced" and fixed up.

And I wouldn't be surprised if some of the technicians were Foxconn trained workers.

[samstave]

Are you in China? (This is not a criticism) your grammar sounds as though you may be Chinese.

I wonder how many people in the China tech scene read HN?

[devy]

Yes English grammar isn't my strongest suit. But no, I am stateside.

Fortunately, HN + Github are accessible free within China so I wouldn't be surprised there are significant Chinese engineers using these sites daily.

Write Sam Altman a nice email, he may just tell you the detail stats to answer your question directly ;)

[techolic]

I'm in China but I can only speak for me - I read HN everyday.

[john_reel]

Sounds like a native speaker to me.

[wingerlang]

Seems irrelevant, it's some district in China and ruins the warranty. Doesn't seem like a good solution at all.

[liviu]

16GB is enought for me. I don't watch movies, I don't listen to much music and I don't install apps. Just a phone with some basic apps and internet connections.

I also think 4 inches is decent size for my pocket.

I think I'll buy my first iPhone soon. Good job, Apple.

[jb1991]

If this will be your first iPhone, you've picked a good one to get started with. My first and only iPhone, after nearly 5 years, is the iPhone 4S which is seemingly an identical body as this SE. And it is a rock-solid, perfect little machine. I've dropped it countless times on brick and cement and it has no scratches on it after all this time -- never even put a case on it. These larger, thin phones that have come since have been a lot more fragile.

[watmough]

I maintain that the iPhone 4S is still the finest piece of consumer electronics ever created. They really hit a home run with that one.

I've since moved to a big 6S, but my 4S is still quite usable.

[cellularmitosis]

The 4S was a real landmark in UI smoothness as well, as it was the first dual-core iPhone.

Previously, even if a developer was on his best behavior (putting expensive tasks on a background thread to avoid bogging down the main thread and causing a frame rate drop), it didn't really help, because you only had one hardware thread.

Even though the 4S is a "slow" processor compared to the latest phones, it's UI was way more usable than the 4 and 3GS because of the second processor core.

[tholford]

+1, the 4S was Steve's final masterpiece.

[1123581321]

The SE has the same size body as a 5/5S. But I agree with you. I believe the 4S is the best phone Apple made for its time, and it's still very useful.

[m_mueller]

As a longtime 4S user: Let me just tell anyone who takes this comment serious to not upgrade beyond iOS 6.x. 4S with the latest iOS is painfully slow.

[1123581321]

I actually run on 9 because I need a couple apps that rely on 8, but yes, it is slow. If you upgrade too far and want to go back, there are ways to downgrade back to 6 such as http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/downgrade-iphone-4s-ipad-2-ios-6-1-...

I don't think anyone will take pro-4S comments seriously except people who already own a 4S and know the tradeoffs, though!

[m_mueller]

Well, I can see people buying this used because it looks good and fits in their hands. Thanks for the link. I run on 9 too - if it weren't for the SE which I'm going to buy I'd downgrade by now since it has become rather unbearable. I can load like one webpage into the RAM - switching to another app and going back to Safari will reload again - which, depending on connection and complexity of the page can take ages and you're also at the top of the scroll area again. Basically, this iPhone has become my E-Mail notifier and Podcast device (for which it's also at the edge of unbearable).

[jandrese]

Why not get some Nokia candybar? It will cost a heck of a lot less than $400 and comes with some basic apps and lets you make calls.

[ghshephard]

My honest answer is:

   o Photostream/iCloud Photos.
   o Rock Solid/Fast Camera
   o Overcast
   o Tweetbot
   o All the IOS controls in Finger DNA

[dexterdog]

If you need a very basic phone you really don't need an iPhone. Save your money.

[girvo]

> basic apps

Any other cheap phone doesn't truly meet this requirement, aside from some Chinese mid-range Android handset (which have their own issues, typically, except perhaps the Meizu or OneTouch phones). Maybe a Motorola G would also fit, but there's something to be said for having what is basically a top-of-the range handset that works flawlessly and will continue to do so for years afterwards.

My iPhone 5S is 3 years old at this point, and is still perfect. I bought it 12 months ago, second-hand and couldn't be happier.

[kalleboo]

If you haven't actually had an iPhone before, I'm not sure I'd be so confident 16 GB is enough. My wife's needs are also quite basic, but she was always running into storage limitations on her 16 GB iPhone 5s.

[agildehaus]

It encourages people to spend an extra $100. If the base model were 32GB, far fewer would.

[grandalf]

If the 16GB phone would just treat the local storage like a cache for everything it would be plenty of storage. With rare exceptions the expiry rules for my usage would be quite simple. That app I use once every two months can be re-downloaded when I want to use it (it's probably less than 20 MB in size anyway).

[Blaaguuu]

That seems great in theory, but many people still have really restrictive data caps on their plans, so I'm not sure we are quite ready for that model.

It would also suck if you had an app on your phone like a star/constellation map, which you only use every once in a while when you are out in the middle of nowhere... To have your phone automatically delete that app, then try to re-download it when there isn't any way to do so would be a pretty awful experience.

Works well for something like the Apple TV - I don't think it's good for phones yet.

[grandalf]

Well I'd want to be able to flag certain apps to not be expired, or to be restored next time I connect to WiFi if they were cleared for some reason.

Apps that take more than a second or two to download over LTE would be the difficult edge cases, but there are very few such apps, and even if they occupied 50% of the phone's storage and were never reaped the caching approach would be fine.

The big issue is the data cap, but things are trending toward unlimited data (I have it with T-Mobile now) and many of us are often connected to WiFi at least periodically throughout the day.

[maccard]

Most of the apps that are installed on my iOS device are ~100MB - slack (140) Snapchat (140) Spotify (100) viber(100) messenger (97) Airbnb (97) Etsy/Yelp/Starbucks/ are all roughly 70MB - Facebook is ~150 I believe. The worst part is that all of those apps are pretty much webviews...

[bdrool]

Facebook's app has a super-bloated > 100MB binary:

http://quellish.tumblr.com/post/126712999812/how-on-earth-th...

I think they have something like 150+ iOS devs, so they're almost up to a megabyte per dev!

[tdkl]

Nextbit Robin Android phone does exactly that : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31SHvxSxrj4

[forrestthewoods]

Sadly cache invalidation is one of the two hard problems in computer science. It sounds easy and simple but... it's not.

[grandalf]

I realize that, but what aspects of it do you think are particularly hard in the example I used? Right now many people with 16GB phones have to go through a fairly painful manual process to avoid getting error messages/warnings about storage.

So while it is difficult, I think that from a product perspective there would be only upside to treating it as a cache compared with the horrible usability of a 16GB IOS device with a typical 2016 usage pattern.

[plurinshael]

Out of curiosity... what is the other hard problem?

[betenoire]

"There are two hard things in computer science, cache invalidation, naming things, and off by one errors."

cache invalidation: distributed resource synchronization

naming things: all things abstraction

off by one: we always fuck it up somehow

[MichaelGG]

Naming things and off-by-one errors.

[philwelch]

Naming things. Also off-by-one errors.

[phesse14]

and do not forget the cloud storage. Moore's law is in decadence

[duaneb]

Not bandwidth, though.

[Doctor_Fegg]

checks Settings->General->Storage

I've got 5GB free on my 16GB phone. You've explained why 16GB is not a good fit for you, but that doesn't mean it's not a good fit for anyone.

[pix64]

Using 20GB on an android phone without any music.

[programLyrique]

I am always surprised by these expansive US plans.

In France for instance, you can have 50 GB LTE for 20 € per month (with Free). In Austria, 10 GB LTE for 15 € is not uncommon.

[afreak]

France and Austria, unlike Canada are very much dense so the infrastructure required to setup an LTE/UMTS/etc network is less costly.

To travel from Vancouver to the next principal Canadian city (Calgary), it requires 900 KM of driving and there's only really one metropolitan area of sorts between the two, meaning that you're going to be setting up cell towers that handle only so much traffic in a day.

As a result, to get service where you end up with just traffic shaping once you go beyond 6 GB (beyond that there is no real limit really), you need to go with a carrier that only services the larger cities. So in my case, my carrier services just Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto, and Ottawa, which are fairly dense areas with a combined population of 18 million or so, or just about half of the country's population. Once I leave the city, I have to piggyback on to other carriers however.

Hence why mobile carriers suck in Canada because the bigger carriers do not want to eat into their fairly large profit margins. They can afford to offer such plans, but they simply don't want to.

For the record, I pay $40 CAD/month ($30 USD or 27 EUR) for unlimited North American calling and text plus the "unlimited" data use.

[frik]

> France and Austria, unlike Canada are very much dense so the infrastructure required to setup an LTE/UMTS/etc network is less costly

You are wrong.

Both countries have parts of the country covered by the Alps, high mountains that make cell coverage expensive and several areas still have very spotty coverage with often very old GPRS/Edge-only cell towers.

Also there is a competition going on with more than four telecom companies competing that lowers consumers monthly costs (cell phone data plans).

Additionally the former state based telecom copper cables infastructure aged badly and hasn't been touched for 15 years and the fiber network infrastructure connects just big cities, bit not small towns in the Alps. In many areas cell connection is the only option to get 1+Mbit data connection, as the copper cable infrastructure hasn't been upgraded since the mid nineties.

[thatfrenchguy]

For the joke, I studied mobile networking in Canada, and we studied how actually, the dense areas are what cost the most money to the mobile operator.

The "we are a big country" is just a marketing stunt.

[cmrdporcupine]

Agreed. This is a sad excuse used by mediocre gov't and corporate entities to offer poor service and value for money.

For example, when I visit relatives in the Frankfurt region (Mainz), I am always amazed by how similar geographically and demographically it is to the greater Toronto area in Ontario. Population and industry wise Toronto and Frankfurt are very similar -- similar financial sector jobs, similar population densities.

And yet their infrastructure is _far_ superior. I take the train from Frankfurt to Mainz in like 20 minutes. From the Mainz train station there is integrated light rail and bus to a whole network of suburbs and villages, right out into the countryside. If I want to go for a hike in a forest preserve, I don't even need a car necessarily, I can take a streetcar and a bus to many very nice places.

Accessibility of food -- groceries, farmer's markets, restaurants. All better.

And yes, the telecoms infrastructure is far superior value for the money.

North America has let itself fall behind for several decades.

[staticelf]

Sweden is not dense at all and we have a lot more data for a lesser cost. I don't think density of cities are the only explanation.

[kingnothing]

Sweden is roughly the size of California, and roughly 1/25th the size of Canada.

As for population density, Sweden is about 6x more dense than Canada (23 people / sq km vs 4, respectively).

It's comparatively a dense country.

[repsilat]

> Sweden is about 6x more dense than Canada

Canada quite a high effective density -- something like 80 or 90% of the population live within 100 miles of the US border. Those statistics are not terribly convincing.

Better, I think, to note that Sweden has a high proportion of urban residents at 87%, compared to around 83% for Canada and the US.

http://www.geohive.com/earth/pop_urban.aspx

[kalleboo]

I'm not sure you can compare densities just like that, since there are large parts of Canada nobody is expecting them to cover

[wired8]

Which carrier/plan?

[afreak]

WIND Mobile. The plan isn't offered any longer but there are similar ones available.

[baudehlo]

But it's 3G only. No LTE on WIND (they keep promising it will come).

[dep_b]

France is pretty unique and shows that in most countries telco's act as a cartel to keep prices inflated artificially.

[Mikeb85]

Those damn socialists, with their paid vacations, short working days, good infrastructure, cheap services, and free school and healthcare. Not to mention all the wine, cheese, secularism and protesting. Heathens...

[Maakuth]

It's hardly unique. Here in Finland, the prices are comparable, though data caps are rare. 20€/mo gets you LTE with some bundled calls and SMS. Rest of the Nordics should be fairly similar. Currently I pay 18€/mo for my 50Mbps uncapped LTE, I use it as my home connection.

[programLyrique]

For Free, the maximum debit is 150Mbit/s, and they throttle to 128Kbit/s after the 5OGB...

[agumonkey]

It wasn't much different before Free mobile kick in the hive.

[oldmanjay]

What impulse makes people think that comparing an isolated fact from something so multidimensional makes for an interesting contribution? Particularly considering this isolated fact is contributed to every tangentially related conversation, I really struggle to see the value in commenting with it.

[pfortuny]

WOW I SAY WOW!! No way you can get that in Spain!

[yoodenvranx]

Same here in Germany, our mobile prices are ridiculous.

[prodmerc]

Well if Germany is ridiculous, US/Canada is ludicrous :D

[thekingofspain]

Based on my experience being in Germany recently, it's worse or about the same as Canada/US.

[photonios]

You haven't seen Romania. At RCS & RDS here I pay 4.84 euros for unlimited 4G/LTE + 500 minutes of international/national calling.

http://www.rcs-rds.ro/telefonie-digi?t=telefonie-mobila&pach...

[vbezhenar]

I have internet plan for 20 GB/month for 20 €/year (single payment) in Kazakhstan. But, unfortunately, only 3G. They promised 4G this year.

[r3bl]

Well, at least you have a constant 3G connection. I can't even get that. In a freaking capital of the country (Bosnia & Herzegovina).

[lucaspiller]

Across the border here in Italy, 5GB for €20/month is a good deal. If you are very lucky you can even get a 4G signal.

[Raphmedia]

France is the size of my backyard. Of course the cost of infrastructure & maintenance is going to be lower.

That being said, yes, we are getting very bad price on that side of the ocean because of price inflation.

[distances]

Always the same excuse that doesn't even hold up.

  * US population density: 35/km2
  * Finland population density: 18/km2

It's not about the size of the country, it's because in Europe the infrastructure owners are required to let others in [1]. In US the operators are natural monopolies with very little incentives for competition.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_virtual_network_operato...

[repsilat]

Finland has a higher proportion of urban residents than the US. The US is also known for its huge number of small and mid-sized cities and population spread all over the country, whereas (proportionately) more of Finland is essentially empty.

[distances]

That may be true but doesn't really factor in to the discussion of coverage and competition: even if essentially empty, Finland is still covered. Coverage maps for the two biggest operators:

* Sonera: http://www.sonera.fi/asiakastuki/verkkokartat/kuuluvuuskartt...

* Elisa: http://elisa.fi/kuuluvuus

Notice how 4G already covers almost half of Finland, and 3G basically everything excluding larger swaths of forest.

[Raphmedia]

I am from Canada.

Our population density is 3.7/km2 and infrastructure owners are also required to let other in. The prices are still very high.

The coverage is big and winter put a big load on the infrastructure.

[oconnore]

A full 24 hours worth of music (~33 complete albums) at 192 kbps is only 2GB.

[ceejayoz]

Sure, but music isn't really the sticking point anymore.

Infinity Blade 3 is 1.7 GB. A single photo takes up more space than a song from an album. 40 minutes worth of 4k video maxes out the device (and that's optimistically assuming the apps that come with the phone don't take up any space).

[n0us]

For people like me who have no video, no games, and minimal music on their phones it's perfectly fine. I mostly just use a few messaging apps, instagram, snapchat, facebook, etc. The audience on HackerNews probably utilizes the space on their phones much more than the average consumer.

[Throwaway23412]

You think that the average consumer has no videos, games, or music on their phone? (And we forgetting photos and various other types of apps.)

You sound like when data plan providers say "Our average customer doesn't use that much data." Of course they don't. They try to stay within the ridiculous limits providers give them.

iOS 9 alone takes up a few GBs. The only reason the 16 GB option is the base option is because it anchors the price of iPhones. iPhones have an absurdly large profit margin, and price anchoring just provides the average consumer a psychological "out".

[whatusername]

I think you're forgetting photos.

[vincentkriek]

Pictures and movies are a huge factor for the average consumer. Every iphone owner in my family complains about lack of storage due to pictures taken.

[masklinn]

> Sure, but music isn't really the sticking point anymore.

Music is definitely a sticking point for me, I've got 30GB of music on my phone, and the same again in applications and games.

[rpgmaker]

I don't want just 24 hours of music, I want a comprehensive sample of my entire music library. In my case it exceeds the 16gb (or whatever it's available after iOS + other apps) easily.

[r3bl]

The problem with me is that I want high quality music on my phone (and I listen to it with high quality headphones all the time). Like, nothing except 320 kbps MP3 files and occasional lossless files that randomly find its way to my library. I have an Android smartphone that only supports memory cards up to 32 GB in size. It's a pain. I can't even get 1500 songs properly (keep in mind that the music is not the only thing that I have on the SD card, there's also my book library and some photos).

Streaming them in that quality for two to three hours in per day on average would take a lot of data.

[frik]

Then get an Android smartphone that supports 128 or 256GB SDCard, problem solved.

[lewisl9029]

Storage is one of the reasons why I could never get used to using my phone as a music player.

I keep my 50GB+ music collection on a separate device (FiiO X3), which allows me to stick to the lowest storage tier for any phone I'm interested in, and not have to worry about expandable storage (which seems to be on the way out as a trend, unfortunately).

Also, I'm a rather heavy user and my phone tends to only barely last the entire workday and commute before running out (if it lasts at all). Having a separate device for music means I don't need to feel guilty about wasting phone battery when listening to music.

The downside is you end up having to carry 2 devices instead of one, which can honestly be annoying at times, but I'm willing to make that compromise. YMMV of course.

[zanny]

I have an S4, and am planning to upgrade to an S5 when the price drops from the S7 sales. The only reason I use Samsung phones is for removable batteries and expandable storage. I have a 128GB sd card in my phone with 60GB of music and 40GB of movies on it.

I could never fathom using a phone without reasonable storage capacity. 16GB was bad in 2000. In 2016, anything less than 256GB is a joke, and the joke is really no laughing matter anymore. It has not been for at least a half decade in the mobile space.

[IkmoIkmo]

So buy the upgrade.

Me, I'm the type of guy to have 10gb of music, photos and apps, and offload a lot of stuff to my PC and stream increasingly more. I'm okay with 16.

Is 16 a bit silly? Sure, but it's an easy way to pad the margins a bit and there's just plenty of people for whom 16 is just fine, to the extent that the upgrade option is a decent solution.

e.g. my entire office is on iPhones and they use it for mail and some other stuff, 80% of their storage is unused, will be unused forever, and it makes sense not to pad that even more and increase the base price.

I wish the price bump was a bit smaller if you want to increase your 16gb, more in line with their cost price, but... I'm not at all opposed to the notion that a 16gb base model exists.

[noobermin]

At least for all them youngins, we all use soundcloud of bandcamp for the most part. Depedent on data? Yes, but with that you get live updates of new songs or reposts from your favorite artists.

[rpgmaker]

I know this is the case for many people but I'm not a big fan of streaming media to my phone. It's expensive, unnecessary (for my use case) and too unreliable to my liking. I sometimes do it but I just don't rely on it.

[noobermin]

It might be a YMMV thing. For a lot of edm, soundcloud+bandcamp is more than enough. It's reliable enough for people with good bandwidth (I am lucky enough to be in that group), not to mention the collection is endless and well beyond anything I could fit on my phone...and it's fresher, as in when my favorite DJ/producer has a new song, I see it immediately, like it, comment to tell him/her directly, and so forth. This works well for EDM which doesn't quite follow the traditional "let's sit in a room and write 8 songs and release an album over a couple of months to years" production model. For EDM, where the rate of production is much quicker, streaming + the community makes a large part of the experience, so much so that without those social aspects, you're almost missing out.

Moreover, as many have noticed here, there are only so many minutes in a day, so the actually amount of data you'll download is limited anyway, and the fact that its SC gives you the variety, so I find myself missing very little.

However, for genres where the SC model doesn't work (or at least it isn't present), this doesn't help. When I want to listen to doom metal or psychedelic music, I'm left out and having to resort to what you do. And since I hate poor quality recordings and use flac when I can, my phone runs out of space quickly when I resort to carrying around a music collection.

[ihsw]

I don't listen to albums anymore.

Google Play Music has spoiled me -- their station selection is vast. Albums don't even mean anything to me.

Plus I can upload all of my personal music collection to it and listen to it on the go, and it exceeds 2GB easily.

[devindotcom]

And that's about all the space you'll have with ios and default apps!

[microtonal]

I have an iPhone 5s 16 GB with a bunch of apps and games installed, plus some albums at 256/320 kbit/s and it currently has 6.5GB free.

[Cyph0n]

Add some photos and audio books, and it's basically full. 16 GB is too little for most use cases.

[microtonal]

Depends on your use case. I use Dropbox for storing photos, since my network connection is generally good enough for it to be fast and seamless (I guess they send resized photos). I do keep music on my phone, but I don't need my > 500 album collection, just some new stuff that I change every couple of weeks.

Among computer illiterates in my family it also doesn't seem to be a problem. My mother has been using 16GB iPads and iPod Touches for years and never ran out of storage.

Sure, if you play lot's of > 1GB games (which seems to be typical these days), you don't want a 16GB model.

[Bud]

Not accurate. Not close to accurate. 16GB models have around 10-11GB free after the OS and all default apps are installed.

[EC1]

Variable mp3's, smaller and higher quality.

[jandrese]

"Only 2GB", otherwise known as double your monthly data allowance?

[exprZ]

Maybe it's time to upgrade your data plan if the current one isn't enough.

Mine doesn't have data allowance caps of any kind.

[jandrese]

It's cheaper to get the $100 upgrade to 64G. Bigger data plans get expensive in a hurry here. Given that you're using a phone for at least a couple of years, paying an extra $40/month for the big data plan vs. $100 up front for enough storage not to need the upgrade just doesn't make sense.

Of course if Apple didn't have to skimp so badly on the base phone the upgrade wouldn't be necessary. Shame so many Android phones are also 16GB. My experience with using microSD cards for more storage is a bit less than spectacular as well with so many of the stupid cards dying suddenly and without warning.

[jonathantm]

Also apps using sd for storage is on an app by app basis. So say if Google turns that off for Play Music - as it seems they just did - well, now I have to cancel my subscription for that service and find something else to use my 64gb sd for. ffs.

[mentando]

I would imagine that you can still move your music to the SDCard, even if the app itself cannot be moved.

I don't know, since I do not use one, but at least for Spotify it is possible (as tested by my brother).

[rsp1984]

USD 399 for an unlocked new iPhone (with latest hardware!) in an of itself is a great, almost revolutionary price regardless of storage capacity. To the degree where I actually wonder whether it's going to have negative effects on their iPhone 6(s) sales.

I'm sure Apple has been running very sophisticated simulations on different model pricing, but 399 has so far been really the ballpark of Android phones.

Therefore I think what we're observing here is nothing less than the beginning of a new phase of iPhone strategy: They are starting to reach down from the top into the middle class segment whereas everybody else in the smartphone industry is trying to move up segments (so far with very limited success). Now Apple's brand is playing for them as they move down whereas everybody else's brand is playing against them as they want to move up.

[skizm]

I assumed it was 16gb because that obviously isn't enough and then they basically force you to spend another $100 for the next bump up in storage, which costs them essentially nothing. Most people will buy the more expensive version, but they can advertise the lower price.

[themartorana]

Funny how they pushed iMessage as getting around an obvious cash grab by carriers and then push this obvious cash grab.

Wait. No, it's not funny. It's really frustrating in 2016. And pretty transparent.

[oldmanjay]

"and then" implies a sequence of events that doesn't match reality. This has been the price structure for iOS devices for many years. In any case, I don't think Apple has moral qualms making cash grabs, being that they are so into profit.

[shostack]

My 80GB 5th gen video iPod (that's right, the clickwheel one) just gave up the ghost. Right now I'm limping on with an old 4GB iPhone 3 hand-me-down that I'm using as an iPod, since my Nexus 4 doesn't have the storage, nor battery capacity to be my music listening device.

At this point I've started to come to terms with the fact that for the next few years, my phone will not be able to be my primary portable music device because of storage.

On that note, are there any reasonable high-capacity alternatives for a portable music device that don't require streaming? I want a small form factor, large HDD with a headphone jack and a good battery and solid interface. I'd considered a new iPod Touch, but to get even 64GB is $300, which seems a bit much.

Curious what recommendations others have here.

[unprepare]

sandisk makes mp3 players with microSD card slots for around 30$ [1]

and 64GB microsd cards are only ~30 bucks also [2], you can get 128GB microsd cards for under 50$ pretty easy

Putting you at 8GB+128GB for less than a hundred bucks.

Haven't done it myself, but have been thinking about it.

[1]http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00VXMY262?ref_=zg_bs_12648...

[2]http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=lp_3015433011_nr_p_n_feature_two...

[3]http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=lp_3015433011_nr_p_n_feature_two...

[OscarCunningham]

I was going to do this but I was worried that it wouldn't support SDXC and so would only get 32GB from a 128GB card.

[Zpalmtree]

I'm using a fii0 x1, which has a sd card slot for up to 128gb of storage, and it has decent battery life and a very nice UI. Also has a dac for great quality sound, and supports lots of file types including flac. Bit more pricy than some cheap mp3 players, but it's very durable and will last a long time I imagine.

[lewisl9029]

Been using a FiiO X3 1st Gen here for quite a few years now, and it's still going strong. I got it before the X1 came out, and if I were to buy a new player I'd go with the X1 as well.

[johnchristopher]

Most other smartphone makers propose a majority of models with an SD slot. Only Apple doesn't provide any means to add more storage for cheap.

[mastazi]

And Google Nexus...

[r00fus]

Wonder if iFixit pricing on the iPod fix would be worth it? I have that exact same model, still going strong for car music (my Sienna's BT implementation sucks bigtime).

[paride5745]

I have a Moto G 3rd gen with a 64GB SD.

I've sold my iPod touch 5th gen 64GB as I wasn't using it anymore since moving to a smartphone + big sd.

[nix0n]

Hey, I had one of those! When mine died I replaced it with a Sansa Clip+ with an 32GB SD card, and the Rockbox firmware.

[mrweasel]

>$399 USD is great

It's going to be $559 in Denmark. I had to check the prices on the other models, the cheapest 6S is $875. I never realized how expensive an iPhone is. Why anyone would buy an iPhone at those prices are beyond me. Sure, most will be buying via their carrier along with a subscription, but in most cases that will just make the phone more expensive.

[bydo]

Note that the price in Denmark includes VAT, whereas the price in the US is before any taxes.

Though which comparable device would you suggest at a similar price point?

[canuckintime]

The current exchange rate for $400 USD is $525 CAD. The price in Canada is $580/$710 CAD for 16GB/64GB (which is before taxes). The Nexus 5X 16GB is $440. The Nexus 6P 32GB is $650. The Nexus 6P 64GB is $700.

[zootam]

if one is smart, one can avoid paying taxes on large electronics purchases

[gambiting]

It's always funny to me how people blame corporations for paying as little tax as possible, but do the exact same thing in their daily lives. If the law allows you to pay less tax on something, of course you are going to do it.

[mrweasel]

>Though which comparable device would you suggest at a similar price point?

I wouldn't know, I won't pay above $30 to $40 for a phone or above $10 per month for my cellular plan. While a phone/smartphone is insanely useful, I just don't think the price is justified.

[grey-area]

People don't buy smartphones to use them as a phone. Think of that as a secondary function to a global internet device and the price makes a bit more sense if you value internet everywhere and want power/battery/screen size etc. If you don't, stick with a normal phone.

[TillE]

Generally speaking, an iPhone is maybe 25% more expensive than flagship Android phones in Europe. It's a difference, but neither is cheap.

[ProAm]

All Apple products are significantly overpriced, how their consumers do not realize the are being taken advantage of is beyond me.

[duderific]

What does "taken advantage of" mean in this context? No one is forcing them to buy anything. If someone doesn't feel the price is justified, for anything, they shouldn't buy it.

[ProAm]

Some people do not know better and that is where the 'taken advantage of' comes from. It is buyer beware, but to me it's a scummy business practice.

[theshrike79]

All Apple products hold their price very well. I just sold an iPhone 4S for 100€ yesterday - a five year old device.

It still runs the latest iOS, albeit a bit slower. Show me 5 year old Android device that can run the latest Android version WITH CARRIER SUPPORT, without any 3rd party hacks or rooting.

[jhenkens]

Depends on how much you prefer the experience of an iPhone versus an Android. There's a reason someone might choose an Audi versus a similarly equipped (engine wise) Volkwagen - it's a different experience, at a price, that some prefer.

[ricardobeat]

Are they? Flagship models from the competition always cost about the same, especially on monthly plans.

[ProAm]

I was speaking more to the entire apple product line. Laptops, PC's, phones. Apple users easily pay on average 1/3 more for comparable hardware. Their software used to be of higher quality, but that is no longer the case.

[simonh]

The only iPhone (actualy iOS device of any kind) I've ever bought that's not still in active use is my first, a 3G. My daughter still uses my 3GS to this day. The screen is cracked, but it's fully functional and she can even still download compatible apps from the App Store. Even ones that are no longer available for sale, but which I bought back in the day (I'm thinking of Lemonade Stand).

I've got excellent value for money from every iOS device I've ever had, with regular software updates years after they were bought.

[raverbashing]

It's Apple being petty (price segmentation), basically. How much does 16Gb cost today, $10?

[jsprogrammer]

Wal*Mart sells 16GB flash products for $4.99.

Company margins need to be padded somewhere?

[ropiku]

Still it's not at the iPhone speed, 6S uses fast NVME flash. Definitely not 100$ but not comparable with an microSD card either.

[mbeattie]

So, apple should add an sd card slot?

[Splines]

That I think is a usability, logistiscs, and technical rabbit hole that Apple doesn't want to go down. (See Android and Windows Phone).

[PhantomGremlin]

You get what you pay for.

A while ago I bought a Sandisk 64 GB USB flash at Costco on clearance for what I thought was a good price. I wanted to use it to back up a laptop on which I don't have too many files, so 64 GB was just right.

Big mistake! Huge!

I formatted the flash and started backup and it was pathetic. A MB per second write speed. If that. I gave up after a few hours.

I went back to my tiny Apricorn backup drive, which I love, and which uses a 1.8" hard drive internally. Zoom. Easily 10x faster than that Sandisk flash.

As I said, you get what you pay for.

[cellularmitosis]

Indeed, you have to look hard to find a flash drive with better than 2MB/s write speed: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/usb-3.0-thumb-drive-revi...

[wahsd]

I see it as a rather significant error on their part. And to be honest, I am not quite sure why there has not been a massive revolt by app developers, content creators, and companies in general.

With the OS taking up a huge chunk of that 16GB and basic functionality like messaging taking up another 700MB-1.5GB, and not even counting photos and videos than can almost take up infinite amounts of storage; little is left for actual music, movies, apps, and other content.

Tinder alone is basically a 1.5 GB app. If you want to watch a movie and it's another 1 GB. If you want a decent sized music selection you are down another 5-10 GB. With every damn poorly coded app being around 100 MB you quickly run into situations where people with 16 GB are having to make choices and are dissuaded from purchasing Apple music and video content, let alone purchasing apps and playing games. Apple is essentially cutting into various app developer revenues by introducing artificial limits.

I, as a 16 GB iPhone user, would not be able to download or keep various apps on my phone that would be available for use if I had to trade off with taking pictures of my life. So app developers are losing out on revenue because Apple is putting these artificial limits on things for utterly retarded reasons. Please, someone provided me a single rational and irrefutable argument for there even being a 16 GB version, let alone a 32 GB one. Do you want people to buy Apple content or not, Apple. Do you want app developers to make money or not, Apple. I suspect apple is going to screw around again until their retarded greed leads to innovation that results in them having to buy some shitty company for 3.5 BILLION dollars again ... Beats. It's far less obvious how that would happen, but the effect they are causing is still there, pent up, who knows how it will burst free.

Stop being assholes, Apple, let people have enough space so they can actually use your ecosystem's products services without having to make hard trade-offs. You greedy bastards.

[Doctor_Fegg]

> If you want to watch a movie

On a 4in screen? Nope, I don't.

> If you want a decent sized music selection

I don't. I listen to music at home, from my desktop. I don't really have a use case for listening to it on the road.

> I, as a 16 GB iPhone user, would not be able to download or keep various apps on my phone that would be available for use if I had to trade off with taking pictures of my life

Sure. So don't buy a 16GB iPhone.

It's ok that there are phones that don't suit your needs, as long as there are also phones that do. Moving the base-level storage to 64GB has a cost, and assuming that Apple is determined to keep its industry-leading margins - and why wouldn't they? - then I don't want to pay that cost for 48GB of storage I don't need.

It's fine that the 16GB model is not for you. It really is. You don't have to call people bastards because they made a phone you don't want to buy.

[calinet6]

You're right, but he's also right. 16GB base is a pretty poor experience in my experience. I'm constantly having to manage my apps and uninstall ones I don't need or use to free up space for a relatively small photo library (with most of it in iCloud Photos). It's a constant balancing act.

Then again, it's livable, and it's just annoying enough to make me want to upgrade to 64GB, so in that sense it's an ideal product segmentation for Apple, and in the end I don't mind paying what amounts to $50 more on contract for the 64GB version for the increase in utility it gains me.

Pretty brilliant when you think about it.

[ska]

   Please, someone provided me a single rational and irrefutable argument for there even being a 16 GB version.

People buy them.

[wahsd]

Sorry, but they would also buy the equally priced entry level phone that was 32 GB. Next argument, please.

[ska]

No. That isn't the way it works.

They would also buy the same spec for half the price. Or an entry level for the same price with 128GB. More realistically : would it be better to have a more expensive entry level with 32GB? Maybe. Just because apple might be technically able to offer the product configuration you want them to for the price you want them to doesn't mean it is the right thing for them to do.

Here's the thing. You don't get to decide what is right, or what is better, for anyone except you.

Apple may be doing this mostly for product differentiation purposes; they may not. But whatever the rationale, it is working for them, well enough to pretty much define the category of premier smart phone. Arguing that this is somehow irrational comes across as either sour grapes or naive.

[wahsd]

What you and everyone that is voting me down seem to overlook for some rather crazy reason (The only thing that makes any sense is protective defensive excuse making for Apple) is that they are shooting themselves in the foot. Sure, people buy the 16GB phone, usually thinking they are getting 16GB and thinking that is a lot without realizing that out of the box it's only 14GB and once they install some things and want to buy some music and take some pictures they are running out of room on double time.

Now they are stuck with a phone that is of an inadequate size in order to not only fully utilize it, but also it impacts developers and sales and companies that are constantly trying to push their incidental apps onto people.

I don't get your opposition to bigger storage when the increased storage would probably cost Apple literally next to nothing. Do you understan that the delta between the cost of 16 and 32 GB, let alone even 64 GB is basically negligible for them? It does not seem at all to be about cost, it's all about perceived price maximization, but I am rather certain their calculations either don't quite make sense or they are not properly considering and weighting their inputs.

I also don't understand why developers are not up in arms because Apple's foolishness keeps their app from being installed and used, which leads to decreased revenues. It really undercuts the whole ecosystem because people with 16 GB phones are not installing the hilton app, not installing the app for every airline, not installing health kit apps, not installing care kit apps, and not installing various other incidental apps that the ecosystem really requires you to have installed but take up way too much space to justify keeping installed on a regular basis.

[johnchristopher]

Beyond all the aesthetics and usability issues, I believe its more of business and ideology standpoint. Let me explain:

Reality 1: If there were memory card slots, easily accessible to users, then they would immediately see it as a way to put data "into" the phone. Data, here is mostly going to be movies, music, apps, etc.

    Apple's Strategy: iTunes, and now iCloud. Period.

Reality 2: If users put data "into" the phone, then Apple would lose its money-making resource of "selling" data to the users, thus iOS would not be the most profitable ecosystem; "piracy" increases at atrocious rates; the industries (music, movies, apps, etc) will lose money; they could probably revolt against Apple for letting this happen, even when it did not intend to do so.

    Apple's Strategy: No memory-card slots. Period.

Reality 3: Apple has cleverly involuted its strategies in such a way that it makes people pay for content; making iOS the best ecosystems for developers all over the world; influence the industries in a positive way; make people realize that there is joy in spending; selling cool new devices with really usable, useful, and necessary features.

    Apple's Strategy: Make the best devices. Period.

Source: https://www.quora.com/Why-dont-iPhones-have-a-memory-card-sl...

[raverbashing]

> Tinder alone is basically a 1.5 GB app

What? I don't see it even being close to it

290Mb storage used on an Android system (14.25 in internal storage)

[tim333]

On my 16GB iPhone 5 Tinder is showing as 22.9MB, including data. Maybe I should have more dates?

[svckr]

> With the OS taking up a huge chunk of that 16GB […]

Funnily, I just noticed on the 6SE tech-specs site that Apple's "premium" Apps (Garage Band, iPhoto, etc.) come pre installed on the 64GB version. It's like them admitting that 16GB is just to damn small.

OTOH I bought a 64GB iPhone 4S when it came out (that thing just quit on me 2 weeks ago) and I'll never ever in my life want to sync that much music again. So for me, it'll probably be the larger option, but I'll fill it up with photos and videos of my cats.

[runamok]

As an aside how in the world is Tinder 1.5 gigs?

[roflchoppa]

I think iOS has this application caching issue. Apps seem to always be caching data to the storage, but there is no option to erase, or remove it as needed.

[lathiat]

it does it for you, if your phone starts getting full you'll notice apps randomly switch icon and name to Clearing or something like that quite a bit.

[roflchoppa]

the issue that ive found when i was troubleshooting clients phones for "where is all my storage" is that the system does not automatically remove cached files like music/ spotify offline etc.

i never have seen the clearing text on my iPhone, although i figured it would be automatic.

[CamperBob2]

Wow, I remember when you had to do this yourself on your Apple, with x = fre(0).

[donutz]

Can't tell if testing my gullibility or you actually believe your phone does this. :-/

[mattlutze]

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1385624?start=0 (Find Nathan C's answer)

If the math is still accurate and figure half your storage is music (7GB) we're talking 750-1750 songs. At 2.5 minute average runtime, 750 songs would be ~78 minutes of music per hour over 24 hours. So, you could skip 5 songs and still fill an entire day. And if you figure average 4 minute runtime like that poster did, that's 125 minutes of music per hour, or skipping 1/2 of the songs that come up.

A lot of folks aren't power users and don't need big storage on the phone. It's okay to offer them an option.

[cweiss]

There's plenty of use cases for low-storage iPhones. Think enterprise customers, mobile point-of-sale devices, field researchers, reporters.

[notatoad]

Because 16GB is enough for me. I don't need more space than that, so why should i pay for it?

[forgotmypassw]

The same reason why you pay $600 for 32 GB of RAM with Apple.

[FireBeyond]

Technically, for 24 GB of RAM... since they keep the base 8GB that it came with, for your $600.

[tambourine_man]

You can barely put a day's worth of music on your phone

You can get ≈16h of 128K VBR MP3 in a single gigabyte.

The real problem is video. Those guys are selling 4K devices that can barely hold a full event.

[Zpalmtree]

128k is pretty awful quality though.

[tambourine_man]

It's not. You need great ears and even greater hardware to distinguish it from uncompressed in AB testing (on recent enough LAME encoder).

But if you must, go 192k/256k, which is pretty much guaranteed to be indistinguishable for almost all wetware/hardware combination in the world and would still get you about 12h in a gigabyte.

[rorykoehler]

That's part of the reason I switched to Android. I spend $250, get a micro sd slot and pretty much all the features I want or would use. The camera is the only thing I miss from the iphone but it's not the end of the world as the camera in the Android isn't exactly terrible.

Coincidentally it's also why I went off contract. Much cheaper to buy phone outright and buy 3gb of pay as you go data a month than get locked into an absurd and useless contract.

[omarforgotpwd]

That's how they raise their average selling price without raising the base price. For many use cases like kiosks and classrooms little storage is needed.

[Cacti]

> why are we still stuck with 16 GB of storage on base model phones

Because upgrades are where they make most of their money.

[joelhaasnoot]

I wonder how well this will work: wife has an iPhone 5C but hates it because it's an 8GB model. Facebook already takes up 500MB with its caches and she's constantly removing apps. Pictures also take up room - with Photo Stream on there are 4 copies of each pic on your phone...

[ebiester]

Might I suggest removing Facebook the app and instead have a link to their mobile app? It might be worth a shot.

[joelhaasnoot]

I tried to convince her to do that, but it's the app she uses most with various groups and such.

[peyton]

In addition to making a buck through market segmentation, there are probably challenges sourcing NAND flash that meets Apple's power/performance requirements in sufficient quantities.

[some-guy]

Going for 16GB storage on my 5S might be what makes me upgrade...otherwise the phone still seems fast / good enough for most tasks after 2.5 years of ownership.

[Swizec]

HOW!? Mine is fast becoming unbearably slow.

Maybe I'm using the wrong apps.

[microtonal]

I bought a 5s recently (iPhone 3G -> iPhone 4 -> Nexus 4 -> Moto X 2013 -> Moto X 2014 before), because I had too many problems with Android. Mine feels incredibly snappy.

[r00fus]

I just wish they'd have offered 128GB as an option.

[jasonkostempski]

I bet if people started booing during these live streams when they announce that BS they'd stop doing it real quick.

[cweiss]

They'd also be uninvited from future Apple events. These aren't generally open to the public.

[dfar1]

So that you can continue to pay for icloud.

[acomjean]

I think the use case is older people (my parents..) that mainly use it as a phone and not much else. It wasteful though as it really kills future functionality and makes the phone get tossed earlier. (although they can be recycled I'm betting a lot aren't). Especially interesting given the keynotes emphasis on recycling/renewable resources.

on the plus side, they kept the headphone jack (no new headphones required).

[itake]

someone I know at apple told me that they have trouble getting enough memory for the millions of phones that they sell.

[mtw]

iPhones would be amazing if it could be expanded with microSD!