Apple’s refusal to upgrade the cheapest iPhone to 16GB could be leading to a crisis, and these stats just might prove it.
When the iPhone 6 came out, Apple (un)pleasantly surprised everyone by only upgrading two of the three storage options: While the baseline iPhone 6 stayed at a meager 16GB of storage, the middle and high-end storage options were upgraded to 64GB and 128GB respectively.
Many Apple fans have since expressed utter incredulity that Apple wouldn’t upgrade the base iPhone 6 model past 16GB of memory. Pundits like John Gruber said that it would result in fewer customers upgrading to the latest operating system … and, as we’ve seen, they were right.
But how big is the problem really? Huge. According to stats from U.K. carrier O2, 91 percent of all iPhone users have just 16GB of storage (or less!). And it gets worse. Statistics show that the average iPhone user runs out of space on their smartphone at least once every month, and that the problem is especially big among women.
Don’t believe me? If you’re interested in seeing for yourself just how bad the iPhone storage crunch is getting, check out this staggering collection of statistics fronted by I Love IceCream, which make a strong case that Apple’s continued insistence on making a mere 16GB of storage the baseline for the iPhone line is a dire mistake.
What do you think? What is the minimum amount of storage you’d accept for an iPhone or iPad? Let us know in the comments.
Source: I Love IceCream
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
17 responses to “Is there an iPhone storage crunch coming? These stats say yes.”
Well, I broke my religious upgrade cycle this year because the base offering of 16GB has become just too small, but 64GB is way more than I need and not worth the premium (the recent drop in value of the South African Rand against the Dollar made the gap even bigger).
The result is that not only did’t Apple sell me a phone, they also are no longer making money off me from buying apps, as I don’t have the space for them.
Maybe next time Apple will be a little less greedy?
32 is minimum (except for my 60 year old mom who really just needs 8). I prefer 64 and feel it’s worth the price of the $100 up charge.
Why is the failure of the customer to buy the correct sized phone Apple’s dire mistake?
The fact that I would have to spend another HUNDRED dollars just for a boost of much needed space due to apps becoming larger in size with each new screen size and resolution bump [3.5″ non-retina, 3.5″ retina, 4″ retina, 4.7″ retina, 5.5″ retina, 7.9″/9.7″ non-retina, 7.9″/9.7″ retina assets all within a single universal app and trust me I know the pain of this being a developer myself] is NOT the mistake of the customer, and with the iPad Pro on the horizon things are just going to get worse. I understand that the iPhone is a premium product but the fact that I can’t even use the base model without having to delete most of my apps and pictures is a major problem on Apple’s part, not to mention that with each new version of iOS even MORE space will get taken up (also not to mention the fact that the actual size of the device is slightly less than what is advertised). Not everyone can afford to upgrade every year or shell out an extra $100.
Personally I’ve never needed more than 16gb, but that’s just my 2 cents.
16gb was plenty for me in the past…the problem from what i’ve noticed lies in the new iOS. There is something weird with how it operates in the past. All of my apps are sucking up huge amounts of storage. For example…my twitter app is using 375mb right now. Like seriously, why the f is twitter using that much space?? With no buttons or options to delete local data/cache i’m forced to literally delete apps from my phone and re-download to clear space for whatever I want to put on it.
If you can handle jailbreaking, icleaner is a free cydia app that will clear out all app caches and such to clean up plenty of space on your phone. When I got my new 6Plus, rejail-broke, and ran for the first time it cleared out gb+ space. Usually run once a week and it regualrly clears 300-400mb of space.
lol I had everything ready to jailbreak my 5s recently but at the last min saw that the jailbreak program was only for windows (I was on my air away from home not near my pc). So i scrapped that idea. Do they have a mac compatible jailbreak yet? I had a jailbroken 4 back on 4.1 so I know the power of jailbreaking and all that jazz.
Pangu is supposed to be mac compatible but couldn’t get it to work with 8.1. Neither Pangu nor TaiG worked through parallels either, but I wasted a frustrating hour trying. Finally switched to a PC and the TaiG jailbreak worked first time like a charm. Sounds like you have access to a PC, so I’d just do it on there. Yeah the power of the almighty jb is undeniable.
If people don’t buy a iphone with enought storage space it’s not Apples’ fault. You buy a SUV with a larger engine option you pay more money, just like a iphone with more storage…DAAAA.
Yes the operating system and apps take up more storage because everything is 64 bit, and people demand it to do more things now. Quit blaming Apple because the buyer is stupid or cheap!
I hate to say it, but if you’re stupid enough to buy only an 8-16gb phone you must suffer the consequences. I think with any expensive electronics device (laptop/tablet/phone), you’re always better off spending a little more to get at least the mid tier product, otherwise with how quickly devices become slow/obsolete you’re screwed.
Spending that $100-200 on your new iPhone ensures that it actually still feels fast toward the end of your two year contract, and can handle iOS system updates without slowing to a crawl. Someone getting a free 8GB 5C now, will have a 5 year old phone by the time their next upgrade rolls around! Absurd.
It thats not in your budget, Android is always a cheaper alternative. At least they allow a cheap sd card for expanded storage.
Agreed , I started off with 32gb when I got my first iPhone and progress to 64gb when I upgraded and did the same when purchasing our iPads . As far as I know all operating systems use up some of that storage right out of the box so you always have less available than you first thought .
Combine this with updated apps/ systems that require more resources and it’s easy to see why some people get caught out later on down the line .
I actually went for the behemoth 128gb 6Plus because I like to store 50gb+ of music on my phone. First time ever I am been completely satisfied with storage (& battery life) on my phone with gb to spare. I also feel like a phone thats not filled to the brim with data has to run a little faster, same as keeping your computer hard drive 25% free.
“Apple’s refusal to upgrade the cheapest iPhone to 16GB could be leading to a crisis”
Apple’s refusal? What’s wrong with people these days? If you want more storage, buy more storage. “Oh, boo hoo, I bought a small coffee and they only gave me a small amount of coffee! Why does this coffee shop refuse to give me more?!”
I’ve had 16gb iPhones since the 4. I’ve never ran out of space. Everything is in the cloud, why would I want to save it on my iPhone? But that’s just me. I know a lot of people like to save everything on the iPhone.
I’ve always gone with the most storage and never run out of space. Also seems to help resale value & interest when posting on Craigslist the following year.
problem is especially big among women.
So women are too cheap to buy more storage and can’t throw anything out. What else is new?
I’m with autlr. How is the user’s inability to assess their need and manage their use Apple’s problem? Apple already makes available the largest percentage of specified memory.
Okay that’s just being sexist