The Addiction to 16GB Phones
It was the late former First Lady of the United States, Nancy Reagan, who uttered the words, “Just say no.” Whether she spoke about phones having not enough capacity for a movie or about drugs is irrelevant. Phones with 16 gigabytes of storage are drugs, and society needs an intervention.
On March 21st, 2016, Tim Cook of Apple announced to the world the iPhone SE; basically the specs of an iPhone 6S in an iPhone 5S body. Minus the stupid name that had to be revealed by an Apple executive (“Special Edition,” whatever that means), it’s what their customers have wanted for a long time, and I certainly saw the appeal. So did many tech enthusiasts.
And then “16 GB” appeared on the screen behind Cook as a starting point of $399, with “64 GB” at $499 beside it. And the press all thought the same thing: “Why?”
Outside the event, riots broke out in the streets. The Dow nosedived. President Obama had to make a statement saying Apple must pay or be broken up, as presidential candidate Trump jeered. The whole thing was a shitshow that many called the “Sixteen Crisis.”
Okay, maybe not so much that last part. The audience probably did ask “why,” though.
Sixteen gigabytes has been a staple in Apple-land for the past seven years; it first appeared on the iPhone 3GS. Apps have gotten just a bit bigger, camera megapixel count has gotten a bit larger, and video resolution only got slightly higher, so that it’s still a thing shouldn’t be that concerning, says Apple.
Well, a lot changed in seven years.
Only three years after the 3GS, in 2012, the average size of an app downloaded off the App Store was 23 megabytes. Games were bigger at 60MB. Now, apps can be up to 4 gigabytes large. Enough to fill up almost half a 16GB iPhone, once one factored in how much the operating system takes.
Megapixels went up, too. In 2009, the 3GS had a 3-megapixel camera. Now, it’s 12MP. That’s not to imply a staggering difference in file size — only about a megabyte — but the difference is there.
Live photos, though, where snippets of the moments before and after one takes a photo are recorded? Forget it.
4K video, if the shooter is that guy that needs 4K video on a 1080p screen? Nope.
T.C. Sottek of The Verge certainly thought it was a mistake. He wrote “Oops, Apple made another 16GB iPhone” with the subtitle, “Please stop!!! [sic]” And it isn’t just Sottek either. Many writers from publications centered around tech, including those of WIRED and Android Authority have said that the trend needs to die.
It was like the war on drugs, if corporations were cartels and various tech writers thought they were Ronald Reagan.
That drug metaphor was there for a reason. It’s not as if society hates 16GB iPhones. They wore it out until it had no choice but to accept them. They took consumers hostage, ensnared them within their arbitrary lack of storage until they reluctantly, finally gave in and learned to love the limitations. And every year or two after, they went to their carrier’s local shop and paid the down payment for the next one. It’s Stockholm Syndrome.
But no one loves the 16GB iPhone more than Apple themselves.
Why? Not because they actually want the consumer to buy the 16GB model. They used it as a stepping stone for people to shell out $100 more and buy the 64GB model; call it a forbidden fruit. And that’s exactly what happened, so their profits soared.
And the consumer paid for it. The music they’ve downloaded will be limited because of the apps that share the cramped space. If not yet, they will go into their galleries to dreadingly delete every single photo, one by one, because they didn’t have enough for that one app they need. And let’s not forget the iOS 8 fiasco, where the “biggest iOS release ever” was literally too big for some iPhones and iPads.
These are the side effects of the 16GB drug. Vendors like Apple are the dealers of such a drug.
It didn’t have to be this way. Many other vendors moved on. LG, Samsung, HTC, Google, even Microsoft had flagship devices with a storage floor of 32GB, and in some cases one could pop in a microSD card and get even more, without the arm-and-leg haggling that Apple likes to do with their 64GB phones. And they are still as megalomaniacal as Apple is, if not occasionally more so.
One could argue, particularly of the Android vendors, that they needed the storage more than Apple does, due to the bloat of other operating systems. But they’ve tried, at least. Apple remained stubborn.
So people will need to vote with their dollar. We’ll need a revolution, where everyone that buys iPhones says loudly and clearly, “Enough is enough!”
But of course, that won’t happen. The influence is too great. That doesn’t mean, however, the voices that do speak out won’t be heard.
Just say no, people, please. Just say no.
