4 ms·

"Nothing really to see here or complain about." For a device that starts at $799 and only has 128GB of storage, there is plenty to complain about.

by itg 3y ago

cesarb 3y ago
> only has 128GB of storage Am I the only one who feels that 128GB is a huge amount of storage for a phone? Or is it because I still remember when even desktop computers had storage sizes best measured in megabytes?
- bmitc 3y ago
  I'm not even a phone power user, and I have over 300GB used on my phone. I only have a couple games. A lot of the data is probably offline storage of cloud backups and downloaded music and movies. But I use a phone with an actual SD card slot, so I freely download things offline because of that.
  - philistine 3y ago
    > so I freely download things offline because of that. I'm sorry to say but if you download things offline you are a power user.
    - bmitc 3y ago
      I mean, it's a checkbox setting in like two apps (Spotify and Prime Video).
      - philistine 3y ago
        I’m sorry to say, but with a phone, if you change the settings, you’re a power user.
- justin66 3y ago
  > Am I the only one who feels that 128GB is a huge amount of storage for a phone? Do you think your feelings might vary depending on how you use the device?
- gambiting 3y ago
  I think apple made it basically a non-issue with how they implement iCloud and it's hard to justify buying higher capacity phones. I'm one of those weirdos who like to keep all the pictures I take on my phone locally and not in the cloud so my personal phone is 512GB and I kinda regret not buying the 1TB option, but that must be super rare among the user base.
  - dzikimarian 3y ago
    So we pay almost $1000 for phone and then we should pay subscription for cloud storage and be happy because UX is ok and we didn't have to pay for extremely overpriced piece of NAND storage to avoid subscription. Modern customers stray further from God every day.
    - theshrike79 3y ago
      I did the math. It’s cheaper to pay for the 2TB iCloud for 2 years than it would be to upgrade to larger storage on the phone. It’s actually even less because my whole family uses the same quota together.
      - dzikimarian 3y ago
        That's because on-device storage is overpriced in order to make your math work :-) Then it's easy decision to throw in a few more dollars for streaming service and you are nice recurring revenue instead one-time sell. Also it's probably cheaper only if you consider only Apple ecosystem. Other mid-range device comparable to base iPhone with bigger storage is probably cheaper.
        theshrike79 3y ago
        I might be weird but I specifically don't want my media and data to live only in a terabyte of storage I carry with me. I want to upload it all to the cloud as fast as possible so it won't get lost if the device is stolen/breaks/gets lost.
- lazide 3y ago
  Take any pictures or video using the built in cameras and you’ll feel how tiny that storage is really fast. Not all of us are still working at 640x480.
  - AnonC 3y ago
    Yeah, this hits hard if one is shooting videos in 4K (and why would one not use the highest resolution that’s supported?). Photos, unless chosen to be shot in RAW and the highest resolution at all times, are comparatively not as big a deal on space used with the HEIC format (choose High Efficiency as the format in the camera settings). Since most people tend to keep all or most of the photos they ever shot over the years on their phones, it just adds up.
    - lazide 3y ago
      It’s true. On the plus side, it’s only a couple hundred gig for multiple hour 4K recordings. The compression is pretty good. Size/cost/quality wise, that’s so much better than old school VHS/camcorders it makes my head hurt. Pretty awesome for sure. Still no free lunch though.
  - brokenmachine 3y ago
    Then how do you transfer those large 4k videos? From reading the comments here I feel weird because I always use USB3 to transfer my videos from my (Android) phone to my PC. What do iPhone users do to get all that data off their phones and onto their macbooks?
    - basedrum 3y ago
      Yeah, I keep reading people saying who transfers files by USB these days, nobody needs that speed! Meanwhile, I'm quietly doing that here right now in the corner thinking I'm a weirdo because all these HN people say so. Thanks for the reality check, bubble popped
    - turquoisevar 3y ago
      It automatically appears on my Mac devices (and iPads for that matter) via iCloud. Hell, nowadays it does the same for photos and videos taken by my SO if they took the photo/video while I was with them. Now that I think about it, I’ve got “Optimize Storage” enabled on my devices, so if storage is running low it should keep a lower resolution instead of the original stored locally. But I suppose they must use a FIFO logic, because my most recent stuff is always available locally in full resolution. If I need the older stuff for a project I click export on it and it’ll download the full resolution, which doesn’t take more than a few seconds because I’ve got 1Gbit fiber connection. I guess the closest thing that comes to a manual transfer would be AirDrop where it would transfer it via a 5Ghz ad-hoc WiFi connection (or via LAN if the extra hop via the router would be faster with an ethernet connected Mac in the olden days). In practice it reaches about 1Gbps, but I rarely to use it because by the time I need it it’s already synced. I only use it a few times a year when I’ve shot B-roll with the iPhone at my desk and immediately jump into editing. I haven’t used a cable to transfer data to/from my iPhone in probably more than a decade with the sole exception being when I push out builds from Xcode to the iPhone.
- dylan604 3y ago
  if 128GB sounds like a huge amount, then 1TB must be truly frightening!
iosjunkie 3y ago
The Pixel 7a costs $444 for similar specs. If iOS, the Apple ecosystem, and other creature comforts aren't worth $355 to you, why complain and just buy the Pixel? Seems like less fuss and muss.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

"Nothing really to see here or complain about." For a device that starts at $799 and only has 128GB of storage, there is plenty to complain about.

by itg 3y ago

"Nothing really to see here or complain about." For a device that starts at $799 and only has 128GB of storage, there is plenty to complain about.

cesarb 3y ago

> only has 128GB of storage Am I the only one who feels that 128GB is a huge amount of storage for a phone? Or is it because I still remember when even desktop computers had storage sizes best measured in megabytes?

bmitc 3y ago
I'm not even a phone power user, and I have over 300GB used on my phone. I only have a couple games. A lot of the data is probably offline storage of cloud backups and downloaded music and movies. But I use a phone with an actual SD card slot, so I freely download things offline because of that.
- philistine 3y ago
  > so I freely download things offline because of that. I'm sorry to say but if you download things offline you are a power user.
  - bmitc 3y ago
    I mean, it's a checkbox setting in like two apps (Spotify and Prime Video).
    - philistine 3y ago
      I’m sorry to say, but with a phone, if you change the settings, you’re a power user.
justin66 3y ago
> Am I the only one who feels that 128GB is a huge amount of storage for a phone? Do you think your feelings might vary depending on how you use the device?
gambiting 3y ago
I think apple made it basically a non-issue with how they implement iCloud and it's hard to justify buying higher capacity phones. I'm one of those weirdos who like to keep all the pictures I take on my phone locally and not in the cloud so my personal phone is 512GB and I kinda regret not buying the 1TB option, but that must be super rare among the user base.
- dzikimarian 3y ago
  So we pay almost $1000 for phone and then we should pay subscription for cloud storage and be happy because UX is ok and we didn't have to pay for extremely overpriced piece of NAND storage to avoid subscription. Modern customers stray further from God every day.
  - theshrike79 3y ago
    I did the math. It’s cheaper to pay for the 2TB iCloud for 2 years than it would be to upgrade to larger storage on the phone. It’s actually even less because my whole family uses the same quota together.
    - dzikimarian 3y ago
      That's because on-device storage is overpriced in order to make your math work :-) Then it's easy decision to throw in a few more dollars for streaming service and you are nice recurring revenue instead one-time sell. Also it's probably cheaper only if you consider only Apple ecosystem. Other mid-range device comparable to base iPhone with bigger storage is probably cheaper.
      - theshrike79 3y ago
        I might be weird but I specifically don't want my media and data to live only in a terabyte of storage I carry with me. I want to upload it all to the cloud as fast as possible so it won't get lost if the device is stolen/breaks/gets lost.
lazide 3y ago
Take any pictures or video using the built in cameras and you’ll feel how tiny that storage is really fast. Not all of us are still working at 640x480.
- AnonC 3y ago
  Yeah, this hits hard if one is shooting videos in 4K (and why would one not use the highest resolution that’s supported?). Photos, unless chosen to be shot in RAW and the highest resolution at all times, are comparatively not as big a deal on space used with the HEIC format (choose High Efficiency as the format in the camera settings). Since most people tend to keep all or most of the photos they ever shot over the years on their phones, it just adds up.
  - lazide 3y ago
    It’s true. On the plus side, it’s only a couple hundred gig for multiple hour 4K recordings. The compression is pretty good. Size/cost/quality wise, that’s so much better than old school VHS/camcorders it makes my head hurt. Pretty awesome for sure. Still no free lunch though.
- brokenmachine 3y ago
  Then how do you transfer those large 4k videos? From reading the comments here I feel weird because I always use USB3 to transfer my videos from my (Android) phone to my PC. What do iPhone users do to get all that data off their phones and onto their macbooks?
  - basedrum 3y ago
    Yeah, I keep reading people saying who transfers files by USB these days, nobody needs that speed! Meanwhile, I'm quietly doing that here right now in the corner thinking I'm a weirdo because all these HN people say so. Thanks for the reality check, bubble popped
  - turquoisevar 3y ago
    It automatically appears on my Mac devices (and iPads for that matter) via iCloud. Hell, nowadays it does the same for photos and videos taken by my SO if they took the photo/video while I was with them. Now that I think about it, I’ve got “Optimize Storage” enabled on my devices, so if storage is running low it should keep a lower resolution instead of the original stored locally. But I suppose they must use a FIFO logic, because my most recent stuff is always available locally in full resolution. If I need the older stuff for a project I click export on it and it’ll download the full resolution, which doesn’t take more than a few seconds because I’ve got 1Gbit fiber connection. I guess the closest thing that comes to a manual transfer would be AirDrop where it would transfer it via a 5Ghz ad-hoc WiFi connection (or via LAN if the extra hop via the router would be faster with an ethernet connected Mac in the olden days). In practice it reaches about 1Gbps, but I rarely to use it because by the time I need it it’s already synced. I only use it a few times a year when I’ve shot B-roll with the iPhone at my desk and immediately jump into editing. I haven’t used a cable to transfer data to/from my iPhone in probably more than a decade with the sole exception being when I push out builds from Xcode to the iPhone.
dylan604 3y ago
if 128GB sounds like a huge amount, then 1TB must be truly frightening!

iosjunkie 3y ago

The Pixel 7a costs $444 for similar specs. If iOS, the Apple ecosystem, and other creature comforts aren't worth $355 to you, why complain and just buy the Pixel? Seems like less fuss and muss.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]