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Phil Schiller talks 16GB devices, ultra-thin design, Apple Music, and more during interview

Screen Shot 2015-06-10 at 12.25.18 AM

Apple’s SVP of marketing Phil Schiller this evening gave an interview on John Gruber’s podcast The Talk Show during which he addressed a variety of different topics. Gruber and Schiller together discussed Apple’s WWDC announcements, such as watchOS 2 and Apple Music. The two also talked about many of Apple’s decisions over the past couple of years, including the company’s obsession with making the thinnest devices possible and how on earth they still sell 16GB devices in 2015.

Gruber asked Schiller about the length of this year’s WWDC keynote, which was seen by many as too long. Schiller responded that Apple tries to keep keynotes between 1:45 and 2:15 and noted that the company cut a lot of stuff in order to keep this year’s presentation a reasonable length. When Schiller mentioned Apple having to cut presentations, someone in the audience shouted “Apple TV,” to which he responded that he was actually referencing how Apple didn’t get to show the new power features of iOS 9 on stage.

Regarding the release of an SDK for native Watch apps, Schiller compared the late launch to how the iPhone was available for only a year with web apps. Apple, of course, announced Apple Watch last September and followed the announcement with WatchKit, not an SDK. A native Watch SDK won’t be released until later this year, a move that puzzled many in the developer community.

Schiller and Gruber also discussed Apple Music, with the Apple executive noting that it makes sense to still buy albums and that he himself still buys ones that he really enjoys. Eddy Cue and Jimmy Iovine recently gave an interview with The Guardian in which they went more in-depth regarding some of the decisions made about Apple Music. The two noted of the importance of the “human touch” when it comes to curating music, while also pointing out the $9.99 plan is the perfect price.

Gruber also asked Schiller why Apple still sells 16GB iPhones and iPads in an era when app sizes are so big and the price of storage is so low. Schiller, of course, defended Apple’s move by saying that the cloud makes up for the lack of physical storage on the 16GB model. At WWDC this year, Apple announced a handful of features to improve the experience on smaller capacity devices, including reducing the amount of required free space for iOS updates and thinning many apps.

Following that discussion, Gruber and Schiller talked about Apple’s desire for creating ultra-thin devices and the criticism it gets for perhaps focusing too much on thinness and not enough on battery life and performance. Schiller claimed that Apple has struck the perfect balance between battery life and thinness, noting that if you want a larger battery in a device, its “heavier, more costly, and takes longer to charge. We model every thickness, every size, every weight and try to figure out what the tradeoffs are. I think we’ve made great choices there.”

The discussion surrounding thinness, of course, led into Gruber asking Schiller about Apple’s new 12-inch MacBook. Schiller said that he has a Space Gray model and loves how thin and portable it is. As you would expect, Schiller defended Apple’s decision of only including a single USB-C port on the device, saying that as company, it has to take risks in order to succeed. “If all we do is an incremental, slight change, where’s the excitement? We have to take risks. That’s the Apple I want — an Apple that’s bold and taking risks and being aggressive.”

While you wait for the latest episode of The Talk Show with Phil Schiller to be uploaded, catch last week’s episode on which our own Mark Gurman was a guest

Update: The audio for the interview is now live. The video will come in a day or two, according to Gruber.

Update #2: Video is below!

[vimeo 130510366 w=704 h=396]

The Talk Show Live From WWDC 2015 from John Gruber on Vimeo.

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

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Comments

  1. “Gruber also asked Schiller why Apple still sells 16GB iPhones and iPads in an era when app sizes are so big and the price of storage is so low. Schiller, of course, defended Apple’s move by saying that the cloud makes up for the lack of physical storage on the 16GB model.”

    Does anyone else find this lie amusing? iCloud drive (The Apple “cloud”) forces all users to locally store any information within iCloud drive on their device. The Apple “cloud” does nothing to combat the 16GB device size. Also, please save the “optimize photos” argument for later, we all know that is still chewing up some amount of space on your device.

    • myke2241 - 9 years ago

      Yes a load of BS. iPhone is a great phone and i really like mine. but at this point i see the 16gig IDevice as a profit leader for Apple and every generation of iDevice that has a base 16gig model only increase the profit that much more. I do commend Apple for doing things that improve the storage usage but this can only go so far.

      • shareef777 - 9 years ago

        They can bump the base model to 32 so that they’d have 32/64/128 sized models and it would impact their profit margins less then one hundredth of a percent. At this point they’re just trying to squeeze every penny from their customers.

      • Does the 16GB iDevice affect you personally? Does it prevent you from buying a 32GB or higher model? Not it doesn’t. It makes absolutely no difference to you, as a consumer. So why are you getting your knickers in a twist about it?

      • macmaniman - 9 years ago

        Yup it does affect the consumer, if the base was 32 you get more storage for the same amount of price

      • J.latham - 9 years ago

        Not saying I wouldn’t take a free upgrade in storage but at this point I barely even use half of my 16Gb model.

      • Mike Retondo (@mretondo) - 9 years ago

        My wife, daughter, and son have 16GB iPhones and I have a 32GB model. I have 15GB free and they have between 3-5 GB free. I store the family photo library on my device which is why I have the larger one. Although I could easy delete have my apps and still use a 16GB model with no problems.

    • Charlie Shi - 9 years ago

      It’s fundamental business acumen. Bait people into buying cheaper devices with smaller storage and force them to use month-to-month subscription services. It makes perfect sense.

      • Avenged110 - 9 years ago

        Or to drive them to a more expensive model when/if they upgrade. If they sold 32/64/128, many people with 32GB may become complacent with that and have no incentive to upgrade. But if you keep them toeing the line with 16GB, more people may become inclined to opt for the higher capacity models with bigger profits for Apple. I know I did.

      • Tom@L (@_ArcTic_FiRe) - 9 years ago

        And this is why people hate Apple. Seriously everyone knows if they make 32gb base instead of 16gb, many people would instead opt for the base $200 model instead of buying 64gb at $300 contract. That reduces their average selling price of iphone and profit margins. You dont need a MBA degree to realize this. Plus they only offer 5gb free space on icloud which is also not enough to compete with microsoft onedrive or google drive/google photos. I dont see a point they cant offer at least 10gb or 20gb? I find people defending Apple’s move quite funny. They have to paid Apple corporate PR BS here.

        Apple really needs to take their iphones more seriously since that is the only product that is selling big for them now. Android and android devices are getting powerful and mature also. In 4 or 5 years time, there wont be much difference in software performance between them and so everything will be differentiated by hardware. You can already see Android M and iOS copying each other and refining the user experience and so within 5 years, there wont be much difference between them. If apple keeps on making stupid bs decisions, that will totally bring their company down since they have nothing to replace iphone sales volumes. I am a loyal iphone user but this kind of corporate bs really pisses me off.

    • Nycko Heimberg - 9 years ago

      Why to Pay for 32-64-128Go?
      The music is in Streaming.
      Google allows the Unlimited Storage of photos to 16Mo and Videos 1080p.
      Who buys an iPhone without 4G unlimited today?

      • prius3 - 9 years ago

        Outside of the US, namely Germany where I live, there are NO 4G unlimited data plan. The average offer is 1GB, then GPRS. 3GB is quite expensive (55€/month on a 2 year contract on e.g. Vodafone – 8GB is 75€ – even more expensive if you have a subsidized phone with it).
        Who has the money to pay 80-100€/$ a month simply to save 15% adder on buy price of an iPhone for more device space?
        All these mobile streaming and cloud services have meaning if you have extremely expensive unlimited data plan, *if* available in your country, and adequate coverage (3G cloud services….have fun).

      • Nycko Heimberg - 9 years ago

        Indeed, unfortunates people.;-)
        In Switzerland, the unlimited exists later 1Go 3Go…. The debit decreases simply in 256kbs and sometimes 2Mbs;-)
        Exactly the Limit of the new service Apple Music….
        Photos and videos can be simply sorted out and put on PC / Mac when the storage decreases, Not forbidden “still” by Apple.

      • Tom@L (@_ArcTic_FiRe) - 9 years ago

        the fact that they only offer 16gb is precisely why people switched to streaming music, since they cant fit everything. And that is why people stopped using downloading music from iTunes. If Apple had some brains, they would have given more storage. That encourages people to buy more music from iTunes as well as apps. When you dont have enough space, nobody is encourage to make more purchases, esp games if they are big.

    • srgmac - 9 years ago

      I get the feeling that Mr. Schiller really doesn’t know how Apple’s technology ACTUALLY works. In 2012 after the iPhone 5 launch, he said “NFC is not the solution to any problem” when asked why the iPhone 5 didn’t have NFC — two years later and their entire Apple Pay payment system is NFC-based…

      • Odys (@twittester10) - 9 years ago

        I wont make statements like that – Phil has been with Apple for decades and I am sure knows how it all works inside and out. In 2012 NFC was not solution to any problem indeed. Apple only uses NFC for Apple Pay that was rolled out only last year. The technology behind Apple Pay needed NFC – so iPhone gained it. I do not like the approach of jamming new tech into a device just to check the box and claim to be first. Before one of the Apple’s keynotes last year, there was a short film explaining how Apple think about innovation – its not important to them to be first, its important to be first in what matters!

      • Dafty Punk - 9 years ago

        If you are a large corporation like Apple, you can’t just say “NFC is the future!” knowing it will take 2 years for you to get your ducks in a row and release a NFC phone. That would give competitors 2 years to also start work.
        When it was clear as day, (but unannounced) that Apple was going to make a watch, how many companies jumpstarted work on watch stuff for themselves or AndroidWear?
        You can’t give anyone a hint of things to come, because that is only tipping your hand to competitors. They have to be vague on purpose.

    • jimgramze - 9 years ago

      Utter nonsense. I have things exclusively stored on iCloud Drive that I do not have stored locally. You can choose to do both but you certainly don’t have to.

      I have music of my own creation that I can stream from the Music app because I have music match. It is not resident on my iPhone but is stored on my Mac because I keep copies of my own work. Doing this costs no penalty against my 5-Gig iCloud account. I can be out and about as stream my own and other’s music with no music stored on my iPhone. That goes for other kinds of files and data as well.

    • irelandjnr - 9 years ago

      Besides, offer 100GB iCloud for free and you’d have some leg to stand on. 5GB for free in 2015 is like 5MB.

  2. joe smith (@joe815smith) - 9 years ago

    I love the fact that he says he wants “…an Apple that’s bold and taking risks and being aggressive” but he defends the selling of 16gb phones.

    • Just like having only one USB C port, they’re also getting flack for making 16gb devices… so I guess that’s a risky, bold and aggressive move too… just more from a marketing standpoint than a technology standpoint.

      • irelandjnr - 9 years ago

        I’ve a bridge to nowhere to sell you. One USB port is a bold move, selling 16GB devices is stingy.

  3. prius3 - 9 years ago

    You don’t like 16GB? buy a 64GB device. You are buying Apple after all, you should have the money for it.
    Otherwise get an Android phone.

    I don’t understand why people continue to say what Apple should do or not do. If they sell 16GB phones, they have their reasons and market research to support that business model. Clearly they are selling them. Or do that to sell 15% more expensive 64GB models. And it clearly works.

    Or keep your phone clean of rubbish.
    I have often had friends complaining about their iPhone being “full” and “slow”. When I asked or looked with permission inside their phones, I always found:
    – tens of apps they don’T even remember about, and never used
    – thousands of photos and videos, which they have never backed up on their Macs, *NEVER* and don’t use iCloud Photo Library either (and *all* photos, not really keepers, maybe even 3-4 years old or older), – *thousands* of unread emails (junk or not, they take space)
    – tens of whatsapp chats with all attachments (obviously all super important memes and jokes etc – you know what I mean), never deleted (you can keep a chat and remove all attachments, you know?)
    – last but not least, music like there is no tomorrow – GBs of it. iTunes Match – what is that? smart playlists – uh?

    So before we go and tell Apple marketing how to do their job, which clearly, CLEARLY, is really bad, we should go and clean up the mess of the phone we bought with 16GB, because we didn’t want to dish out the extra 100€/$ (about 15% more on the price) for the 64GB version.
    You want to save 100€/$, then be smart on how you use your device and be more sound on what you *really* need to keep on it. Because it seems, those who complain would manage to fill a 128GB phone and still complain they need more.

    Final thought: it would be nice to know why they sell the iPhone 6 Plus (worth 800€) with 16GB… But again, clearly they know what they are doing. Sales numbers and Stock price are an indication….

    • yuniverse7 - 9 years ago

      Yes, Apple is selling a lot of those. However, it does not mean there’s room for improvements.

      • prius3 - 9 years ago

        I agree.
        But I am not saying that we should not give feedback we want (cheaper) phones with more storage to Apple, considering also that not everybody can stream, or use iCloud services effectively (lack of speed, coverage, or both). And simply not buying a 16GB device and rather getting a 64GB one, is a way to say what we like most.

        I am saying though that complaining that a device with 16GB is not big enough, is more a question of how one uses it and how much of an investment one does at purchase point (of a *premium* device!), just going cheap for an extra 100€/$ which is just 15% adder on the purchase price. Which is not much compared to months of iCloud subscription, or bigger data plans with network providers (40-50€/month for 3GB data plans are quite common still in EU/Germany).

    • Ron Cardi (@ROYG_B) - 9 years ago

      The fact that they’re making a lot of money by providing consumers with an inferior experience is exactly why many of us are criticizing them. Apple is a business at the end of the day, but I’m hoping they don’t get so distracted by profits that they put that ahead of how people interact with their products. Apps are getting bigger, cameras are getting better, yet they found it appropriate to double the storage on only the upper pricing tiers… Not a good look.

      • prius3 - 9 years ago

        I have been having a 16GB iPhone 4S, 5 and 5S and my experience was perfectly fine. I was simply carrying with me the most recent pics, and some selected folder and the music I liked most. I drive to work, so no need to having with me movies. Each user case is different. Not everybody wants or needs 64GB of storage.
        The only reason I got the 64GB 6 is because of resale value. Since everybody seems to need 64GB to fill it up with, mostly, crap. And even if it is not crap, but perfectly wonderful content, it is in Apple hands to decide how and in which way the experience will be inferior or not.

        They risk customers? Might be. Most companies are distracted by profits, sure. And I also noticed that software quality at Apple, for example, has gotten worse in past couple of years. This focus on quality of software, is actually welcome. And I am more concerned that my 700€ phone works properly, than having 1000s of pics it cannot handle well for poorly written software and instabilities.

    • With the iPhone, Apple DO NOT make most of their money by selling it direct to the consumer. The vast majority of people world wide don’t buy their phone outright. Apple make their money because they sell it to the network providers, who then allow their customers to purchase their iPhone as part of their contract over several years. Every man and his dog – rich or poor – have or can afford an iPhone – which is why the perception that owning one somehow elevates you to an elite club is laughable.

      And please don’t get your panties in a twist – that’s not hating on Apple – it’s a true statement.

    • “You don’t like 16GB? buy a 64GB device. You are buying Apple after all, you should have the money for it.
      Otherwise get an Android phone.”

      Sigh – most people buy an iPhone and pay monthly for it. People are neither rich or a snob by owning one so drop the “ooh iPhone is for rich folk and Android is for tramps” pretence, because it doesn’t wash these days.

      • prius3 - 9 years ago

        Exactly my point instead….I said users that *buy* a phone, not *pay it in monthly installments*. If you pay the iPhone in installments, it means that the 100$ more for the extra storage, get diluted over the months. So its extra costs weighs less. On a 2 year contract, 100€/$ more for the phone, yields only 4€/$ per month. If that is too much, maybe you should review how you manage your finances altogether….

        I am not saying that poor people should get Android, I say get Android if you want more choice and more RAM for the same or lower price. BTW There are Android phones which are not cheap at all (S6 anyone?), so much for the “Android for tramps”.

        There are a lot of people who get an iPhone, regardless of their financial capabilities because they want a value device that lasts a long time and maybe cannot or don’t want to change it after 2 years because it breaks down in their hands for poor plastic materials.

        I never said that iPhone is for “rich folk”. But surely those who *buy* it (not pay it in installments, and many actually do *buy* it), if they are ready to dish >500€/$ for a phone, they either should not complain of 16GB only, or spend a fraction more of the buy price (15% to be exact) to get 4 times the memory (64GB).

        Moreover, nobody forces anybody to buy anything. Rich or poor.

        I simply do not accept the useless complaints about 16GB as a base model. Especially when I see so often they are used so badly (as per my examples in my original comment). Pretending in the process Apple to do a form of charity by reducing their profits just because some of us would like more for the same price.
        Actually Apple with iOS 9 acknowledges that users are clogging their phones with stuff (uselessly?) and try to reduce the footprint of apps and iOS for this reason.
        They clearly have still a business case of the 16GB model that still works.
        If they will offer the iPhone 6S with 16GB, they have their good reasons that bring profits.

        There are other manufacturers that offer more (memory) for the same price or less (or SD card slots). Buy those phones.

        Asking/pretending that Apple (a private company, free to do what it wants in free market), simply because some users don’t want to dish out a little extra money, from an amount already high, to provide more storage in the base model at the same price, is simply nonsense. They do what they want. Period.

        You don’t like their offer, live with it or buy something else.
        Apple risks customers by offering 16GB phones? their problem. Not ours.
        They are not providing any social welfare services. They are a company, that like any other, is geared for profit, not charity.

  4. yuniverse7 - 9 years ago

    for the next gen iPhones, it should be 64GB minimum and 50GB of icloud free storage.

  5. cjt3007 - 9 years ago

    video link?

  6. – “the cloud makes up for the lack of physical storage on the 16GB model”
    – “and loves how thin and portable it is” (the MacBook)

    Yeah Phil, you totally convinced us.

    – Any phone with a bottom price of $650 (off contract) shouldn’t be 16GB. If we’re getting an Apple (read “premium”) product, this shouldn’t have a little “secret” of low storage coming along. This is plain pettiness.

    – I’m sure Phil just loves having to juggle everything through that single port. And I guess he’s either stopped using flash drives or he’s ok carrying either of those dongles in his pocket. Not to mention I’m rather concerned on the performance of this thing…

    I hope they have something good coming down the road. I wanted to get a new laptop this year, and:
    – the MBA is what I call the sweet spot, but it lacks Retina
    – the MacBook is port-limited and probably underpowered for my needs (development + VMs, Photoshop)
    – the rMBP is a bit heavy for everyday lugging

  7. ilmondoinbellezza - 9 years ago

    nice post

  8. scumbolt2014 - 9 years ago

    16GB devices are for business’s that give their employees iPhones to use for work. Not for a bunch of apps and photos. 32GB devices would put a major dent in that business as enterprise buyers would be upset about the overcharge for unneeded storage.

  9. vkd108 - 9 years ago

    I’ve got 2 bold and aggressive Thunderbolt ports on the back of my mid-2011 iMac 27″. Unfortunately the standard has now been superseded by v2 with v3 in the pipeline. Not to mention the fact that peripherals are so few and far between as to be virtually non-existent and cost an arm and a leg over and above anything reasonable.

  10. He didn’t address ultra-thin design to my satisfaction. A larger battery is well worth a bit more weight, cost and charge time. Earth to Phil, if the battery lasts all day then charge time is essentially irrelevant because it can recharge while the user sleeps. Only when the battery is too small, the result of trying to make the device too small/thin, is there a worry about having to re-charge during the day and any worry whatsoever about how long that might take.

    Ultra thin design is the reason for “bend gate”, the ease with which iPhone 6+ will bend. A touch more thickness and the phones would stand up to all manner of real world abuse and not require Apple to make warranty replacements for angry customers, a move that drives up costs and thus the retail price for all of us.

    And ultra thin design in something like the iMac is pure insanity. A tiny bit more thickness and, look, your complex cooling solution that cost millions to develop isn’t even necessary. A tiny bit more thickness and there’s once again room for an SD card slot (and other things Apple has never chosen to put in such a convenient location) on the side instead of somewhere out of sight and out of reach on the back. A tiny bit more thickness and maybe it would be possible to come up with a serviceable design instead of something your own technicians advise against buying.

    16GB devices exist to sell 64GB devices. Spin it all you want, but that’s the cold hard truth of it. It’s all about maintaining your industry leading profit margins.

  11. The entire reason to have a 16gb model is to motivate people to buy the 64gb model…if 32gb were entry level there would be much less reason to spend an extra 100 bones.

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Avatar for Chance Miller Chance Miller

Chance is an editor for the entire 9to5 network and covers the latest Apple news for 9to5Mac.

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