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Opinion: With iPhones offering 4K video recording, it’s crunch time for Apple’s storage tiers

4k

It was estimated last year that Apple takes home a stunning 94% of all profits made by all players across the entire smartphone industry. Its gross margin across all products hovers around the 40% mark. Apple knows how to make money from its products.

One way it does this is to sell its iPhones with a base level of flash storage that is just barely usable, and charge a hefty markup for higher storage tiers. Sure, you can buy a shiny new iPhone 6s for $649, but that gets you a measly 16GB. It’ll cost you another hundred bucks to get a more reasonable 64GB and another $100 again if you want to max out at 128GB.

I’ve touched on this topic before as part of a more general piece about whether Apple was getting a little too greedy, but it seems to me that when the company is supplying iPhones with 4K camcorders built into them, this is the point at which a 16GB tier becomes completely indefensible …

The storage requirements for 4K video vary with the implementation. For the iPhone, Apple gives a figure of 375MB per minute. A 16GB iPhone gives you around 12GB of user-accessible space. That means that even if you didn’t install a single app, store a single song or take a single photo, your shiny new iPhone can shoot just 32 minutes of 4K video.

Anyone who has ever attempted even the most amateurish of edited videos will tell you that you need to shoot way, way more video than you’ll have in the finished edit. A ratio of 10:1 is probably not untypical. So you could shoot enough material for about a three minute video.

With a more realistic mix of apps, music and photos, well, forget it. Even if all you wanted to do was create a video of your kid’s birthday party, copying it to your Mac the same day to recover the space, you’re going to be struggling.

But even a 64GB phone isn’t going to cut it on vacation. Let’s be generous and say that once you’ve installed some apps, added a few tunes and taken some photos that you’ve got 32GB of it free. That gets you less than an hour and a half of video. The only way that’s going to work is if you take a MacBook with you, faithfully transfer your footage every day or two and then delete the video from your phone. Not quite the carefree vacation spirit, somehow.

There are two ways Apple could provide iPhone users with more realistic amounts of storage: one is happening too slowly, the second is almost – but not quite – unthinkable.

tiers

The first approach is to increase the storage tiers to more realistic levels. Apple made a small step in this direction when it moved from 16/32/64GB in the iPhone 5s to 16/64/128GB in the iPhone 6. But we still have that 16GB starting tier, and even 128GB is looking a little tight at a time when a single app can be up to 4GB in size.

I bought the 128GB iPhone 6 and then 6s because I didn’t ever want to think about storage. I like to have a decent amount of music on board because I don’t yet live in the wonderful cloud-based world Apple seems to think we all do. There are plenty of times when I have poor or zero mobile connectivity, whether it’s on an underground metro system, on a plane or just out in the sticks somewhere. Streaming all my music just isn’t realistic.

Right now, I have 66GB free with next to no video (I tend to delete them after transferring to my Mac). If I’d gone for the 64GB model, I’d have space for just a few GB of video. As it is, I could shoot a little under three hours of 4K video. Personally, I’m a photo guy not a video one, but if I were a video guy that would already be a little tight for a vacation.

Realistic tiers in the age of 4K video and 4GB apps would, I think, be 64/128/256GB.

sd-card

The second approach Apple could take would be to offer an microSD card slot. It wouldn’t need to enable app storage on it, just music and video would be enough. That way, it can continue to sell a 16GB iPhone and anyone who wants more storage for the heavy lifting can add it themselves.

This is not entirely unthinkable. There’s a third-party accessory that allows you insert a microSD card, with a companion app providing the necessary access. You can pick one up for $50.

And Apple itself of course includes an SD card slot in some of its MacBooks (both Retina MacBook Pros, and the 13-inch MacBook Air). But that slot is really only intended to provide a convenient method of transferring photos and videos from standalone cameras.

You can use an SD card for additional storage, and there are even some products specifically designed to essentially create a DIY fusion drive, where the combination of MacBook storage and SD card appears as a single drive. The TarDisk starts from $148 for an extra 128GB. But I very much get the impression Apple hopes most people won’t realize that.

But a microSD card in an iPhone is almost unthinkable for four reasons.

First, it’s notable that there’s no SD card slot in the 12-inch MacBook, and that design, I think, represents the future of the MacBook range. Apple’s mantra today is that connectivity should be mostly wireless. The SD card slot, even in MacBooks, is on the way out.

Second, there’s the iOS/UI issue. iOS has only a limited concept of what files are, so to store them externally, you’d need some tweaks at least to accommodate them. This isn’t necessarily a big deal. Apple could, for example, treat it like Apple Music, where files stored on the card are shown greyed-out with a card icon next to them, and you have to insert the card to get access. But Apple has steadfastly resisted the idea of a visible filesystem in iOS, and that would take us some way in that direction.

Third, there’s the Jony Ive factor. Suggest to him that we break up his sleek designs with an extra port, and I think his response would probably comprise three words, the first being ‘no’ and the third being ‘way.’

Indeed, we’re already headed in the opposite direction, the 3.5mm headphone socket almost certainly disappearing next time around, and I also expect Apple to switch from a physical SIM card to a virtual one as soon as possible. iPhones are going to get fewer ports, not more.

Finally, and most persuasively of all, there’s the financial argument. Techies may realize they can buy a low-storage MacBook and increase the capacity with an SD card, but that would never occur to the average person on the street. If they need more MacBook storage, they pay the Apple tax for it. But add an SD card slot to an iPhone, and it would be big news in the mainstream press. Everyone would see that they could do it. Apple would be losing $100 or $200 of almost free margin on its higher-tier phones. That’s just not going to happen.

iphone-pro

There is a third possibility: an iPhone Pro.

We started to see a small differentiation between the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus with the optical image stabilization in the larger model. For the iPhone 7, it’s rumored that the Plus model will get a dual-camera system while the smaller model won’t. I’ve suggested before that Apple may be heading down the route of increasing differentiation between the two models.

I don’t think the iPhone Plus will get a microSD card slot, but I could see a possibility that, at some point, Apple could rebrand it as the iPhone Pro. That would justify a significant difference in specs, and it may then be that this model gets 64/128/256GB storage tiers.

To anyone complaining that there’s not enough storage in the standard iPhone for 4K video, Apple could point to the iPhone Pro and say ‘that’s the model we recommend for those who are serious about video.’

What do you think Apple should do? Are you happy enough with the existing tiers? Do you want more? Should Apple add a microSD card slot? And could the iPhone Pro be the way to go?

As ever, please take our poll and share your thoughts in the comments.

This piece was rather a team effort, with input from Benjamin, Greg, Jordan, Seth and Zac.

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

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Comments

  1. presslee - 8 years ago

    Just buy 128gb iphone. people already paying $600+ for a phone with just 16gb can probably afford to spend $200 extra for and extra 100+gb anyways.

    • chrisl84 - 8 years ago

      Volunteering to be ripped off isnt a solution

    • applegetridofsimandjack - 8 years ago

      That is ridiculous. “If you’re spending money anyway, just spend more.”
      That is like going to a car dealership for a simple 5-seat family car and coming home with a full option car which came at 8k$ more expensive than the initial model you had in mind.

      Selling a 16GB phone for 750€ is pure theft, having to pay 100$ for a 48GB storage upgrade is even worse.

    • Avieshek (@avieshek) - 8 years ago

      Some people are ridiculous. I wonder if they are Apple employees tasked by Apple.

      • PhilBoogie - 8 years ago

        That’s preposterous! I think every Apple employee is tasked by Apple (or am I just being rich here¿)

      • Avieshek (@avieshek) - 8 years ago

        Hahaha

    • srgmac - 8 years ago

      That is ridiculous. A 256GB MicroSD card can be had for LESS THAN HALF of that additional price Apple is charging.
      You are volunteering yourself to be ripped off, and not to mention, with external storage, you can always swap cards if you need to.

      • Avieshek (@avieshek) - 8 years ago

        Plus, it’s not like what Apple offering is the latest UFS 2.0 like Samsung recently been offering

      • Avieshek (@avieshek) - 8 years ago

        Even MicroSD cards like that of SanDisk (which also is a major Apple supplier) have UFS 2.0 latest standards.

  2. pokecaptain - 8 years ago

    I would love to see some sort of aftermarket upgrade option that Apple could accept. Apple could ship every iPhone with a base of 32GB or 64GB storage. Every phone would also have another storage slot like SD, but proprietary to Apple. An end user would be able to upgrade their storage whenever they want, they would just need to buy a card from Apple or someone they license.

    • eswinson - 8 years ago

      If they are going to put a slot, just make it an SD slot. I think a proprietary slot at this point would just look totally ridiculous and the “greedy” accusation would be wholly justified. Sony and their proprietary memory stick is bad enough.

  3. pharrisart - 8 years ago

    Your argument makes a LITTLE sense, but sort of goes off the rails.
    If someone is shooting video to the point where they’re considering editing it at a 10:1 ratio of cut footage, they simply aren’t going to be using an iPhone. You’re talking about the realm of professional videographers. People using their phone for vacation home movies simply aren’t editing the videos to that degree.
    Furthermore, when you talk about transferring video to a Mac via an SD card, once again, who would do that? If you have your Mac with you, you would simply import via Photos app and a lightning cable.
    Yes, i agree, a 16GB phone is limited in its storage capacity, but for the average consumer, its fine. If they really think they’ll be shooting some 4K video, they can move up to the 64 or 128 and still have an adequate amount of shooting time.

    • shoyuweenie - 8 years ago

      I totally agree with you. Also, who in their right mind would edit a 4K video on a 12″ MacBook? Yeah, it’s possible. Then again, you might as well use a bicycle to travel from NY to LA – yeah, that’s possible too.

      Also, another option to transfer videos to a Mac is AirDrop. I think that’s still available in current Apple devices, right? Oh wait, maybe not – we’re talking about the 2006 MacBook. Hahaha!

  4. applegetridofsimandjack - 8 years ago

    The only reason Apple would increase the default storage capacity of iPod touch, iPhone and iPad would be;
    1.- If they increased the display’s resolution, resulting in developers having to up the resolution of their app, and we know that could mean that certain apps take 2x more storage space than before (like retina apps back in 2010).
    2.- If the demand of 16GB flash storage chips drops so low that it becomes more expensive than 64GB chips, in fact even if the 16GB chips are a bit more expensive than the 64GB storage chips, I think Apple would still pay more for the 16GB chips as they would still get the 100$ extra from the storage upgrade from the customer…

    They will not budge despite the public outcry to discontinue 16GB iPhones, they want people to pay 100$ more because of those 100$, there’s like 85-90$ going straight into Apple’s pockets.

    • 89p13 - 8 years ago

      “2.- If the demand of 16GB flash storage chips drops so low that it becomes more expensive than 64GB chips:”

      In that case Apple would just buy the ^$GB chips and limit the storage via the Storage controller. ;)

      • 89p13 - 8 years ago

        Should read:

        In that case Apple would just buy the 64GB chips and limit the storage via the Storage controller. Finger stuck on the shift key.

  5. applegetridofsimandjack - 8 years ago

    If you want a 128GB storage iPhone 6S in Belgium, you’ve lost 969€ or 1079€ for the 6S Plus. Theft!

    • Avieshek (@avieshek) - 8 years ago

      In India, it surpasses $1200s

    • PhilBoogie - 8 years ago

      How, exactly, do you define ‘theft’ here? It’s the same price as in the States, if that’s what you’re comparing it to.

      • chrisl84 - 8 years ago

        Strong arming customers into paying well beyond a reasonable markup just to prevent their device from being crippled by lack of storage…..I think that would be their definition of theft here. I know you worship Apple is every and all areas, so further explanation would fall on deaf ears.

  6. samanthamd - 8 years ago

    The 16Gb Option is perfect for those who don’t shoot Video or put 100’s of apps on their phone. I am one of those.
    If I want to shoot Video, I’ll use my DSLR. In the past year, I think I’ve shot about 10 minutes of Video. OTOH, I’ve shot 15K frames os stills mostly with a 400 or 500mm lens attached. At 60Mb per frame that is a lot of storage.

    Everyone’s use case is different. If my use case is not to shoot (or playback) video then why should I pay for storage that I’m never going to use.
    We should have the choice you know.

    • applegetridofsimandjack - 8 years ago

      Apple’s response of also offering 16GB iOS devices to allow more people to afford an iPhone is complete bull. Apple pays a few bucks more for the 64GB chip.
      They also said that many people use cloud storage now so they don’t need that much local storage. Also bull. Mobile data costs lots of money and you don’t have good coverage everywhere you go.

      • eswinson - 8 years ago

        Cloud sucks as an offloading option because most things try to sync back to the phone eventually filling up the storage and presenting you with insufficient storage problem when you need to install apps or sync media. Having photos continuously resize and optimized your library on a storage starved phone is a total waste of bandwidth.

    • Jon G. - 8 years ago

      Perfect might be a bit of a strong way to describe that amount of space – then again you may think that a 900 square foot apartment is perfect. Personally I would find either to be to restrictive and not offer enough space to accommodate even the most sparse of setups.

  7. Odys (@twittester10) - 8 years ago

    Lets be honest, none of the tiers that Apple can offer will be sufficient for meaningfully shooting 4K videos. We all have tons of apps, pictures, music and such. I recently discovered that my messages is over 1.5 GB just because I tend to send pics to my friends. Some games are over 1.2 GB in size. Just do the math and you will be forced to free up space. You also have to keep in mind that increasing storage size will come at slower read/write speeds. I am thinking that is the reason why Apple was holding off adding 128GB option for this long. Honestly, I think shooting 4K videos borders on professional applications. Those folks would not choose a smartphone to shoot pro anyways.

    • Ben Lovejoy - 8 years ago

      Plenty of them have, admittedly mostly for the PR, I suspect.

    • Avieshek (@avieshek) - 8 years ago

      Apple is thus planning a 256GB option.

    • srgmac - 8 years ago

      I agree but I think the real question should be why are people so put off by MicroSD? I don’t get it…Every phone I had before the iPhone had some type of external, expandable storage.

  8. Tyler (@tpond05) - 8 years ago

    Other: increase free iCloud storage and make downloading from the site better.

  9. Doug Aalseth - 8 years ago

    Apple is aiming for a waterproof iPhone. Witness all the rumblings about dropping the headphone jack. They simply will not add another hole in the case for an SD card slot. Just won’t happen.

    • eswinson - 8 years ago

      I don’t think the market for SD card expansion is the great untapped opportunity that market for larger screens was. You may see an SD card option in some pro model after a huge decrease in sales and lack of new features ideas, but not as an option to tap and expand an existing market

  10. PhilBoogie - 8 years ago

    Loving the Jony Ive factor paragraph! And I haven’t even finished reading the article, lol.

  11. Drew (@gettysburg11s) - 8 years ago

    I think this article is assuming a lot, but it has valid points. Apple’s storage tiers are designed to maximize profits. Apple wants to do that as long as possible, to the benefit of the share holders. They may finally have to raise the tiers in order to continue to add and retain customers. I mean, yes, Android lacks much of what makes iOS so great to use, but there is a point where people will say, “I don’t mind lesser security and a mediocre OS. I need expandable storage, or just more storage for my money”.

  12. Paul Van Obberghen - 8 years ago

    Something that hasn’t been covered is the fact that Apple still uses the h264 format to encode 4K video, while the standard UHD uses h265. h265 is known to compress 4K video significantly better than h264 and the space required would then be less.

    I don’t know why Apple is sticking with h264, but I suspect licencing to be an issue, or maybe is it the processing power required for encoding h265 on the fly.
    This is probably the same reason why there’s no UHD on the Apple TV, which is weird because you can’t watch the video you shot in 4K on your Apple TV coupled with an UHD TV set. You can only see your video on an iMac Retina 5K. Even a MacBook Pro connected via HDMI to and UHD set wont be able to display the 4K video you shot and edited! Which makes it quite pointless to shoot 4K video with your iPhone as you’re very restricted as of the way you can watch it. At least for a while.

    Maintaining an healthy margin on their products makes that Apple have to look at not too expensive solutions. A decent 4K upscaler is expensive and licences for h265 is probably still too expensive for Apple to maintain margins. Remember how Steve Jobs resisted providing BluRay capabilities to the now defunct superdrive?

    In the end, Apple is a business and is here to make money. Alot of it. Keeping high margins means that what is good for the consumer (and products are generally speaking good) might not be as good for Apple business.

    • Tom@L (@Wild_hunt_) - 8 years ago

      this will only encourage people not to upgrade. This is a short term thinking. If you keep on making things more expensive, most consumers wont bother upgrading.

    • Robert Wilson - 8 years ago

      Don’t know on the licensing but you are right on h.265 needing more processing power. In fact currently no standalone media player will Handel it. Only a computer can play h.265.

  13. Avieshek (@avieshek) - 8 years ago

    “Increase tiers only on iPhone Pro”

    Some rich people out there

  14. Avieshek (@avieshek) - 8 years ago

    When can we start talking about 8k video? iPhone 8s?

  15. A MicroSD Card slot would mean unlimited storage for Videos and Photos.
    You can quickly swap these as needed.

  16. Liam Deckham - 8 years ago

    As always, brilliantly written, Ben Lovejoy! 76% of the vote supports a 256 GB new tier. How do we get Tim Cook to see these results? When Microsoft can cram 1 TB in the Surface Pro, which has been taunting at my credit card, it is far time that Apple step up at least to 256 GB. And I just do not buy the iCloud answer to this concern. When WiFi is as readily available as an AC power outlet, then, maybe, I will consider iCloud as a valid argument.

  17. When it comes to storage on iCloud Apple should change its name to Jesse James.

  18. J.Johnson - 8 years ago

    Who are these people who are buying 16GB phones? These Tiers won’t ever impact me because I always get the most storage.

  19. Wilfried Kaiser - 8 years ago

    32 minutes become 64 when iPhone goes to h.265 compression. No need for other changes.

  20. confluxnz - 8 years ago

    You don’t get to be the world’s most valuable company by always giving your customers what they want ;)

    It follows that this is just classic Apple; holding out improvements until the very last opportunity so as to maximise revenue and profit from its user base. I for one cannot wait until they finally move to 64/128/256 storage tiers.

  21. I know they have to make money, but as Apple’s official focus is making great products and as they already are incredibly healthy in terms of revenue and profit, I think they could stand to be more generous. The simplest way to help users would be to increase storage of iPhones. Make 64gb the smallest. They could also be slightly more generous with their Macs: the 13” MacBook Pro has only a 128gb SSD: it’s £200 to upgrade to 256gb. iMacs should ship wth large fusion drives by default – it makes a huge difference to the speed of your Mac. Let the Mac mini be the cheap model, don’t release an iMac with a spinning hard drive.

  22. Apple really should permit a removable storage feature if it wants the courts to stop knocking on their legal department door every freaking day.

    Users could encrypt SD cards via third party apps built on open source code with no central authority that could receive warrants.

    Now that Apple has moved to streaming audio services with a new royalty model, the entire basis for not having a “built-in” removable storage feature is a moot point.

  23. airmanchairman - 8 years ago

    It’s really simple: the bottom storage tier is for those tens/hundreds of millions of people for whom smartphones are simply mobile web surfing, casual music listening/video streaming and/or voice/video communication devices. Oh, and status symbols…

    This will always rankle with cheapskates, who fail to see this rationale, or phillistines who refuse to walk a mile in another person’s shoes…

    • PhilBoogie - 8 years ago

      Thank you, finally someone who understands this. I was really disappointed in al the posts about Apple needs to do this because “I want…” bladiebla. The even forgot to much the 8GB model, which is a supposedly selling like hot cakes.

      Trolls. So broke they can’t pay attention to why Apple is doing what they’re doing. Or pay for a large capacity iDevice for that matter.

    • Doug Aalseth - 8 years ago

      Exactly. I have a 16GB iPhone and it’s only half full. I have no music on it. Streaming takes care of that. I do take pictures but offload them ASAP. I have one screen of Apps that I really need and use all the time, and no more. My iPhone is a tool for mobile consumption. On the other hand, my iPad is a 128GB model. That has a lot of pictures and videos and Apps. It also has a screen big enough for me to actually do something. I can write and draw, and play games. My iPad is my mobile device for consumption, recreation, and creation. Of course for real work I have my Mac, but that’s another story..

  24. christofstravelblog - 7 years ago

    hi.. anybody knows an external SDcard drive that works with the iphone 6s, 64gb, OS 10.3.1 ? I want to shot videos in 1080 60fps and transfer them, because 64 gb is nothing once the camera starts rolling …. I just bought a Leef iAccess, it looked handy because you can insert your microSD cards and the Leef support even told me it works with 10.3.1 .. but reality; that didn´t work for transferring videos… recording videos directly on the card is only possible at 720 30fps ( which is of course nowhere mentioned @homepage) … there is a lot of brands praising it works / amazon reviews tell a different story… anybody knows something that works ? I just want to transfer video files ( 1080 60fps ) or record directly to the SD card. THX

Author

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Ben Lovejoy

Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer and EU Editor for 9to5Mac. He’s known for his op-eds and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review. He also writes fiction, with two technothriller novels, a couple of SF shorts and a rom-com!


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