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| Apple announces the end of the iPhone 64GB era |
The new iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 mini from Apple mark the official end of the 64GB iPhone era.
The company doubled the model's storage capacity in 2021 at unchanged prices. So, new smartphones now start with 128GB storage and offer 256GB and 512GB options.
While the older iPhone 12, iPhone 11, and iPhone SE models still have 64GB of storage, the company's latest devices have 128GB.
This change should have been made a long time ago. In 2018, 64 GB is not enough. As the size of apps, photos, videos, and games increase, so do the problems.
Although the company has been offering this capacity since 2011 (when 16GB and 32GB models were added). But even though Apple started offering 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB options in its phones, they still exist.
The 2015 iPhone came with 16GB, but it didn't take the company more than a year to flip the iPhone 7, which comes standard with 32GB.
One of the reasons why 64GB isn't enough is that you don't really get it, as the company's pre-installed apps and OS take up 11GB to 14GB of available space.
Depending on the company, the available space is less and depends on a number of factors. Depending on the model and settings, the standard configuration requires 11-14 GB of storage space (including iOS and pre-installed apps).
Pre-installed apps take up about 4GB, and you can delete and restore these apps. Storage capacity can vary depending on the software version and can vary from device to device.
That's a fifth of your storage space. But due to the size of modern apps and games, the remaining storage space of around 50GB is used up very quickly.
Apple announces the end of the iPhone 64GB era
SensorTower reported earlier this year that the best iPhone apps are four times the size they were five years ago, a continuation of the long-term trend toward larger apps.
For example, Nintendo's "Fire Emblem Heroes" takes up nearly 4GB of storage space.
WhatsApp and iMessage chats can also be set up quickly. It's not music or video. If you download a lot of locally stored content, it can take up all the space on your phone.
There are photos and videos too, for photographers, they can easily take up the entire 50GB storage, especially considering that the upgraded iPhone camera comes with more advanced photo and video formats.
ProRAW format was introduced by the iPhone 12 Pro model, ProRAW format averages about 25MB per frame, and 30-second 4K video at 30fps requires about 175MB (or about 85MB in HEVC). HDR photography increases the size of these files.
For years, the company ignored 1080p video quality on the iPhone (it's technically capable of capturing 4K from the iPhone 6S) and managed to sidestep complaints about insufficient storage.
Regardless of this growth, in 2021 you won't be able to fix the company's other storage issues to give customers just the 5GB of free iCloud storage (needed for iPhone backups) it offered 10 years ago.
The additional internal capacity can help alleviate the issue as users can store more photos and messages locally on their phone. Instead of cloud storage, it leaves more space for things like device backups.