When Apple releases the iPhone 7 later this year, the company will reportedly address one of the most common and longstanding complaints about its iconic smartphone: a lack of sufficient storage. Indeed, even as the iPhone has become more advanced and sophisticated with each passing year, the entry-level storage capacity on each successive iPhone model has remained frustratingly stagnant at 16GB.
For some perspective, consider this: every entry-level iPhone model has featured 16GB of storage since the iPhone 4s, a device released all the way back in 2011. And while 16GB might have been adequate five years ago, it’s almost a joke in today’s smartphone era where apps can weigh in by the gig and devices can take high-res photos and record storage-hungry video in full 4K.
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Well, now comes word via IHS Technology analyst Kevin Wang that Apple this year will join the big leagues and will, at long last, up the storage on its entry-level models iPhone from 16GB to 32GB.
Originally reported by MobiPicker, the publication claims that Wang has provided accurate information in the past, thereby leading them to conclude that this particular rumor carries more weight than most.
If this rumor pans out, it would represent an interesting about-face from Apple. Remember, it was just about a year ago that Apple executive Phil Schiller sat down with John Gruber and defended Apple’s somewhat controversial decision to sell 16GB iPhones.
As one would expect, Schiller danced lightly around the issue as he argued that storage is not much of an issue these days since most user data can easily be retrieved from the cloud.
“The belief is more and more as we use iCloud services for documents and our photos and videos and music,” Schiller explained, “that perhaps the most price-conscious customers are able to live in an environment where they don’t need gobs of local storage because these services are lightening the load.”
Schiller also added that the money Apple saves on 16GB iPhones allows it to spend more money on securing advanced components for said devices.
These arguments may seem well-reasoned at first glance, but a deeper inspection reveals that they don’t hold muster. For starters, cloud computing may be commonplace today, but photos, videos and apps take up more storage than ever before. In other words, keeping gigs upon gigs of data in the cloud just isn’t practical for many users. Second, Apple has more money than it knows what to do with, which is to say that it hardly needs to rely upon a 16GB model in order to be able to afford advanced components.
All that notwithstanding, this is one Apple rumor that we really hope becomes a reality. Interestingly enough, one other iPhone 7 rumor we spotted just a few weeks ago suggests that Apple will make a 256GB storage option available.
And if you missed it for some reason, don’t forget to check out this leaked image, which is probably our first ever look at a real iPhone 7.
