“Apple’s announcement of a new iPad SKU with 128GB of storage is a wonderful tactical stroke,” Ewan Spence writes for Forbes. “While consumers are going to love the extra choice, and hardcore users will flock to the extra storage capacity, it’s the Android tablet manufacturers that are going to be crunching the numbers overnight.”
“By increasing the top level of storage on the iPad, it will drive public perception towards ‘tablets should have 128GB of storage,'” Spence writes. “That 128GB has been seen as a psychological target by many people looking at iOS devices, and now it’s here (and is following the standard Apple model of doubling storage for $100 more) many will say it was obvious.”
Spence writes, “The competition are still kicking around at the 64GB mark, although some are not even that close. The Nexus 10? 16GB or 32 GB. The Galaxy Note? 16GB to 64Gb. The BlackBerry PlayBook? 16GB to 64GB. The Kindle Fire? 16GB to 32GB for the seven inch, and 64GB for the 8.9 inch. Apple has topped them all, and the other manufacturers are going to have to start offering higher specs in storage or run the risk of being left behind… The iPad 4 with 128GB hits the stores in seven days, and the competition are left standing still. Even if they wanted to react, they’re going to be at a disadvantage in terms of manufacturing and sourcing supplies… ”
Read more in the full article here.
Related articles:
Apple’s 128GB ‘ultimate’ iPad aims to drive profits up a path competitors will have trouble duplicating – January 30, 2013
Windows 8 bloat: Microsoft’s 64GB Surface Pro will offer users only 23GB of available storage space – January 29, 2013
Why did Apple debut an ‘ultimate’ iPad with 128GB storage? – January 29, 2013
Apple announces iPad with Retina display featuring 128GB storage capacity, on sale February 5th – January 29, 2013
Blackberry Playbook? They still make those? It’s like getting news yesterday that Gomer Pyle was getting married. I thought he died in the 70’s.
I’m waiting for the Minka Kelly Playboy edition. They can keep their PlayBook.
You may be waiting for Minka, Dude. But one thing’s for certain: She sure ain’t waiting for you!
Go wank in peace.
From one wanker to another?
BLN said he was waiting for the Minka Kelly Playboy edition not for Minka Kelly. Check your eyes. Maybe you’ve been wanking too much.
Funny…I saw them advertised at The Source (Radio Shack to you Yankees) for $50.:) I think they will have to pay customers to take them.
There are few hardy souls who brag out there about how little they paid for their Playbook. What they don’t realize is how little they got in return. DCW. What is it with so many techtards out there whose main complaint is price level simply because their 30 hour a week McDonalds job won’t support their tech habit?
And the very reason they are so stridently vocal: underemployed, they have so much more time on their hands to lounge about the tech forums peddling their petulant complaints
Hell, I’m waiting for a 128GB iPhone so I can have my entire music collection available at all times.
A 16Gig iPhone will store any huge collection on iCloud and stream it at all times.
…that you have a connection. There are many places where there is no Cloud in the sky.
I know that occasionally there are times that I might be in an area that I can’t get access to internet and I can’t possibly go for more than a few seconds without access to my stuff. That would be the end of the world right?
dam right it would be!
Good for you. I’m talking about locations that a 54 minute TV episode can take days of constant retrys to get the 4-6 hours in a row needed to successfully download. Apple software updates are a nightmare in this type of environment.
On a broader scale, Cloud-based solutions, because of their potential for sporadic availability, just cannot be relied upon for critical applications. Sometimes it’s better to have your data local than have it when you need it. All data is not music tracks.
You’re obsessed with the bloody Cloud and streaming everything. When will it filter through into your tiny little brain that for many millions of people streaming everything is Simply. Not. An. Option. Cost, and availability, either via networks or wifi, means its not happening. Try getting outside of a city, into one of those places with lots of trees or mountains, (most know these places as ‘the country, or ‘wilderness’), and then expect to be able to stream all the stuff you’ve shovelled into the Cloud. You probably won’t even be able to see where you are because your cloud-based maps won’t work either.
I, on the other hand, will be able to continue enjoying the 144Gb of music I have in my iPod Classic, the 340 books I have on my phone and pad, the 12Gb of music on my phone, and I’ll know exactly where I am because of the contour maps of whatever area I happen to be in installed on my phone and pad. I do not trust anything that requires a strong network connection to work, because personal, real-world experience shows me that that system is seriously flawed.
Many people who go out in the country and get away from the city are doing so to get some quiet and peace. It seems to go against the whole premise to have to bring a noisy visual device to distract you from the solitude.
It is likely that the huge music collection you have was mostly obtained ‘free’ and is not deserved also. Used Napster a lot? How about Pirate Bay?
Whaaaa!!!
Nice factual reply there.
Facts are great when we can agree on them. My response to the issue of huge memory in iDevices is more of a question to ask if we really need it? I guess that you are still thinking of a reply to that question.
TLDR: Don’t feed the trolls, they say. Do I listen? Mmmmnope! Must. Present. Coherent. Counterpoints.
“Facts are great when we can agree on them?” What kind of nonsense is that? Facts would be things that are objectively true whether or not you agree with them, or are even aware of them.
As ‘Think’ (and many others) succinctly and sardonically pointed out, you didn’t even attempt to answer the question vis-a-vis networked resources being inherently less reliable and more resource intensive (time, battery life etc.) than locally-connected or onboard ones and you instead spiralled off into a completely uncalled for holier-than-thou about being thieves and/or switching the device off instead to appreciate the great outdoors? I’m really bemused.
But to directly answer your supposed original question (which really appeared as more of a footnote in your latest comment than properly articulated in your original post):
YES! Of COURSE there’s a need for more storage space.
There’s ALWAYS a need for more storage space.
How long have you been interacting with computers? Unless you’re brand-new, I simply cannot believe that you have no firsthand experience with the maxim “data expands to fill the available space”. Remember when [insertStorageTechnology] only held 1.44/640/4.7/16[insertOrderOfMagnitude]bytes?
These devices come with combo still/video cameras onboard, don’t they?
These devices have microphones and line-in, don’t they?
These two avenues alone (and there are many many others) to creation of user content – CREATION rather than acquisition, which you additionally recklessly characterized as “likely undeserved”, ignoring the existence of a myriad of totally legitimate sources of storage-eating media – mean there is simply no limit to the desire for onboard storage: none!
Furthermore this is just about the first time in computing history (certainly in living memory) that the latest and greatest storage technology is requiring us to make a compromise, rather than being conclusively better in every way.
Solid State is clearly the next step for many excellent reasons, particularly for mobile devices, yet it’s a far more expensive per-byte than more mature competing technologies.
I mean, the spinning-platter-based iPod Classic still has more space and that poor thing has virtually been on death’s door as a product for years.
It will take a few years yet for this situation to stabilize back into true forward growth, but right now we’re still playing catch-up to older tech in this one specific regard and so in the meantime we are all struggling with compromises and less-than-ideal workarounds – just like iCloud’s “sliding window” into a user’s full data set.
It is not the desire but real-world practical realities (You know: those pesky facts which you need us to Kumbaya over first?) that limit what we can actually afford to carry with us in terms of monetary cost, physical size, battery life or reliability, and when these are overcome as has been the case in this new iPad, I have no reason to doubt that the market will snap it up.
And finally: You keep yammering on with your off-point, sickly-sweet tourism-ad copy, *and* have the gall to call *us* marshmallow eaters? And even worse, you’re the one who opened up this line of discussion in the first place. Call me crazy but I suspect this is likely what ‘Think’ was reacting to – however crudely articulated – when informing you of the noxious gases you yourself are expelling. By not being able to even follow a coherent, focused and factual line of reasoning and discussion beyond the length of a single MDN comment box without resorting to moving the goalposts, bizarrely off-topic holier-than-thou missives and sarcastic mock humbleness (which really is starting to sound like the Troll Handbook, Chapter 1), I would say that you, sir, are the marshmallow.
@ Jonathan You can object as much as you want but technology continues to march forward. Apple has routinely gotten rid of outdated technology and replaced it with new paradigms. The floppy, parallel ports, SCSI, optical drives, etc. The latest to be changed is the local massive storage. Even Siri is not onboard each device but resides on the Cloud. We want access to our data regardless of which device we use. Apple and others are creating the cloud storage for us. You can’t put the genie back in the bottle.
Okay I’m sorry but no way you are going to be able to assert that people with large music collections obtained the bulk of their music illegally.
I’m not going to argue that it doesn’t happen, but you are implying that someone having a large collection is evidence of piracy which is pure bunk.
That’s as stupid as saying the existence of bacon proves there are no vegetarians.
The comment to Rorschach is based on his many previous posts and his demeanour. He does not come across like an honourable classy person and seems to have a great capacity for personal growth. I am hopeful to see him rise up to a better standard. He already uses Apple products and Apple is an ethical company run by some great people.
Stop with the petty ad hominem bullshit. Go get laid or something, just get off the Internet for a while.
Ok noted. If you meant to direct it specifically to him and not apply generally you could have mentioned that.
It’ll take a 256Gb iPhone to swallow my music collection, currently standing at 144Gb, and growing all the time. I’d be perfectly happy with a 256Gb Classic with a SSD, or a 256Gb Touch.
I’d even buy an iPod with that much memory. It would probably kill off the Classic iPod.
Don’t forget, however, that many Android tablets allow the use of an inexpensive micro SD card. I’ve got an old HTC 7″ tablet that came with 32 GB, but was easily expanded to 96 GB using an SD card. I’m sure many 64 GB tablet owners have similarly expanded to 128 GB already. Unfortunately, the trend seems to be omitting the SD slot on many newer Android tablets and phones. I really wish Apple would include this ability, but I don’t think that will ever happen. My daughter’s iPhone 4 has only 8 GB, and it’s been an issue. Guess it’s time for a new iPhone with more memory.
but how much did it cost altogether for the tablet and the sd card? thats the point.
Not the only point: external flash memory is incredibly slow, as well as it’s use is limited comparing to internal flash memory.
As to supposed headache, this is no issue for Android tablets, because:
1) most of those are cheap devices that never competed with higher end modifications iPads with lot of flash memory anyway;
2) the tablets that do have 64 GB version will be updated easily with 128 GB versions. It is not something like Apple’s invented in-cell touch display technology, there is no competitive advantage here exclusively for Apple.
If external flash memory is incredibly slow, how much worse is the cloud that some are so enthused about as an alternative to un-expandable internal storage?
LTE where I am is about 25 Mbps or 3.1 MB/s. Even dirt-cheap Class 4 SD cards are faster, with a “minimum guaranteed” 4 MB/s read/write speed.
Actual speed will depend on the read/writer of course, but that applies to the wireless antenna, too (don’t forget to include network conditions as an additional variable).
$60 seems to be a typical price for a 64GB SDXC Card.
The problem is that most Android devices that actually do have SD card slots are either painfully slow in accessing anything stored on them compared to internal storage, and/or they won’t allow some files to be run directly off of SD cards at all. It’s an extremely inelegant solution compared to having the flash storage all built-in to the device the way that Apple does it.
OK so Android tabs have an SD card slot. If I was the CIO of a company I would see this as a security risk.
I was wondering about that sort of SD card caveat. Makes sense.
There are usually a few caveats with the SD card memory in android devices- as in it ain’t available to everything. YMMV
Yeah there are definitely some caveats with sd. I think that’s why Android is in general moving away from it. But as a storage location for media it works fantastic. That’s where I put my music and movies. My card is class 10,so I haven’t had any speed issues even with my camera set up to save photos there by default. I can also capture hd video to it without issue. So although I can’t easily put apps on it, it works great for what I need it for. As for price, I picked up the 64 GB SanDisk for $42 which is really cheap. The tablet was also on closeout for $229 (w/32 GB and a Sprint data radio), making the final cost for tablet with 96 GB $271. Very, very cheap for a good quality setup. It doesn’t get quite the use that the iPad 2 does, but it still sees plenty of use in my house. With all the limitations of SD, it is still a very worthwhile feature, and the price per GB is hard to beat.
And one can solder a leaking radiator oneself, potentially saving as much as $350 in labor costs at the local auto repair shop…
I dropped off my car this morning.
I’m not sure I understand your analogy. Are you implying that inserting an SD card requires more skill than the typical iOS user possesses? Maybe you fit into that category, but most iOS users including myself certainly would have no problem inserting an SD card. It’s no more complicated than inserting the SIM card on an iPhone.
Sorry, it was a little off-topic. My car broke down this morning. Years ago, I’d have retrieved my tools and given it a go, but these days I won’t bother; I’ll pay the mechanic instead. My only point was that saving money does bring satisfaction, but that depends on knowledge, circumstances—and possibly age.
As for your well-described storage solution, I passed it along to my sister who is very bargain-minded, and unafraid of tech. Thanks.
Apple needs to also talk about usable storage after the OS is installed. I read that Microsoft’s Surface is a memory and storage pig. No, this time I am not talking about Steve Ballmer. I am talking about their very late to the game me-too device.
It’s no issue for Apple iPads. iOS doesn’t take that much space, and many of the free official Apple apps are from the app store not pre-installed, so one gets a very large chunk of the advertised space. For the 32GB models, I can easily get 30GB out of the box, if not more.
Only in the Surface world would advertised and usable be an issue.
Yeah the Surface Pro is practically storage crippled right out of the gate with like 2/3rd’s of it’s 64Gb used by the OS with only 23Gb left! Can’t wait for the anti-sales to start rolling in when it comes out on Feb. 9th and Ballmer once again stands there mortally embarrassed with his pockets turned out.
Why do we need all that storage when there is the cloud?
Because the cloud is not everywhere available 100% of the time!
Yes, you are right and we can’t possibly go without something for more that a few seconds. We have become a bunch of marshmallow eaters (See TED Talks for details)
Well, in the real world not all hotels have Internet.
Next, let’s watch 3 movies in a row streamed from iCloud, how much data did that just use on your plan?
Summer time, out camping, no wifi, no cell coverage but we might want music or a movie for the evening.
I’ve been in many building that weaken or block cell phone signals. Sorry, we won’t allow that device on our wifi. So now what?
Been to a few houses that have crap cell phone coverage, and no, not everyone has wifi in their house yet.
You are right! There are so many places where it is difficult to get a WiFi signal and if you don’t have unlimited data, you may have to go without for a while. Just imagine going camping and just singing with each other around the campfire or going to a friend’s house that don’t have WiFi and taking the time to talk to them or play some board games. What would the world be like then?
Pull your head out of your ass, the fumes are getting to ya.
Nice how you didn’t comment on the other locations or how much data all this streaming eats up.
When the conversation degrades to the level you are taking it to, I think it is best to stop. What do you think?
I use my iPad and iPhone extensively on my sailboat. Got news for you, when you’re several hundred miles on the briny ocean tossed you ain’t gettin’ ANY wifi or cellular connection!
Extra memory is a terrific advantage for some of us.
Just imagine a beautiful day on the ocean in your sailboat. The sky is gorgeous and the water beautiful and you suddenly feel like breaking out into song with your mate. Nothing but the silence of the sailboat and the splashing of the water with the occasional luffing of the sail. What a horrible experience without the raucous amplified music and videos from your iDevice.
Give it up. You claimed higher up that “A 16Gig iPhone will store any huge collection on iCloud and stream it at all times.”
A single exception would’ve proven your statement wrong, and you were given several. Moving the goalposts by saying “well, people shouldn’t be using their devices in [situation X] anyway!” is admitting defeat.
You got me. I have no point at all. I will leave the discussion to those of you who are in the know.
Because accessing large media files over the cloud would prove very costly on 3G/LTE data plans that have data quotas.
The bigger headache will come with the next iPad release. I can see Apple dumping the 16GB and the $499 iPad could be 32GB, 64GB $599 and 128GB $699. The current iPad would be 16GB $399. This has happened with iPhone and would cause huge problems for every competitor.
Just use something like the Kingston Wi-Drive 64GB or Seagate GoFlex Satellite 500GB which are pretty fair solutions for external storage. The Seagate GoFlex is my candidate. Plenty of relatively cheap storage per GB, good battery life and works with practically everything. Sure, it’s expensive, but we are talking about Apple products in general.
This is how the US won the Cold War. We used military/technical/political escalation to force the USSR to spend themselves into collapse.
Every time we came up with a new weapon/gadget they had to match it. We even made up stuff just to watch the Soviets go nuts trying to do something they thought we did.
That is what Tim is doing. Corner the market on a backbone commodity (flash memory in this case) at deep discounts and then produce a product that is stuffed full of the now hard to get commodity and watch as consumers demand that the competition match Apple’s move, and to meet that demand they will spend themselves into bankruptcy, or cede the market entirely.
I like that plan. Make it so, number 1!
IOW: Winning the Arms Race
Well I had an aneurysm trying to guess who still uses physical media and storage (and yes I know “cloud” is ultimately physical storage) and still wants to carry all their crap around with them—besides Alex(ToyWhore) Lindsey
I like the Beatles, but I don’t listen to them ’cause they(or John Ringo and Oko) don’t want me to do it the way I want–Spotify—so I don’t–so there.
Oh yeah, two excedrine knocked that aneurysm right out. I can’t see outta my left eye now but My head don’t hurt no more.
Think I’d rather have a 32GB iPad with an SD card slot. I have the SD card & USB adapters for my original iPad, but it only allows the upload of ‘approved’ files like pictures.
yeah I wish I had a phone with a card slot that let me do what I wanted to do with it and put whatever I wanteOH WAIT I DOOO. THANK YOU ANDROID B-)
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