“KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has issued a note to investors that claims the so-called ‘iPhone 6s’ will be offered in 16GB, 64GB and 128GB storage capacities,” Joe Rossignol reports for MacRumors.
“Kuo also claims the iPhone 6s will have an improved front-facing FaceTime camera with a 5-megapixel sensor,” Rossignol reports, “and reaffirms three much-rumored features: Force Touch, a new rose gold casing color and an upgraded Touch ID fingerprint scanner.”
Apple’s current iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus models also offer 16GB, 64GB and 128GB storage options, so expect no changes of the storage front until 2016’s iPhone 7, at the earliest.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote on July 4th:
Obviously, 16GB is for a certain target market, one that can live in the iCloud. The problem with that model, however, is that inexperienced buyers and inattentive resellers foist 16GB iPhones on people who really cannot manage to live in the iCloud and therefore could end up hating their iPhone (it won’t update, it’s perpetually packed full and therefore runs poorly, can’t take any photos, can’t download day more apps, etcetera).
Apple needs to ask themselves if the benefits of having a 16GB iPhone (“low” entry price and upselling platform for higher capacity iPhones) are worth the risk of disappointing those who are likely buying their first iPhone. For Apple, the quality of the user experience should always come first.
SEE ALSO:
Next-gen iPhones confirmed with 16GB entry-level storage, 7000 series aluminum – September 2, 2015
Apple, please kill the 16GB iPhone! – July 13, 2015
New iPhone 6s images show updated NFC, 16GB base storage, fewer chips and design tweaks – July 4, 2015
I personally have always used a 64GB option and I fully understand why a 16GB option is necessarily for a small sector of the market who are not heavy users.
I think many like MDN forget that there are many iPhone users who enjoy their device but do not need tons of storage for pictures, music, videos, etc… A low cost model allows them to leave the “Do No Evil… Leave that to Google and Android peddlers” handset buyers and enter the light.
So, exactly what bad news has happened today with Apple to be the only major tech stock in the red while the rest of the market is well into the green? Let’s hear some good excuses. How about, it was up yesterday and has simply run out of steam. It’s not that big a deal but it just looks odd considering there’s a lot of positive news out there for the company.
Apple continues to lose its focus. If it wants to be a high-end manufacturer, then stop producing bargain basement phones, especially plastic-wrapped versions of 2+ year old designs.
It’s not like there’s any compelling argument to Apple being so stingy on memory. It can afford to give users a better experience than the competition. The competition not only provides more memory at each price point, many models allow the user to easily add more memory. Apple loses customers because of its dumb product planning.
As the camera and video capabilities of these devices gets more and more advanced, local memory is more and more important. One should be able to have a weekend’s worth of media on a device without depending on a goddamn flaky cloud to access it.
The iPhone needs to start at 32gb and go up from there.
The iPod Touch should be offered at 16, 64, and 256 gb memory.
NO EXCUSES APPLE.
Friends don’t let friends get 16GB iPhones.
Going to 32 – 64 – 128GB would not increase the direct costs to Apple by very much. But Apple may be waiting for some long term memory supplier contracts to end before closing out the 16GB iPhone era.
The real impact to Apple is on the revenue side. If the low-end iPhone were 32GB, I suspect that many people would seriously consider saving the $100 rather than jumping to the midrange 64GB option. That would reduce the iPhone ASP and result in a corresponding impact to iPhone revenue/revenue growth.
I am in favor of making 32GB the minimum storage level for iPhones and iPads. I advocated that step a couple of years ago. But there will be a financial impact to Apple’s bottom line.
I don’t buy the notion that Apple skipped 32 to support higher ASPs. After all, Apple would have still got an extra $100 for the 32 upgrade.
Jumping from 16 to 64 could be Apple’s way of “encouraging” people to buy the 64 (vs 32) because in short order Apple has something in store for us, that will make 32 a paltry option. .
Ming Chi Kuo is an over rated “analyst”, loved because he got a couple of his many, many forecasts near correct. His stature has been greatly enhanced by bloggers, fawning at his feet, that never do any research on their and are more than willing to reprint someone else’s tripe.
Anyone, knowledgeable or not, that has read the many rumor mills speculation of the past 3 months could have made Kuo’s latest “informed” statements. Oh wait, they did, and they did it first, but won’t get the credit that Kuo will.
If true, this is terrible, terrible, terrible. No excuse for this. The user experience on 16GB is very poor, no matter what “cloud” services are enabled. (In fact, user experience suggests that the more cloud service enabled on a device, the more local storage memory needed. Even decent photo and video “thumbnails” take up a lot of room when there are thousands of them.)
The fact that Apple would continue to offer such a compromised phone would suggest that the company continues to shift away from “user experience first.” I am all in favor of profits, but when they become the focus, they evaporate. Something is wrong here, IMHO.
Addendum: If this is true, it will damage Apple. It will damage their image. It just seems so… chintzy! Not what we expected during the Steve Jobs era. I am an Apple fan, but this will taint my fandom somewhat. I actually found myself absently wondering whether I could integrate the new Sony Z5 4k phone with my current setup, and I don’t like Android at all! Surprised myself a bit. Hmmm.