iPhone 6s Base Storage Option Will Likely Still Be 16GB

Many iPhone users were hoping Apple would change something major about their iPhone storage options this year, when the iPhone 6S is released. According to a report by 9To5Mac, the change many were hoping for will likely not come this year.

Since iOS 8 especially, a lot of iPhone users have struggled to maintain any free storage space on their 16GB iPhones. As reported previously by the Inquisitr, the upcoming iOS 9 will try to address this problem in a couple of ways. First, the new iOS 9 will feature an option to temporarily uninstall applications to make room for updates. Second, the operating system itself has been dramatically cut in size, making less free space necessary.

Even with those new improvements in mind, iPhone users still want Apple to change its base iPhone storage option. Apple decided to do just that last year when it released the iPhone 6, but in a way that many weren’t hoping for. The company changed its mid-tier storage option from 32GB to 64GB and its high-tier jumped from 64GB to 128GB. Unfortunately, the entry-level 16GB has stayed the same.

John Gruber, a respected Apple analyst of sorts, wrote on his blog Daring Fireball to give his thoughts on Apple’s storage options.

“But I don’t understand why the entry level storage tier remained at a meager 16 GB. That seems downright punitive given how big panoramic photos and slo-mo HD videos are, and it sticks out like a sore thumb when you look at the three storage tiers together: 32/64/128 looks natural; 16/64/128 looks like a mistake.”

In the 9To5Mac report, they confirmed with Chipworks that the storage chip inside the leaked iPhone 6s body is indeed a 16GB model. Also in the report, the author suggested that Apple may not actually ship the 16GB versions. Instead, perhaps Apple was simply using the 16GB phone(s) for testing purposes.

During an interview, Senior Vice President of marketing at Apple, Phil Schiller, defended the continued sale of 16GB phones. Schiller argued that users could make up for their limited 16GB storage by using the company’s iCloud service. iCloud allows users to store their music, photos, and other files in the cloud rather than on-board the iPhone. If you plan on using iCloud for more than a few files, you’ll have to pay a subscription-based fee.

There is still the chance that Apple will change its mind before the iPhone 6s’s debut this fall. Or, like previously mentioned, the 16GB iPhone 6s was just a prototype not meant to be sold to consumers. Either way, customers will find out soon enough when the new iPhone hits the shelves.

[Photo by Justin Sullivan / Getty Images]