Andrew Cunningham

Speculation about the headphone jack has dominated most of the conversation about the next iPhone, but here's a rumor that should make everyone happy: citing "a person familiar with Apple's plans, " The Wall Street Journal reports that the next iPhone will get rid of the 16GB storage option. The base model would reportedly jump up to 32GB—a more reasonable minimum for casual iPhone users who still want to store plenty of photos and apps (and install updates without running into storage problems).

Apple has made several changes to iOS in the last year or two to make 16GB (and, horror of horrors, 8GB) iPhones and iPads more livable. It has reduced the amount of storage space needed to install updates, it has introduced features like iCloud Photo Library that lean on the cloud to free up local storage, and App Thinning reduces the size of installed apps behind the scenes. But this stuff is countered in part by space-eating camera features like Live Photos, 12 megapixel images, and 4K video. Selling a 64GB model for $100 more than the 16GB models may have helped Apple's average iPhone selling price, but the user experience has gone downhill as time has gone on.

Apple bumped up its mid- and top-tier iPhone capacities two years ago when it introduced the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, and there was never an 8GB version of the iPhone 5S at the low end. But that 16GB option has been the entry model since the iPhone 3GS came out in 2009 (an eternity ago in phone years). The report doesn't say whether the higher-end 64 and 128GB iPhones will also get a storage bump, but in any case it would be nice to be able to recommend an iPhone without also having to recommend that $100 upgrade.

Source: arstechnica.com