iPhone GB Capacity Question

[GovtLawyer]

I'm thinking of getting the iPhone. Since I am still under a two year contract from my other crappy flip phone, I cannot get it for the $199 or $299. It's either $399 for the 16GB and $499 for the 32. So, the main question is why choose one over the other.

NOW, before all the wise guys start posting "its twice the capacity, Dummy" responses, let me narrow the question down.

What is the main user of GBs? Is it music on iTunes? Currently I have 19GB of music on my iPod. Of course, I could easily whittle down the stuff I put on the iPhone and/or just put playlists on it. How large are APPS? How much of the original 16 GB is the operating system and how much is left?

Posters with personal accounts of what they have on their iPhones, and how much of the capacity it takes up, would be very appreciated.

Thank you,

Steven

 

[jav6454]

If you have 19GB of music I would highly suggest the 32GB version of the iPhone. Taking into account you can trim your music selection to say 10GB. That only leaves you with 4GBs for apps, movies and pcitures you might take.

16 Gigabytes Unformatted (16,000,000 bytes) is more or less 15.6 Gigabytes formatted (16,384,000 bytes).

So that gives you 15.6GB of max true storage. Of those, set aside 600MB for the OS. You only have a maximum of 15GB. So, the real question is. Can you trim down your music to a max of 8GB? That way you have 7GB to play around with.

After all, 1000 songs (5 min @ 128kbps bitrate) is 5GB. So, more or less 1500 songs. Apps vary by nature. Games are big around 60MB-300MB big, Turn-byTurn apps are ~2GB, other types of application vary from 0.5MB to 50MB (depending on the complexity of the application).

However, if you get the 32GB, you won't run into storage shortages in a while.

 

[Bacong]

I have an 8 GB iPhone 3G. I would love 32 GB, but that's because of music, mainly. I've gotten over that and use the Simplify Media app for all my on the go music needs.

since you probably don't know what it is, Simplify Media allows you to stream all the files you want from a computer to your phone, over Wi-Fi, 3G or EDGE. Works splendidly. If all you need is space for music, get simplify.

Apps do not take up much space on the phone. I have about 40 apps on the phone and it's only taking a few hundred MB. Of course that varies, but still. The iPhone is designed in large capacities for its media capabilities, not for apps.

 

[FXT 1]

If you have 19GB of music I would highly suggest the 32GB version of the iPhone. Taking into account you can trim your music selection to say 10GB. That only leaves you with 4GBs for apps, movies and pcitures you might take.

16 Gigabytes Unformatted (16,000,000 bytes) is more or less 15.6 Gigabytes formatted (16,384,000 bytes).

So that gives you 15.6GB of max true storage. Of those, set aside 600MB for the OS. You only have a maximum of 15GB. So, the real question is. Can you trim down your music to a max of 8GB? That way you have 7GB to play around with.

After all, 1000 songs (5 min @ 128kbps bitrate) is 5GB. So, more or less 1500 songs. Apps vary by nature. Games are big around 60MB-300MB big, Turn-byTurn apps are ~2GB, other types of application vary from 0.5MB to 50MB (depending on the complexity of the application).

However, if you get the 32GB, you won't run into storage shortages in a while.

I have a 16Gb iPhone 3G and i actually get to use 14.6 GB minus my music collection~10GB that leaves me with 4.6GB to play with. I have around 100 Apps on my phone now, after doing a clear out of non-essential/ unused apps and they come to around 1GB.

It does depend on you however, my music and video library continues to ever expand as i add more movies and videos and now apps. I am actually at bursting and am at the point where I can't transfer my whole library to my iPhone.

BTW: Take a look at my signature See the trend?

Hint: Right to Left

 

[-aggie-]

I've already "whittled down" my music as much as I can, and I have 10 GB of that. I have one video at 0.5 GB, OS around 0.3 GB, and pics around 2-3 GB, and I forget what else. The point is I have only 1.5 GB left, and that was after also deleting pics. I have the 3G and if it would have been sold as a 32 GB, I would've bought it. It just depends on how you want to use your phone. For me, I wanted to replace two or more devices with one (iPod, phone, browser, etc >> iPhone).

 

[daihard]

16 Gigabytes Unformatted (16,000,000 bytes) is more or less 15.6 Gigabytes formatted (16,384,000 bytes).

Just to clarify, 16 GB is 16 GB (16,000,000,000 bytes) formatted or unformatted. What you probably mean is that 16,000,000,000 bytes is equivalent of 14.9 GiB (note it's GiB, not GB).

The two units, GB and GiB, can be confusing because the former (GB) is often used interchangeably with the latter (GiB). Apple correctly says 16 GB when they label their iPhone, but iTunes displays its capacity as 14.6 GB - which should really be 14.6 GiB.

Old habits die hard.

 

[jav6454]

Just to clarify, 16 GB is 16 GB (16,000,000,000 bytes) formatted or unformatted. What you probably mean is that 16,000,000,000 bytes is equivalent of 14.9 GiB (note it's GiB, not GB).

The two units, GB and GiB, can be confusing because the former (GB) is often used interchangeably with the latter (GiB). Apple correctly says 16 GB when they label their iPhone, but iTunes displays its capacity as 14.6 GB - which should really be 14.6 GiB.

Old habits die hard.

Old naming convetion of mine. Yes, it's a habit I have to kill or modify. In any case I still stand by my original recommendation of buyng he 32 GB iPhone.

 

[GovtLawyer]

Very Helpful

Well, that was very helpful. I appreciate all the responses. I may be able to get away with the 16GB, after all.

I don't plan on using the phone as a substitute for the iPod. If I'm at the gym, I'd use the Pod. So, if I put only 3GB of music on the phone, it would still be 750 or so songs. More than enough!

I hadn't realized how small the APPS were.

Thanks

 

[The Californian]

I have the 8GB iPhone 3G and that's fine for me ... Now, that said, I have easily 30GB of media including music, movies, podcasts, TV shows etc. I made a conscious decision to not replace my 32GB iPod Touch with an iPhone, I would rather have the two devices. Just my opinion though.

 

[kdarling]

Just to clarify, 16 GB is 16 GB (16,000,000,000 bytes) formatted or unformatted. What you probably mean is that 16,000,000,000 bytes is equivalent of 14.9 GiB (note it's GiB, not GB).

It's still 16GB to us engineers, because memory can only be addressed in binary terms. Especially in this case.

The iPhone uses a raw flash memory chip that has 2^34 = 17,179,869,184 bytes in it. It's not a flash drive. It's not decimal.

What Apple does with the missing bytes is unknown. My own theory is that they deliberately knock down the size, so that no one will be disappointed if they find out their particular device is missing a few hundred MB from the factory (which is still defined as a good chip). The reason flash is cheap is because having even a lot of bad blocks is considered okay.

 

[daihard]

It's still 16GB to us engineers, because memory can only be addressed in binary terms.

Being an engineer myself, I continue to use the old convention (i.e. 1 GB = 2^30 bytes) at work and in my own world. OTOH, the new standards say 1GB = 10^9 bytes and 1 GiB = 2^30 bytes, so engineers or not, we would be better off using the newly established standards in the "real" world in order to reduce confusion.

Especially in this case.

The iPhone uses a raw flash memory chip that has 2^34 = 17,179,869,184 bytes in it. It's not a flash drive. It's not decimal.

That being the case, it is 16 GiB (= 17.2 GB), so it could be called 16 GB in the world of engineering.