Apple is convinced that 128 GB of memory is enough/freepik
The Samsung S20 in 2020 came with 128 GB of basic memory, and the iPhone 12, released in the same year , had a base memory of 64 GB. Unfortunately, it's 2024 and Apple is still offering the base iPhone 15 with 128GB of storage.
While the company is doing what it's doing, things look bleak when it advertises the iPhone's 128GB storage as “a lot of storage” in its iPhone 15 ad campaign.
Apple released an ad on YouTube titled “iPhone 15 Storage” proudly showing off the 128GB of storage on the iPhone 15. The ad shows a user trying to delete photos from their iPhone 15 to save storage space, and background music is playing “Don't Let Me Go” by Terras Martin. The ad ends with the message “Lots of storage for lots of photos” and “Relax, it's the iPhone 15”.
Well, Apple, it's 2024, and 128GB – it is not so much. Either this ad is self-serving by Apple's marketing team to create more criticism of the base memory option, which hasn't changed since the iPhone 13, or Apple has lost touch with reality.
When you do iPhone 15 photo with 1x focal length and JPEG Max format, it comes out to be about 7.5 MB in size. Given the size of a single photo on the iPhone 15 using the 48MP camera, we don't think 128GB is “a lot of storage” by any means. If you record a 4K video on the iPhone 15, a 20-second video will take up about 126MB, which again undermines Apple's claims.
Apple says the iPhone 15's 128GB is plenty: watch video
In my experience, these 4K 60fps videos and photos will fill up storage faster than light. We have a base iPhone 13 Pro Max with the same “large amount of storage” and at some point we had to think about deleting apps or photos to free up memory.
When system data on an iPhone eats up about 4GB on average, and with each iOS update, the storage space shrinks, Apple's cost-cutting affects you.