David Smith: ‘16 GB Is a Bad User Experience’

I linked to this piece in my iPhone 6S review, but it’s worth calling out on its own. David Smith:

For a long time I’ve used the usage data from my Audiobooks app as a indication of what typical iOS usage looks like. It is an old enough app with a wide enough userbase that its data has generally been pretty reflective of what I see reported overall. So while not perfect they should give a good general idea of what customer choices. […]

So amongst customers with 16 GB devices 37% of them have less than 1 GB of space available, compared to just 1% with 64 GB [devices].

I’d say it is pretty fair to say that if you have less than 1GB of data available on your iPhone you are in imminent danger of running out and ruining your day. Taking the 43% of customers with these devices and the 37% of them who fall in that range we have 17% of customers walking around each day with a damoclean sword dangling over their heads.

Apple surely has better data, but according to Smith’s numbers, one out of six iPhone 6 users have less than 1 GB of free space.

★ Thursday, 24 September 2015