There are a lot to like about the new iPhone lineup: New a new one Even iPhone, if that’s your business. However, all new phones share an important upgrade you might miss during Apple’s 72-minute live stream: They all start with 256GB of storage.
For the first time in four years, Apple has increased the basic storage space of the entire iPhone series. Since the iPhone 13, Apple’s phones have launched 128GB for the cheapest configuration. Now, the iPhone 17, 17 Pro and iPhone Air will start with twice the capacity.
It’s time.
While 128GB may sound like a certain amount of storage, it doesn’t make sense as a basic storage space for a while, especially for a parent phone with a more powerful camera. Apple seems to have understood for a while: the Pro Max version started at 256GB in the past two years (when the iPhone 15 lineup was launched). But there is absolutely no reason only those who buy the most expensive iPhones can get storage dents.
Because I wrote about technology, my friends and family often asked me for help “solving” their cell phone problems. (I report most of the time in the social media industry, so usually this involves me googling their specific issues and getting stuck.) I lost track of the Times and friends asked me to ask for help fix things to boil down to them that they simply don’t have enough storage left on their phones. And, almost every time, they only have the lowest standardized 128GB of storage since the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 13 series.
But no one wants to hear: “You don’t have enough storage space and need to delete content.” A friend of mine recently vowed not to buy the cheapest iPhone again, because I explained that paying for the extra iCloud wouldn’t solve the problem around her local storage.
But if you can afford it, it’s still worth paying for storage upgrades. Yes, an extra $200 fee for 1TB on the Pro series (now $1999 for 2TB). It makes an already expensive phone feel like a bigger investment. But I don’t regret paying the extra extra cost when I shelled out for people with the 512GB iPhone 14 Pro three years ago.
I’m currently using about 295GB of my allocated storage space and never thought about whether I need to clear the downloaded media or if I have enough storage to take pictures of my nephew in Proraw Max or record a movie video on vacation. I plan to keep this phone at least again and I hope I still have enough storage when I decide to upgrade (extra storage will also help with resale or at transaction value).
But if you just can’t get yourself to pay extra for more capacity – I know, I do – jumping from 128GB to 256GB is still a meaningful bump. You may not notice it immediately, but it should give most people a lot of extra time before you can start seeing those horrible “storage almost complete” popups.
