Apple's solution is to go sync those gigs on Apple's cloud and keep paying a monthly fee for it.
No thanks.
I paid Apple for making choices for me and building products for my wants and needs. Now, its made for the 'vast majority'.
I know more people like me and I see a niche market emerging that I hope someone addresses.
It's like an extra $150. Stretched out over 24 monthly payments. Big whoop.
> Apple's solution is to go sync those gigs on Apple's cloud and keep paying a monthly fee for it.
This is exactly what I do. Totally worth it.
> You can't swap it and if the phone dies, you've probably lost everything or it's going to cost you dear to get that data out.
You can download and back up your cloud data onto physical drives. All of my photos and music are stored on multiple redundant drives. And because it's also on the cloud, when I get a new phone all of my data is available instantly. It's seamless.
> I know more people like me and I see a niche market emerging that I hope someone addresses.
I see commercials for Android phones with SD card slots, so it's already being addressed.
No. Why then? Lock-in, that's why.
Like someone else on this thread rightly said, Impracticality is the feature here and clearly intentional.
Apple may have gained customers like yourself. They sure have lost customers like me.
And to the best of my knowledge, the main reason wasn't lock-in or planned obsolescence: it was Steve Jobs' desire for as little as possible to get in the way of the aesthetic and design of the iPhone.
Sure, you may find that to be a dumb reason, but it's a far cry from the cartoon villain a lot of people seem to enjoy making Apple out to be, rubbing its hands together with a cackling laugh as it sits on its mountain of money. (...Well, the mountain of money part is true, actually.)
I always buy the max storage iPhone, and every time I fill up maybe a third of it - after years of use.
The vast majority of people really don't care about this.