I know this is just an aside, but it's really tiring to see people evoke "Steve Jobs would never have stood for this!". You have no idea, and he isn't around to tell you.

But everything I know about the man, he was all about the user experience from top to bottom, end to end. Apple's entire modern reputation is built on that "promise."

The iPhone and iPads deliver on that in many ways, but the 16GB models and the laughable 8GB 5c, fail and they fail hard. The user is often distracted by this limitation, and many have remarked that they haven't install iOS 8 (Apple's latest and greatest) because they cannot.

Jobs was definitely around while they were shipping 16GB and even 8GB devices. But that was a very long time ago and the OS data and apps both continue to grow, while the devices sit dead in the water.

This is the key bit, and it already has caused some changes from Apple - 8.1.3 requires less free space to update.

The 8gb 5c is a terrible user experience though, and it really surprises me that they haven't discontinued it.

But yes I wish they would offer more storage on their product. The 8GB 5c was a weird step backward. Hopefully the next round of phones will address some of the flak they have gotten over storage.

I see no reason I should pay more so that my phone has 28gb free instead of 12gb

If you want more space.. Thate why they sell larger sizes.

Edit: and if there weren't plenty of people like me.. Apple wouldn't be able to sell it and would stop making it.

If Apple made the 32GB the base model and sold it for the same price as the 16GB model, you wouldn't have to pay any more money. It's about time they did this since flash memory is dirt cheap.

That's not how {Apple,the World,business,life} works, young grasshopper.

Moreover Apple could easily double their smallest tier and still have the largest margins in the industry.

Note 4, Nexus 6, Lumia 930, YotaPhone all come with a minimal capacity of 32GB.

There are a range of customers for whom the built in apps, plus a few big names like Facebook and Uber, and maybe google maps, are more than adequate.

Yes, 16GB isn't great for large music or photo collections, but those are solved problems. You can choose from a wide range of streaming options for music, and you can use iCloud Photos to offload your photo storage from the device.

Though the latest update on iOS for 16 iPads was specifically to make updates in the future smaller. (I have one and that's what was described in part of the update)

I use it all the time, but only for browsing the web and for Twitter, and sometimes I'll try the odd game that's getting good press. I don't use it for photos and I don't use it for music.

Doesn't matter -what- the lowest end is, they seem to always set the price in the same place.

Upshot is that dumping 16GB has a pretty high chance of effectively bringing the price of the entire line down a notch.

(edit: downvote by all means, but I don't see any other logic at work here - anyone feel like explaining?)