Data Backup Digest

Having enough storage space has been an issue ever since data storage drives existed. The amount of data stored continues to grow by the day, as does the actual size of the files. While this is fairly easily resolved on desktop and laptops thanks to expandable storage and external drives, it’s a bit of a bigger issue on handheld devices.

A camera app called IceCream carried out a survey to find out what the storage situation was like for iPhone users. However, it’s worth bearing in mind that one of the claims of this app is that it doesn’t run out of space like traditional camera apps – thus it’s in their favour to make the storage situation seem bad as it promotes use of their app.

Nevertheless, the app asked UK network carrier O2 about iPhone storage space within the country. They found that 91 percent of iPhones in the UK have 16GB or less of storage. iPhones are expensive enough as it is and it seems that a lot of customers are trying to keep the cost down by opting for lower storage devices.

Although Apple do offer models of the iPhone 6 in 16GB, 64GB or 128GB, the former isn’t useful on the device thanks to the size of the operating system. As such, the tech firm do their best to push customers towards the higher-space models. That may pay off in the future, but at the moment the majority of iOS owners have lower storage.

The survey takes into account different types of iPhones, like the 5S and 5C, which have varying capacities on offer. However, the operating system continues to be updated on these devices, which gets bigger each time and takes up vital space on user’s phones. For example, the most recent iOS 8 update occupies 4.46GB of free space.

The survey found that 8 percent of users ran out of storage space daily, 12 percent at least once a week and 22 percent at least once a month. Although cloud services are widely available, with Apple offering their own through iCloud, there’s still a lot of data that has to be stored on the local device like the operating system or app data.

Unlike Android devices, iPhones cannot be expanded through microSD cards, meaning that users are stuck with the storage space that the phone comes with. When a 2012 report shows that the size of iPhone apps have increased by 16 percent over a few months, it’s not a surprised that the storage space Apple offer is becoming troublesome for some.

The survey found that 41 percent of people have over 500 photos on their phone, with each one approximately 2MB in size. As such, having too many photos stored on your phone can also quickly clog up the storage space. Unless these are needed, it’s best to transfer these to your computer whenever possible in order to keep the storage space free.

Apple are unlikely to offer expandable storage on their devices, a move which likely pushes their customers to upgrade to the latest handset when their upgrade period rolls round.