03 January 2015

Available capacity

Over at iMore, they’d published a piece titled: “Apple sued for false advertising by plaintiffs that don't understand iPhone digital storage” It seems they’ve since removed or edited it. But I’m responding to it anyway.

Just because it is industry practice to advertise total capacity instead of available capacity doesn’t make it right. It makes zero sense to advertise any capacity other than what’s available for the user’s use. A number that is always some arbitrary size bigger than what is usable doesn’t tell the customer anything anything.

The fact that available capacity varies is no excuse. They just have to advertise a conservative value that they know will always be available for the user’s use. (Available at the time of sale. If a system update would take up all the headroom, the user can be warned about that before updating.) If things change more than expected so that new devices come with less available space than that conservative value, they need to update their specs and advertising accordingly.

Will that be expensive? I’m sure it will be, but cost is not an excuse for not being honest with your customers.

It isn’t just Apple that needs to change. It’s the industry.

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