Apple is facing a lawsuit regarding the amount of storage on iOS devices, challenging “storage capacity misrepresentations and omissions relating to use of Apple’s iOS 8 operating system.” The lawsuit states that “Defendant fails to disclose to consumers that as much as 23.1% of the advertised storage capacity of the Devices will be consumed by iOS 8 and unavailable for consumers when consumers purchase Devices that have iOS 8 installed. Reasonable consumers, such as Plaintiff, do not expect this marked discrepancy between the advertised level of capacity and the available capacity of the Devices, as the operating system and other storage space unavailable to consumers occupies an extraordinary percentage of their Devices’ limited storage capacity.”
Calculating Storage Space
Some websites have derided this lawsuit, calling it “dumb,” but I don’t think it’s that dumb. I recently did a test, showing how much space you get on a 16 GB iPad mini – which is 12.73 GB after installing iOS 8 – and how little is left after you install all of Apple’s own apps, the ones the nudge you to add to the device. (I note that the complaint cites my article on page 7, as evidence of the amount of space available on an iPad after installing iOS 8.)
There’s also the case of “Other” space that is wasted. In my test, after installing iOS 8 and a number of apps, the iPad had over 1 GB of wasted space which displays as Other. (My 64 GB iPhone 5s currently shows over 2.5 GB Other space, and that number often gets up to 3-4 GB.)
It’s common for iOS devices to have several GB of wasted space, because of Apple’s insufficient garbage collection routines. The only way to reclaim this space is to restore the device, and, even then, as in the example above, there is still a substantial chunk of space used.
The lawsuit also highlights the fact that iOS 8 takes up substantially more space than iOS 7, saying, “Plaintiff upgraded to iOS 8 with the belief that the upgrade would not substantially inhibit his available storage capacity. Defendant did not disclose in conjunction with upgrades to iOS 8 the additional storage capacity that would be consumed by the upgrade.” And, later, “Apple fails to disclose that upgrading from iOS 7 to iOS 8 will cost a Device user between 600 MB and 1.3 GB of storage space — a result that no consumer could reasonably anticipate.”
I agree that Apple should warn users about how much space the new OS will take up, perhaps stating that it will use X GB more than the previous version, or explain that if the current amount of free space is X GB, after the upgrade it will only by Y GB.
The space problem is compounded as there are more and larger displays for iOS devices. Since apps you install contain all the graphics for all available devices, they are getting bigger and bigger. It would make sense for iTunes – or iOS devices – to only install the graphics that specific devices need. This said, I understand why Apple does not do this. If you download an app to an older iPhone, then transfer the purchase to iTunes to later use on a larger device, the transferred app won’t have all the elements the larger device needs. Nevertheless, Apple could fix this, with a system that downloads all the app’s assets after you transfer the purchase.
Your Gigabytes Are Not the Same as My Gigabytes
The lawsuit also states:
“Defendant advertises the Devices using the decimal definition gigabyte, or GB.
Therefore the capacity of 8 GB Devices is advertised by Defendant as 8 billion bytes. The storage capacity of 16 GB devices is advertised as 16 billion bytes.
“In reality, nothing close to the advertised capacity of the Devices is available to end users. Indeed, the discrepancy between advertised and available capacity is substantial and beyond any possible reasonable expectation. For the Devices, the shortfall ranges from 18.1-23.1%.
“As noted above, although Defendant advertised based upon the decimal-based system of measurement, upon information and belief, the Devices display available capacity based upon the binary definitions. This is confusing even to the technically savvy because it prevents consumers from making the proverbial “apples to apples” comparison. Exacerbating this confusion is the fact that rather than using the GiB representation, as suggested by the ISQ, the graphic interface used on the Devices uses the abbreviation GB, even though it is apparently referring to gibibytes and not gigabytes.”
I confess that I no longer know which system is used on which device. Apple changed the way they present the hard drives on their devices several years ago, when OS X Snow Leopard was released. This led to users noting a large difference in the amount of space on their hard drives; yet this was just do to a different way of calculating hard drive space. Of course, the difference is much less important on a desktop device, which generally has much more storage (256 GB is the norm for SSDs; 1 TB or more for hard drives) than mobile devices, and it’s easy to connect an external hard drive if you need more storage. But it would be good for all manufacturers to straighten this out.
Apple explains the way they calculate, but this comes off as niggardly. The company says:
“The way decimal and binary numeral systems measure a GB is what causes a 32 GB storage device to appear as approximately 28 GB when detailed by its operating system, even though the storage device still has 32 billion bytes (not 28 billion bytes), as reported.”
But if that’s the case, why market the device as a 32 GB device, and deceive users? In other words, on the box it’s 32 GB, but one you connect it to iTunes, or check the Settings app, it’s only 28 GB. That’s just lying. You wouldn’t be able to get away with this for any other type of consumer product.
One more thing. The lawsuit mentions a pop-up add that offers to sell iCloud storage when a device becomes full. Well, it’s just wrong; I tested it. When the device is full, you get an alert telling you so; it doesn’t try to sell you anything. I suspect that the ad they discuss displays when your iCloud storage is getting full, and that has nothing to do with the device storage issue for which the lawsuit was filed.
So, this lawsuit may simply be a way for lawyers to make money, but I’m glad that it’s bringing this issue out in the open. I think the courts must decide whether it is legal to advertise a device using one system of calculating its storage, then, when you use the device, present a different system. It allows hardware manufactures – and not just Apple – to essentially lie about the amount of storage you get on your hardware. This doesn’t change the amount of storage your device has, but these numbers should be consistent.