http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/sep/2...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/sep/2...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/sep/2...

The more you give me, the more data I'll carry. Simple fact. I will never be able to carry enough music, enough video or enough pictures.

Include in that space to create video/images/music etc… and you get the idea.
The dude is wrong.

The other factor is the App Store, I now have just over 2GB of app data on my phone, surely this will be 4GB by the end of the year?

So yeah, you can never have enough onboard memory. That or a stupidly fast cloud connection! ^_^

1. as I use my iPhone more in favour of my 80G iPod (with 50G of content), I can see this perhaps becoming an issue unless I can easily update my content over the air whilst away from home – especially overseas, and

2. I use both handsets, especially the N95, in favour of memory stick – lack of storage used to be an issue when “cloud services” weren't available and enterprise security policies made up/ down loading files neigh on impossible

I think to answer your question, for geeks etc. you can never have enough storage space

For normobs, there will come a point where the amount of storage is irrelevant (if indeed it ever was). I'm sure this will parallel the pc world – when I had a 20G drive, I was always thinking disk space; now I have 750G, I don't pay much attention to how much of it is free! IMHO, for a phone with camera, music and video 40G will be as much as is needed.

That's a one word answer.

F*****g hell yes.

Ok, three but the point is the same!

Never have enough storage.

Only about 500Mb on the device is actually used from the phone (Tom Tom maps and music).

The thing is, the laws of physics (and that pesky Moore guy) will dictate, in the next decade, what is used.

We've seen a bunch of services launch then slowly fade, that offer MP3 locker/cloud/whatever functionality. The truth is, to sustain a seamless 160kbps stream (the minimum for ok quality) of audio, while mobile, you need serious overhead. That overhead doesn't come cheap. Networks are not dimensioned for it, and end-to-end IP transport mechanisms are not yet wide-spread enough. Result = rubbish.

What will happen much, much quicker than reliable, pervasive megabit speeds to handsets is memory card capacity. Within 3 years the *average* mobile's memory card will be circa 20GB. That's all the poxy 512MB cards given away now, becoming the equivalent of a not-too-shabby iPod. Sideloading mechanisms between handsets, PC's and stores does need a kicking along, but this is happening. DoubleTwist have invented a so-far legal way to get your AAC+ files into MP3 and on your devices, but this is a f-ugly precursor of what will be standard functionality 3 years hence.

SanDisk just announced a 16GB MicroSD card – out soon. You can buy a 32GB SD card for £70 now. Pity handsets have moved to MicroSD in the meantime, but the intent is there to deliver 32GB MicroSD within the year. So that's one card for all your music, one card for movies. Sorted.

Why faff around with the cloud and all its issues – when offline, in 2G or dodgy 3G, you are stuffed. Just carry it all, all the time. Watching on a big screen? Listening on a decent stereo, or in the car? Just bang the card into whatever slot's nearby. Or send via FM / Bluetooth / WiFi.

Keep the cloud for real-time sync of data – Contacts, SMS, email – and the cards for heavy media.

…..

But I've been wildly wrong 9 times out of 10

…..

/m

mac