There’s a lot to like about the new iPhone lineup: new selfie cameras, a new unibody frame and a even a super-thin iPhone, if that’s your thing. All of the new phones share one important upgrade you might have missed during Apple’s 72-minute livestream, though: they all start at 256GB of storage.
For the first time in four years, Apple raised the base-level storage on its entire iPhone lineup. Since the iPhone 13, Apple’s phones have started at 128GB for the cheapest configuration. Now, the iPhone 17, 17 Pro and iPhone Air will start with double that capacity.
It’s about time.
While 128GB may sound like a decent amount of storage, it hasn’t made sense as a base amount of storage for some time, particularly for Pro-level phones, which have much more powerful cameras. Apple has seemingly understood this for a while: for the last two years (when the iPhone 15 lineup launched), the Pro Max versions have started at 256GB. But there’s absolutely no reason that only people buying the most expensive iPhone should get a storage bump.
Because I write about tech, my friends and family often ask me for help “fixing” various problems with their phones. (I spend most of my time reporting on the social media industry, so usually this involves me just Googling their specific issue and muddling through.) I’ve lost track of the times friends have asked me for help fixing things that boil down to the fact that they simply don’t have enough storage left on their phone. And, almost every time, they only have the minimum 128GB of storage that’s come standard since the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 13 line.
But no one wants to hear: “you don’t have enough storage, you need to delete stuff.” One of my friends recently vowed to never buy the cheapest iPhone again, after I explained that paying for extra iCloud wouldn’t address her issues around local storage.
But if you can afford it, paying for a storage upgrade is still worth it. Yes, paying the $200 extra for 512GB for $400 more for 1TB on the Pro series (which now maxes out at $1999 for 2TB) stings. It makes an already-expensive phone feel like an even bigger investment. But as someone who shelled out for a 512GB iPhone 14 Pro three years ago, I have no regrets about paying that extra premium.
I’m currently using about 295GB of my allotted storage and have never once had to think about whether I need to clear out my downloaded media or if I have enough storage to shoot photos of my nephew in ProRAW Max or record cinematic videos on vacation. I plan on keeping this phone at least another year and I expect I’ll still have plenty of storage left by the time I do decide to upgrade (extra storage also helps a bit with resale or trade-in value).
But, if you just can’t bring yourself to pay extra for more capacity — and I get it, I really do — jumping from 128GB to 256GB will still be a meaningful bump. You might not notice it right away, but it should give most people a lot of extra time before they start seeing those dreaded “storage almost full” pop-ups.
