14 DAY TRIAL // There are only a few weeks left until the iPhone 8 finally sees daylight for the very first time, and new information that reached the web today indicates that in addition to the changes we all heard about in the last few months, there are some other upgrades under the hood that Apple is also planning.
One of them is a hefty storage upgrade, according to Geekbar, as Apple wants the top-of-the-range iPhone 8 to come with 512GB storage space.
Basically, the iPhone 8 will be offered in three different storage versions, namely 64GB, 256GB, and 512GB. The first of them will be the base model, so the most affordable iPhone 8 will double storage capacity from 32GB currently on the iPhone 8.
A 256GB storage version of the iPhone 8 isn’t something entirely new, as claims of such an upgrade first appeared earlier this year, but bumping the high-end version to 512GB is certainly surprising.
Storage chips manufactured by different companies
On the other hand, it’s something that appears to align with Apple’s plans, especially because a 512GB version is already offered on the iPad Pro. Given Apple’s efforts to keep iPhones and iPads in sync, this plan appears to make sense, mostly as besides iCloud, the company isn’t offering any other option to boost storage capacity on an iPhone.
Furthermore, given the HEIF/HEVC camera formats that Apple introduces in iOS 11, and which cuts storage needed for photos and videos by a substantial amount, iPhone users with 512GB storage would benefit from a hefty upgrade that brings it close to the capacity of a modern storage drive, like an SSD.
The aforementioned source says the NAND chips will be manufactured by various companies, depending on how big the storage capacity is in the first place. The 64GB and 256GB chips will be made by Toshiba and Sandisk, while the 512GB storage for the top iPhone will be manufactured by Samsung and Hynix.
Certainly, boosting the iPhone storage to 512GB is a welcome improvement, and with 4K recordings becoming more of a common thing, it’s something that sooner or later had to be done.
A confirmation of the iPhone storage versions will be offered in just a few weeks when Apple officially takes the wraps off the 2017 lineup of devices.