
Marco Arment: "Everyone should play by the same rules.
A proposal: storage capacities referenced or implied in the names or advertisements for personal computers, tablets, and smartphones should not exceed the amount of space available for end-user installation of third-party applications and data, after enough software has been installed to enable all commonly advertised functionality. With today's OSes, iPads could advertise capacities no larger than 12, 28, 60, and 124 GB and the Surface Pros could be named 23 and 83 GB." Wholly agreed. When I buy a box of 100 staples, I expect it to contain ~100 staples - not 50 because the other 50 are holding the box together.
Member since:
2011-05-12
i totally agree, but I mean this:
You bought a 16 GB iPhone 3GS a few years ago. Let's say iOS 4, with which it came IIRC, and the default apps use up 3 GB, so it should be sold as a 13 GB iPhone 3GS. But then iOS 5 arrives at 4 GB and then iOS 6 and 5 GB. Then would mean a 13 GB iPhone 3GS has 16 GB of storage, but can hold only 11 GB of user content.
If we kept the system as it is it would remain a 16 GB iPhone 3GS and we would/should know if you update it you may have less storage available for other stuff.
So why not sell Surface and that Nexus for what they are, but put a note on the website or in the store indicating how much memory is available for users. If the OS gets upgraded and things change it remains the same device, you should change the note.
If you introduce this new system, you will still have devices from the old one. I already find it confusing a GB or TB can have different values with regards to hard disks depending on the manufacturer and date. Now a GB on a hard disk != to a GB of RAM or sometimes it is.