upgrade hard drive?

[bigwag]

Will the iphone hard drive be able to be replace by a higher capacity drive such as 20,30,40,60, 80 gigs? I want a phone that will replace my Ipod

[spacerog]

There is NO hard drive in an iPhone.

It is Flash RAM. Upgrades are unlikely if not impossible.

An 20GB iPhone is probably a long way off, like years away.

An iPhone is not supposed to replace your iPod.

- SR

[alb0zf1n3st]

Will the iphone hard drive be able to be replace by a higher capacity drive such as 20,30,40,60, 80 gigs? I want a phone that will replace my Ipod

definately not anytime soon

[bigwag]

An iPhone is not supposed to replace your iPod.

- SR

I know, thats why I wanted to find out if I can add capacity to it. I want a phone that will replace my ipod

[tharmsen]

I know, thats why I wanted to find out if I can add capacity to it. I want a phone that will replace my ipod

It takes a little work to create play lists, but I have replaced my 60GB iPod with my iPhone. There is no way you will listen to 15,000+ songs in a day, or even a week. So, you can put 1,000 of those on your 8GB phone via play lists and mix it up every so often. I really don't see why you need to have thousands of songs with you every day... :)

[alb0zf1n3st]

You can put about 1,000 that should be enough I mean if you get bored change it up whats so bad about that

[bigwag]

I don't think there is anything bad about it. But I like to listen to full albums sometimes, sometimes out of the blue I feel like listening to a certain artist or CD that I dont normally listen to so I like to have my music available to me. I also like to keep different music with me when going to parties and what not, Sure 1000 songs is a lot but I want more. I would rather be able to choose from all of my CD's then to only be able to choose from 50 of my CD's instead of all 200 of them. (200 is just a made up number)

[jbaraga]

It takes a little work to create play lists, but I have replaced my 60GB iPod with my iPhone. There is no way you will listen to 15,000+ songs in a day, or even a week. So, you can put 1,000 of those on your 8GB phone via play lists and mix it up every so often. I really don't see why you need to have thousands of songs with you every day... :)

Same here. I've found myself being more selective/economical with how I load my iPhone up, and it's working out well. Instead of just dumping entire albums onto the device, I pick and choose which songs I want. It takes a little longer to create a playlist, but I don't mind. The 1,000+ songs I can fit on my 8 GB is more than enough. I still use my iPod in the car and at work - places where I know I'm going to need lots of music for a long period of time.

[spacerog]

Exactly, I use the iPod at home, work and in the car. But when I am out and about, on the bus, jogging, etc... I use the iPhone. They are two different products that serve two different needs. One does not, and can not, replace the other.

I use a Smart list for my iPhone, Not played in last 20 days, no skip counts greater than 2, rating greater than 3. That way I know the iPhone will always have the 'cool' music. I take about 700MB or so on the iPhone and leave the rest on the iPod.

- SR

[bigwag]

Exactly, I use the iPod at home, work and in the car. But when I am out and about, on the bus, jogging, etc... I use the iPhone. They are two different products that serve two different needs. One does not, and can not, replace the other.


Yeah I understand all that but wouldnt everyone rather have one device and all associated accessore than twice as much? And don't tell me one can't replace the other. It could be done, they just want to make a bunch of money selling smaller capacity ones before they decided to offer higher capacity

[oriolesfan23]

My iPhone replaced my iPod. 8GB is plenty. I fit all my 400 songs and a few movies as well.

[minivini]

Yeah I understand all that but wouldnt everyone rather have one device and all associated accessore than twice as much? And don't tell me one can't replace the other. It could be done, they just want to make a bunch of money selling smaller capacity ones before they decided to offer higher capacity

Sounds like you are arguing semantics. The iPhone can NOT be upgraded with a larger hard drive because, as has been said, the iPhone doesn't use a HD, but flash memory. In theory, you may could add a larger capacity RAM chip, but then would the OS still support it? No one outside Apple knows, and I doubt many are willing to be the first few guinea pigs to risk killing their beloved dream toy to find out.

As to whether or not it could ever "replace" your iPod? Again, it was not designed to. It is a converged device which means very simply, certain compromises had to be made to be able to get it to do everything that it does. At it's current size and profile, making it able to accomodate a week's worth of songs isn't a choice.

Find a company like XDA Developers and offer your phone to them to experiment with the whole RAM thing. If it works, you'll be a household name to iPhonies! If not, well, you'll have your answer. There are 64GB RAM chips out there and a 256GB RAM SATA drive available...

Now, if Apple would open up BlueTooth to serial apps, you could use a BlueTooth hard drive (like Seagate's DAVE when it is finally released). But, that's a whole other topic to complain about...

[spacerog]

Yeah I understand all that but wouldnt everyone rather have one device and all associated accessore than twice as much? And don't tell me one can't replace the other. It could be done, they just want to make a bunch of money selling smaller capacity ones before they decided to offer higher capacity

Dude, no, thats not the reason. If you had a 20GB iPhone you would have to use either Flash or a hard drive. if you use a hard drive there is no room for anything else or it would end up twice the size, if you use 20GB of flash there goes your battery life. This is isn't about making the most money by screwing consumers it is about limitations of todays technology

If it was feasible to make a 20GB iPhone right now they would do it. It is just not feasible. The iPhone s not marketed or intended to be an iPod replacement. It is a cell phone that also plays music. It is not an iPod that makes phone calls. A subtle but distinct difference.

- SR

[vansouza]

Give the boys at OWC a chance and in a while you should be able to get it changed out ... likely get your battery replaced at the same time.:gasp:

[bigwag]

Sounds like you are arguing semantics. The iPhone can NOT be upgraded with a larger hard drive because, as has been said, the iPhone doesn't use a HD, but flash memory. In theory, you may could add a larger capacity RAM chip, but then would the OS still support it? No one outside Apple knows, and I doubt many are willing to be the first few guinea pigs to risk killing their beloved dream toy to find out.

As to whether or not it could ever "replace" your iPod? Again, it was not designed to. It is a converged device which means very simply, certain compromises had to be made to be able to get it to do everything that it does. At it's current size and profile, making it able to accomodate a week's worth of songs isn't a choice.



I am not arguing that you can just throw a bigger hard drive in the iphone and it work. Originally I wanted to know if it was possible and found out that it cant. Then for some reason I had to argue why I would want more than 8 gigs. Seems like it would pretty obvious why one would want more than 8 gigs. But when I was told that iphone cannot replace an ipod i have to disagree with that. Don't tell me it wouldn't be the cats ass for an ipod and a cell phone to be one. That would be ideal and Apple should know that or they are stupid. If they wanted to they would seek out ways to build it. But why would they do that when they can get people to buy 2 items instead of one

[tharmsen]

Yeah I understand all that but wouldnt everyone rather have one device and all associated accessore than twice as much? And don't tell me one can't replace the other. It could be done, they just want to make a bunch of money selling smaller capacity ones before they decided to offer higher capacity
Yes, I would rather have one device but the reality of it is that the technology isn't there. If you think $600 is bad for an 8GB iPhone, try paying over $1,600 for a 20GB iPhone that would be twice the size or more (that's figuring RAM at $50 a Gig... based on my buying 1GB strips for my PC last week for $40). If they did it with a hard drive like in the iPod, then you would have the same horrible battery life. So, until the technology evolves be happy that 8GB is available, it's an amazing amount of memory.

I'm sitting here looking at an old (2000) Mac PowerBook G3 Series II with a 6GB hard drive. LOL. How things change...

[tharmsen]

Seems like it would pretty obvious why one would want more than 8 gigs.
I would like to have a terabyte of memory, a 8" screen that folds into 2", voice recognition so good that we don't need a keypad... but the reality is we're stuck where we are for a reason -- technological limits.

The iPhone was designed to be a phone first and an iPod second. It uses memory vs. a hard drive for size, weight and power consumption reasons. If you want a phone this size that sucks power like a 5G iPod playing video:

http://userpages.umbc.edu/~nohe/Indicium/Ref/RUDI_KROLLOP.JPG

...well, not many people would be there with ya. :)

If I could change one thing, I would have asked that Apple would have given the iPhone an expansion slot so we could add 2GB and 4GB.. maybe even more down the road. Oh well, I'm happy with my 8GB.

[bigwag]

I only have a 4th generation ipod so i dunno the battery sucking power of a 5G video. But theres no way Apple could make something now without color/video i guess. Maybe I will just glue the back of my ipod to the back of my cell phone

[spacerog]

If they wanted to they would seek out ways to build it.

You are correct, if they wanted to they could build a 20GB iPhone right now. Absolutely. But it would be twice the size with half the battery life and no one would buy it.

- SR

[tharmsen]

You are correct, if they wanted to they could build a 20GB iPhone right now. Absolutely. But it would be twice the size with half the battery life and no one would buy it.

- SR
...and 3x's the cost or more.

[iJohn]

It takes a little work to create play lists, but I have replaced my 60GB iPod with my iPhone. There is no way you will listen to 15,000+ songs in a day, or even a week. So, you can put 1,000 of those on your 8GB phone via play lists and mix it up every so often. I really don't see why you need to have thousands of songs with you every day... :)

Exactly. I have way more than 8GB of music, but I realized I dont listen to all of it all that often so I picked specific playlists like the one of my recent purchases, etc.

[everythingiphone123]

There is NO hard drive in an iPhone.

It is Flash RAM. Upgrades are unlikely if not impossible.

An 20GB iPhone is probably a long way off, like years away.

An iPhone is not supposed to replace your iPod.

- SR
it replaced mine...

[minivini]

Actually, I don't think it would affect size at all to make the flash memory higher capacity. The actual chips on circuit board in an SD card just get smaller. The chips in an 8GB SD card are smaller than the chips in a 1GB card, there are just more of them filling the same space. Apple could easily incorporate a 32GB flash memory in the iPhone - they just didn't. It'd be hard to argue that it's not economics. Higher capacity chips are obviously more expensive, plus Apple doesn't want to canibalize the iPod market too much with this device. What they've created is a converged device with all the compromises that should be expected as such - they have just designed a more elegant device than Palm or WM running devices.

Now, would dramatically increasing the mem capacity use a little more battery? I don't know. It doesn't seem like it would, but really, it's a question worth asking...

I don't see why, in the not too distant future, some company will happily take some of your money and your iPhone and put a larger flash mem in it. I just hope Apple decides to give us a file system...