For those on tight budgets, standing at the counter trying to decide “which iPhone” is a tough decision. Apple is a past master at overcharging for memory, so the difference between today’s entry-level 16GB iPhone and the next-step 64GB model is $100. It’s $200 if you want 128GB.

Apple has recently increased the allowable size of iPhone apps from 2GB to 4GB. iOS takes up about 4GB, so a next-generation supersized app will eat a lot of a 16GB device. Add a few more apps and you won’t have room for music, movies and all your iPhotos.

My guess is the 16GB model lives just to get people into the store to be “upsold” a model with useful memory. Today, Apple offers the iPhone 6 with 16, 64 and 128GB memory. Each jump adds $100 to the price.

Bringing someone into a store on the basis of low price on an item that really isn’t useful, just to make the upsell is a tacky practice known as bait-and-switch. It plays customers for fools, in this case promising the rich iPhone experience that that 16GB model really cannot give. Apple should just accept it’s not always price-competitive, stop pretending and get on with life.

To wit: Apple should stop selling the 16GB model, bring back a 32GB iPhone as the new entry level and keep or even lower current pricing. Same money, more memory in the entry level iPhone.

A 16GB iPhone is already essentially useless and will become ever more so over not too long a time. Even in international markets, where a smartphone is often the user’s only computer, the need for more space must be acute. Pity the poor souls who somehow end up with a “free” 8GB iPhone 5C. It’s a fine basic smartphone, but not much of an iPhone experience.

Will going to 32GB change the iPhone buying experience? Only for a little while, because as apps grow and media gets larger, we will soon have the same dilemma as to how much iPhone is enough. It will turn out that 32GB is about as useful as today’s 16GB. Life goes on.

photo credit: Janitors via photopin cc