TECH TALK
By Tak Sato
I often get ideas for Tech Talk from older adults in my digital literacy classes. I’ve written about artificial intelligence (AI) and how smartphones use mobile data and Wi-Fi. A third popular topic is how smartphones use cloud storage. The question is often triggered by a cryptic message saying they’ve run out of storage space. Let me set the stage with a simple analogy.
In the real world, where we physically exist, I’ve noticed an uptick in storage units that spring up in an orderly, apartment-like fashion in suburban areas. My hunch is that most offsite storage renters make space at home by moving things to offsite storage.
With the ubiquity of a smartphone connected to the cloud 24/7, and with the touch of a screen, changing it from a phone to a camera, we can capture Kodak moments without using an actual camera. Using a smartphone as a digital camera or video camera creates photo and video files. Those files need to be stored either on the smartphone’s internal storage space and/or copied (backed up) to cloud storage.
More Space
Barring expensive remodeling, your house has fixed square-footage space. Like your home, your smartphone’s internal storage is, for most makes and models, not expandable. In the early days of smartphones, Android smartphones’ internal storage was expandable. Eventually, most manufacturers jettisoned that capability due to, ironically, cloud storage’s proliferation. Apple iPhones, on the other hand, never could expand their internal storage and always relied on cloud storage.
Google and Apple’s cloud storage offerings, “Drive” and “iCloud” (notice the “i” prefix which is the signature Apple branding) respectively, provide free cloud storage space, anywhere from 10% to 20% of your smartphone’s internal storage space, depending on the model.
When you set up an Android-based smartphone with a Google Account, you can use Google Apps like Gmail (email) or Photos (digital picture album with backup to cloud storage functionality built in). They will ask if you want your photos/videos to be backed up to Drive at full resolution (original picture quality) or slightly reduced resolution so your free cloud storage fills up more slowly.
Apple’s approach is the opposite of Google’s. Apple tries to save space on the smartphone’s internal storage instead of the cloud storage. iPhones/iPads/Macs have a user-selectable option called “iCloud Photo.” If you turn it on, full-resolution images are stored in iCloud while lower resolution (but images sharp enough for viewing on the device’s screen) are stored on the smartphone’s internal storage.
As you probably guessed, both Apple and Google will sell you more storage space for a small monthly subscription fee. This is akin to upgrading to a bigger storage unit so you can transport more stuff from your home into the storage units.
The good news is that both Apple and Google’s fees are relatively reasonable, akin to one or two overpriced cups of coffee a month, more if you store videos. Google provides 15GB of free cloud storage space while Apple gives you 5GB. Google “Google One pricing” or “Apple iCloud+ pricing” for details.
One note: Apple users who are not sure if iCloud Photo is good for your situation, or if you’re already using it and want to stop, should visit the Apple stores at Crocker Park (westside) or Eton Place (eastside). Changing the setting midstream may require additional steps to ensure that you don’t inadvertently lose photos or videos.
