IPhone 4 32GB Stores 20%+ Less Audio Than 3GS 32GB?

Question

It is an undisputed fact that I can store a LOT more audio on my 3.2GB 3GS (on O/S 3.1.3) than I can on my new iPhone 4 32GB. I mean a LOT less - like 20%.
I loaded the EXACT same settings, apps and songs into the iPhone 4 using a 3GS backup. Absolutely no difference. When I tried to syncronize the first time, it loaded the settings fine until it started to copy the songs over. I got an error message saying there was not enough room. I was going to be 3GB short! Yes, I lost 3GB of available audio storage on my iPhone 4 32GB vs 3GS 32GB.
I cancelled this operation and looked at the total "available" capacity of each device. The iPhone 4 was at 29.1GB and the 3GS was at 29.3 - the iPhone 4 obviously reserves slightly more for OS 4, but not significant enough to account for the 3GB less music storage.
I thought the error message might be a fluke, so I loaded my audio in little chunks until I reached capacity, and sure enough, I could load about 20% less songs than in my 3GS.
So what's up here? It makes no sense to me. One thing to note is that I'm using the on-the-fly 128 kbps conversion option (checkbox on the "summary" page when syncing). Since I copied over most songs on my 3GS when I was using iTunes 9.1 and OS 3.1.3, it could be that iTunes 9.2 (maybe in combination with OS 4) has a less efficient conversion routine when converting a 256 kpbs song to 128 kpbs. Or maybe OS 4 is reserving more space per song for some reason.
This probably (and hopefully) has nothing to do with the iPhone 4 hardware itself, I would guess, There's something going on with the conversion of audio that's less efficient in iTunes 9.2 or in O/S 4. On my iPhone 4, my summary page says I have 25.17GB of audio loaded - this represents 4,638 songs loaded. On my 3GS, it takes 23.56GB to store 5,333 songs.
Note that the 4,638 songs loaded on my iPhone 4 are a SUBSET of the 5,333 songs on my 3GS, meaning that all 4,638 songs are included in the 5,333 songs that I loaded in my 3GS (same songs), and yet my 3GS takes 1.61GB LESS to store 695 MORE songs. This is just the data for the audio itself and nothing else. So it's not extra space taken up by the OS or anything else.
If I use the average space taken up by my audio on my iPhone 4 and extrapolate, it would take about 28.94GB of audio space for 5,333, which would be 5.38GB MORE than the 3GS (that's 22.8% more). Of course, this is not 100% accurate because the song length may be different, but it's along those lines. Remember - same songs here using the same 128 kbps conversion feature.
Has anyone else experienced this? This is a MAJOR deal for me since I already was VERY disappointed that their was no 64GB phone, and now it's even WORSE because I have to unload ANOTHER 20% on my music!! This can't be a problem that's unique to ME in any way. Still confused as to what's going on here?
Tony

Answer 1

Kallidoan wrote:
I'd double check all of your sync settings. Mine change from Iphone to Iphone, especially new ones. You are probably syncing movies or something stupid.
Maybe the artwork is coming through in a higher resolution?
Nope - I'm just talking about the AUDIO files. I'm looking directly at how much "audio" (only) GB capacity is listed on the "summary" tab in iTunes when each device is plugged takes to store THE EXACT SAME SONGS. Re-read the first post.
I've re-checked all the audio setting for both phones and they are exactly the same. This probably has something to do with allocating more space per file when doing 128bit on the fly conversions using iTunes 9.2 (vs iTunes 9.1) and / or under OS 4 (vs OS 3.1.3).
Tony