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I really wish they would offer a 500GB plan for $4.99. I'm on the 200GB plan right now and have about 60GB available. My usage is growing very slowly and it'll probably take another year or so to hit the 200GB mark. So you can imagine how wasteful it would feel to have to jump to a $10 a month 1TB plan!

My main usage of iCloud is the Photo library. It's a great way to keep my photos in sync across all devices. I really don't use it heavily for anything else. Device backups sure, but they're a drop in the bucket compared to photos+videos.

In fact I'd be more tempted to simply remove less-often-viewed videos from my library (and just keep them in a folder on my Mac) than upgrade to the 1TB plan when it goes over 200GB.
 
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I really don't mind the pricing, it seems fair, and $12/year for 50GB is nothing. I used to pay over $100/year for .Mac with 10GB. But I do wish they would bump the free tier, 5GB is not enough for anyone with more than one device. I would also prefer an annual option.
 
Apple isn't about sharing. That's was it was so silly that some thought we'd see iMessage for Android. That would mean there's no reason for someone to switch from Android to use their awesome messaging service. One of the reasons people switch to iOS is the messaging and getting rid of that pushes people away from iOS as there is one less reason to use it.

The same would be true in allowing non-iCloud users to share. It gives them one less reason to bother switching to iOS. My fiancé loves being able to share with me via iCloud. Make it so she can do so with Android and now she has one less reason to bother sticking with iOS.

Having closed ecosystem is probably a losing proposition for Apple in a long run. Yes, having iMessage and iCloud might keep current iOS users from leaving (at least in the countries where there is a critical mass of iOS users, in most countries that is not the case and iOS is probably doomed there anyways). On the other hand, these services are not a reason for Androd users to switch to iOS because they have similar, sometimes better and always cheaper alternatives. They might switch to iOS for other reasons but services is not one of them.
 
Funny to see people that believe if you have multiple devices you should get more storage.

Having multiple devices likely means you use your devices more which results in more space taken up but how it is Apple's fault that you use your device more or less than someone else and why should they owe you anything because you're a heavy user?

I'm interested to know how those that claim Apple should give more storage PER DEVICE rather than per Apple ID, justify the reasoning?
 
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Gotta make ways to make money to pay up the $14bil they owe from EU. More bands please Tim.
 
And that's exactly why. Those that want it will pay for it. Why give it away for free when they can collect a very small fee to help offset the cost?

How about to reward longtime and loyal customers who buy multiple devices? Sometimes in business that "small fee" causes more ill will than what it is worth.
 
Not gonna happen. Apple isn't in the services business. They don't index your photos and sell you ads based on them like Google does. There's no benefit to them offering you unlimited when they can charge a small fee to offset the cost.

They very much are, they hope to increase service revenue going forward.
 
They can add as much as they want but the «free» minimum should be at least 10GB.
 
That's awesome, 240 dollars a year for 2tbs, only a sucker would pay Amazon 60 dollars a year for UNLIMITED storage.
 
Woah, not too bad. The 1TB iCloud is already a snippet cheaper than Dropbox. And certainly considerably quicker in regards to upload/download speeds.

They're actually the same price monthly and dropbox is cheaper if you buy a full year.

The 1 TB plan is $9.99 a month for both or $8.33 a month if you buy a full year outright for $99.99 with Dropbox.
 
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Why?

And why stop there? Apple should through in a case, a couple $50 iTunes gift cards, and an Airport Express.

The competition is offering much more. Google bundles 100 GB/2 years on a lousy $125 Chromebook. Microsoft gives you 1 TB per user when you buy Office 365.

As somebody said, Apple's selling fast food at caviar prices.
 
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While we are at it, I think the entry plan of 5 GB free iCloud storage must be revisited. Maybe a 5 GB storage for each additional device should be offered, if nothing else.
 
If Apple was about making great products, they would give people enough free space on iCloud so they always had their iPhone fully mirrored / backed up. If you buy an iPhone with more memory, you get more backup storage.

A simple solution that ensures nobody loses photos of their loved ones.

You only pay, if you need more capacity than your phone.

And Apple, please don't say it would cost you too much. You are currently severely overcharging for memory, and with compression, redundancy and how cheap hard disk space is today ($25 / terabyte) there is really no excuse, if creating great products was Apple's primary objective.
 
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While I have 3 iDevices and have a paltry 5GB to back them all up
Apple should give 5 gb PER DEVICE PURCHASED (iDevices and Macs). That's incentive to buy more Apple devices. 5 gb for ALL devices is laughable. And 50gb for .99 a month is also laughable; Google gives that to everyone for free, and that amount of storage isn't very useful anymore. My Photos library alone totals nearly 250 gb.
 
Darn, I was hoping they'd upgrade the free tier at the event.

Apple should really give you storage depending on your devices. Have a 64 GB iPhone? You have 64 GB of storage. Have a 256 GB MBP too? You have 330 GB.

Yes this is definitely how it should be. But it won't ever be.
 
Why should it be free? I think a valid argument could be made that $19.99 per month is too expensive. But free?
Roll the cost into the price of the phone if need be (I would argue that the cost of the devices already justifies this 'free' service and their profit margins appear to support that notion).

As they run out of new shinies/killer features to add to their phones, this could be an interesting new selling point that I would actually care about (the current experience of iCloud constantly pestering me to upgrade my storage on both my phone and computer is having the opposite effect of making me want to leave).
 
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