Apple Adds New 2TB iCloud Storage Tier for $19.99 Per Month

[elmaco]

Let's say that the average iPhone has 64 GB and half of the space is used. Half of the data are apps and stuff that are shared by many people, so Apple only needs to store it once. That means Apple needs to store around 16 GB per device to give the average user a free backup / mirror. It would not cost Apple that much to include this in the product and it would be a differentiator compared to other smart phones.

I'm sure this is where we will end up anyway.

Question is, will Apple lead the way or will Samsung or some other company include full device backup in the product.

 

[pedrotaquelim]

Why should it be free? I think a valid argument could be made that $19.99 per month is too expensive. But free?

Yep, 'free'.

Example:
You buy an iPhone or iPad with 64GB, you have 64GB iCloud storage 'free'.
The price of the 'free' iCloud Storage will increase the price of the iPhone.

But it's ridiculous to buy a 64GB iPhone and have 5GB iCloud storage...'free'.

For iMac/Mac Pro and Macbook/Air/Pro it should be at least 200GB 'free'.

And if you have various Apple devices/computers? I don't know. Figure it out Apple.

 

[Abazigal]

Yep, 'free'.

Example:
You buy an iPhone or iPad with 64GB, you have 64GB iCloud storage 'free'.
The price of the 'free' iCloud Storage will increase the price of the iPhone.

But it's ridiculous to buy a 64GB iPhone and have 5GB iCloud storage...'free'.

For iMac/Mac Pro and Macbook/Air/Pro it should be at least 200GB 'free'.

And if you have various Apple devices/computers? I don't know. Figure it out Apple.

5 gb covers the basics such as contacts, reminders, notes and calendar events.

The rest, it's just $1 a month for 50 gb, which should more than suffice for the majority of users.

I personally won't mind free, unlimited photo storage, but I can see how that would be subject to abuse.

 

[maflynn]

Seems a bit pricey to me, but I guess if you're engrained in the ecosystem, its something that could be justifiable.

 

[leroypants]

I don't see the point, could buy my own 2TB HDD for not much more than that and have full control over it.

You could own two 2tb hard drives and subscribe to Amazon cloud have full control and pay less.

 

[johannnn]

I'm thinking about moving from Dropbox Pro to iCloud.
I know that iCloud doesn't have as many features but I'm cool with that.
What I'm wondering is, say I have 2TB iCloud full with files, and then I buy a 128GB MacBook.
Will it try to downloading everything and fill up the SSD?
Or does it only download when I try to open/quicklook it? And if that's the case, what if I've opened a huge file but then I dont want it locally anymore?

 

[macintoshmac]

I'm thinking about moving from Dropbox Pro to iCloud.
I know that iCloud doesn't have as many features but I'm cool with that.
What I'm wondering is, say I have 2TB iCloud full with files, and then I buy a 128GB MacBook.
Will it try to downloading everything and fill up the SSD?
Or does it only download when I try to open/quicklook it? And if that's the case, what if I've opened a huge file but then I dont want it locally anymore?

Excellent question, and one that remains unanswered for me as well. I would like it if someone here is able to answer this correctly.

 

[2457282]

I have the 200gig plan because I have all my photos and docs backed up to iCloud. I would need more if they charged me for the music but the $25 for music match and unlimited music storage is really nice. Like so many on here the thing that Apple is missing is a family plan. It would be awesome to have a shareable iCloud. Not just to share the gig, but in my case, my wife is non-tech and I am tech, so having all our stuff in one drive would allow me to manage it way better. Now I have to manage her account on her laptop and my account on one of my devices. The prices are slightly high, but competitive enough, but Dropbox is a good example of giving you the shared drive capability that iCloud does not.

Come on Apple you can do better.
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I'm thinking about moving from Dropbox Pro to iCloud.
I know that iCloud doesn't have as many features but I'm cool with that.
What I'm wondering is, say I have 2TB iCloud full with files, and then I buy a 128GB MacBook.
Will it try to downloading everything and fill up the SSD?
Or does it only download when I try to open/quicklook it? And if that's the case, what if I've opened a huge file but then I dont want it locally anymore?

Excellent question, and one that remains unanswered for me as well. I would like it if someone here is able to answer this correctly.

I use iCloud and the way it works for me say using pages is that if I open a document from iCloud, when I exit, it will ask me if I want to save it back to iCloud. I can choose to save the document to iCloud, on the laptop or delete the work I just did.

I typically keep a local copy, a local back up and and iCloud back up, but that is my own paranoia about loosing data.

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

Google does not mine our Google Drive data, especially not for marketing. Source here. Of course, I cannot say how defiant they can be once a government agency asks them to part with user data.

Read the user agreement. They can mine Google Drive data including indexing documents, photo meta data, and much more. With the PAID Google services they don't (such as commercial businesses use) but if you're using free storage it's open to them.

 

[cardfan]

20 a month is a bit much...I could only pay that if a family plan or something. And I agree with a few others that it is confusing. Say I got 500gb of pics in icloud, a mac wants to download originals. There's not room. The confusion comes from having a lot stored in icloud. I'm using external storage with imac so I'll probably put library there.

 

[Tech198]

Yep, 'free'.

Example:
You buy an iPhone or iPad with 64GB, you have 64GB iCloud storage 'free'.
The price of the 'free' iCloud Storage will increase the price of the iPhone.

But it's ridiculous to buy a 64GB iPhone and have 5GB iCloud storage...'free'.

For iMac/Mac Pro and Macbook/Air/Pro it should be at least 200GB 'free'.

And if you have various Apple devices/computers? I don't know. Figure it out Apple.

so when will Apple start charging ? 10 Gig free would be ok for a start. 5Gig is on the small side..

Excellent question, and one that remains unanswered for me as well. I would like it if someone here is able to answer this correctly.

Looks like only if u have 'Optimist Storage' enabled in Sierra

http://www.macworld.com/article/309...top-and-documents-access-in-macos-sierra.html

 

[Piggie]

Here come the complaints that Google and Microsoft offer more storage for less money, from those that don't understand that Google and Microsoft use the data you store to index and sell you ads based on your data. Apple doesn't index your data in the same way so it's far from apples to apples. It's far more profitable for Google to give you free storage space and then data mine it than charge for it.

You do know that Apple admits it will scan your data you hold on it's cloud servers don't you?

 

[recoil80]

I'd like to use family sharing for iCloud storage.
I'd buy the second tier and share 200GB among family members.

 

[S.B.G]

I'm doing fairly well with the base, free, storage amount Apple gives and since I am an Office 365 subscriber I also have 1TB of storage space that I use with OneDrive and of which I'm only using about 10% of it.

 

[gnasher729]

5 gb covers the basics such as contacts, reminders, notes and calendar events.

The rest, it's just $1 a month for 50 gb, which should more than suffice for the majority of users.

I personally won't mind free, unlimited photo storage, but I can see how that would be subject to abuse.

5 GB also handles 100 GB of music and videos downloaded from iTunes. Photos and self-recorded videos are what will get people over the 5GB, and then there is no limit how much they will need.

 

[oneMadRssn]

You should start your own cloud storage business and offer 200GB of storage for less than $3/month.

First, I have posted probably a dozen times on various icloud pricing article threads that I wish wish wish Apple would offer icloud server as part of the OS X server package. I would pay $1000 for that easily. Apple lets businesses host their own email, calendar, contacts, user profiles, time machine backups, app caches, and more - but not icloud documents. So yes, I would love to start my own icloud server just for me, but Apple won't let me. I could of course host my own file server, but only Apple allows the icloud tie-in to iOS.

Second, I don't have to when others already do. As an example, Amazon Glacier can store all my files for $0.007/GB/Month (or, less than half of what Apple charges). There are many others in this same price range, with good software available to access those files from other vendors. The issue is, of course, that only Apple has that exclusive icloud tie-in to iOS, as I explained my frustration above.

 

[Abazigal]

5 GB also handles 100 GB of music and videos downloaded from iTunes.

Which you would already have paid for. Not to mention that Apple really needs to store only 1 copy of a movie or song for millions of users to access it, so it costs them next to nothing to host it. With photos, each copy is different, so 1 million photos means that Apple needs to set aside space for 1 million separate photos.

I prefer the "I pay for my storage upfront, it's mine to do with as I deem fit, don't even think of trying to skimp on my storage, downsize my photos or monetize it".

 

[Mark_M]

I'm doing fairly well with the base, free, storage amount Apple gives and since I am an Office 365 subscriber I also have 1TB of storage space that I use with OneDrive and of which I'm only using about 10% of it.

My thoughts exactly. £3.10 for an account with e-mail (personal domain) and 1TB storage.
I've also got unlimited photo storage with amazon prime.

If I just could be bothered to set up my phone right, I wouldn't pay apple for the 50GB tier.

 

[DevNull0]

Remind me about that after your house burns down.
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And the winning answer! You need both.

If you truly want online backup as a protection against disaster, iCloud is a horrible choice (and it's not even meant for that role).

Backblaze, for example, is $5/month for unlimited storage (they are currently hosting 200 petabytes of customer data). Their software backs up everything on your computer including external hard drives. But if you want to use them as cloud storage of your frequently accessed data, you'll be vey disappointed (and it's not meant for that role).

Or....I store a backup drive encrypted and locked in my desk at work and a second one next to my computer at home. I never have both drives in the same building as my computer.
[doublepost=1472649964][/doublepost]

Seems a lot of people think Apple is a charity and they can just hand out terabytes to everyone at no cost. Comical.

Yet, MS can just hand out 1 terabyte to any office 365 user (who is paying only $7/month for Microsoft's flagship product). Or you can think of it as $7 for the 1TB of storage tier and you get MS Office free. And they offer a discount if you pay by the year.

Any wonder MS is eating Apple's breakfast these days?

 

[yanki01]

$17/month for 50GB in Mexico? damn.

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

Here come the complaints that Google and Microsoft offer more storage for less money, from those that don't understand that Google and Microsoft use the data you store to index and sell you ads based on your data. Apple doesn't index your data in the same way so it's far from apples to apples. It's far more profitable for Google to give you free storage space and then data mine it than charge for it.

Which, if that is what happens, I'm completely happy with because so far, I don't get ANY targeted emails from either of them apart from normal stuff and I enjoy free 1TB of OneDrive storage. You guys can keep emptying your wallet into Apple's...
[doublepost=1472650304][/doublepost]

Yet, MS can just hand out 1 terabyte to any office 365 user (who is paying only $7/month for Microsoft's flagship product). Or you can think of it as $7 for the 1TB of storage tier and you get MS Office free. And they offer a discount if you pay by the year.

Any wonder MS is eating Apple's breakfast these days?

Well said. Storage is a cheap incentive. I'm sure the statistics would show the majority of people using only a small percentage of their given (or paid for) storage. I have 3.6GB in my 1TB OneDrive. How much does it cost MS to store my 3.6GB? I think Apple can afford it.
[doublepost=1472650391][/doublepost]

Seems a lot of people think Apple is a charity and they can just hand out terabytes to everyone at no cost. Comical.

What's comical is the prices Apple charges for cloud storage, and what is HYSTERICAL is that people like you are happy to pay it.

 

[AppleNewton]

Free no, but as it is it is way too expensive. At the yearly rate you could buy new drives every year. I don't see a bargain here at all.

You're buying a service and storage comes with it. Now i'm sure there are cheaper solutions for different needs, you can't run applications off it necessarily, but I find it pretty invaluable with instant access to all my items.
I have access to them on any iOS or Mac device even brand new out of the box. it really depends on your needs and how you currently manage data.
I've removed all external storage (sans backups and duplicates) and stored everything on iCloud for the past year and its been extremely useful. I remember 1TB was 19.99 a month...I'm sure given time the price will drop.
I'd recommend removing the 5GB and replace it with 50GB free, and the other tiers should be 500, 1TB, and 2TB dropped by $5~ or so.

 

[Mark_M]

$17/month for 50GB in Mexico? damn.

$17MXN is about $0.90...

 

[yaxomoxay]

I'd love for more flexibility, like sharing the service with family members etc, rather than space.

 

[Vege-Taco]

So why does Mexico get cheaper/byte pricing for the new 2TB while others pay more?