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Apple Drops 2TB iCloud Storage Price to $9.99, Eliminates 1TB Option
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Well, pack it up, guys. Random dude on MacRumors says cryptography is completely pointless!
Why would you ever store your valuable data somewhere other than safe at home under your own control ?
exactly. this is especially true if you have multiple device and each device backup takes up quite a bit of space and for each device you have, it should be 5gb free instead of per account.
on the side note, my whatsapp backup alone is now almost 2gb.
Dang... do they really ding your credit card for $0.99 each month?
Seems like they would rather make you pay for the whole year... a whopping $12
I'm on that tier and love it. Don't really see the problem.
As some have mentioned, a better approach might be to include some storage with each device you bought. I don't really see a 1:1 matching, nor do I think that's necessary. It depends on how you use the device, of course, but I'd wager only about half actually needs to be stored in iCloud. Your photos and documents do; your music and apps do not.
If buying a 64 GB iPhone would perpetually increase my iCloud storage by 32 GB for free, that would already be quite nice.
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Because most people have neither the inclination nor the competence to safely store data, much less think about offsite backups or really any backups at all.
It's not really "2 TB". It's "all the storage you need, unless you need more, and then you need to look elsewhere". This just reduces the number of people in the "unless you need more" category.
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Here's what I have people heard saying: "My phone starts losing photos, because there is only 5GB storage". "Well, upgrade then to 50 GB, that's just $0.99 a month". "That's too expensive, I can't afford it". "So you much did you pay for your iPhone 7? And you can't afford $0.99 a month?"
Seriously. People like that are out there.
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Dang... do they really ding your credit card for $0.99 each month?
Seems like they would rather make you pay for the whole year... a whopping $12
Every month. I suppose Apple has a deal with the credit / debit card companies to pay some lower rate than the average merchant. After all they made $100 billion worth of tiny charges over the last years.
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Yup. See also: "this app costs $2.99; what a rip-off".
A huge part of it is that an iPhone is a tangible value; you literally hold it in your hand. Cloud storage and apps, not so much.
And convincing people at all of the value of backups isn't easy either.
For what duration? Indefinitely? Two years? Five years? Does it transfer if you give the phone to someone else?
Suppose it's three years and you're on a 256 GB phone. That means roughly $2.99 times 36 months. The phone would cost $108 more for a feature that isn't strictly necessary.
Family sharing is long overdue, so it's great that Apple have finally got around to it. I hope they do it right:
A central iCloud storage for family members shouldn't just be partitions though. This will only work for me if there is proper folder sharing, and yes, photos library sharing (you should be able to decide which folders you share and collaborate). I want to be able to decide which album my pictures are stored in. If I take pictures of my kids, I want them to show up on my wife's phone, and visa-versa. If I take pictures for my own instagram, I might not need them to show on my wife's phone. etc.
If I save a Numbers document to a folder, I want that to be available in the same folder on my wife's iCloud. She should be able to open the document, work on it, update it, delete it, and amend it without having to save a new version and sharing it back. iCloud should sync the folder across devices naturally and without prompting. Shared folders need to act like a folders on a common server.
I fear, however, that iCloud family storage will just be about allocating storage to family members, which will mean that true collaboration and sharing will only work in the same way that it does right now - which is to say, not at all.
A central iCloud storage for family members shouldn't just be partitions though. This will only work for me if there is proper folder sharing, and yes, photos library sharing (you should be able to decide which folders you share and collaborate). I want to be able to decide which album my pictures are stored in. If I take pictures of my kids, I want them to show up on my wife's phone, and visa-versa. If I take pictures for my own instagram, I might not need them to show on my wife's phone. etc.
If I save a Numbers document to a folder, I want that to be available in the same folder on my wife's iCloud. She should be able to open the document, work on it, update it, delete it, and amend it without having to save a new version and sharing it back. iCloud should sync the folder across devices naturally and without prompting. Shared folders need to act like a folders on a common server.
I fear, however, that iCloud family storage will just be about allocating storage to family members, which will mean that true collaboration and sharing will only work in the same way that it does right now - which is to say, not at all.
Good point and I'm afraid you are right, it will just be a partition.
Nevertheless I'm happy about family sharing. My family doesn't need the 50GB storage, but the measly 5GB are not enough so I have to buy the 50GB tier while they are using about 15-20GB.
That means more than half of the 200GB family storage will be available for me
Until they lose their data.
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Lol, same.Nevertheless I'm happy about family sharing. My family doesn't need the 50GB storage, but the measly 5GB are not enough so I have to buy the 50GB tier while they are using about 15-20GB.
That means more than half of the 200GB family storage will be available for me
This simply isnt true. Google doesn't sell your data. They use your data to offer personalized ads, for instance (you can turn this off too), but that is something different. Your data is kept private and not shared with anyone without your explicit approval,
Not happy with Google using your data to serve up ads? That's fine. But don't repeat the baloney lie that they sell your data to other companies. It simply isn't true.
https://privacy.google.com/how-ads-work.html
I think it also allows Apple to more effectively scale their cloud storage operation based on real need. If it were free Apple would need to allocate, purchase, and maintain that amount of storage for all of its customers, even though a much smaller number would actually use it. By charging a minimal $0.99/month (3 cents per day), people will actually need to step-up and make a choice, which helps Apple plan their real infrastructure requirements based on actual need.
Many people, such as myself, do not want cloud backups, and prefer taking responsibility for backing up locally. There's no need for Apple to plan and allocate their storage resources based on me and others taking a larger amount of "free" storage that will never be used.
Tim Cook's bean counter mentality says no. Perhaps in another 5 years it'll be bumped.... to 7gb.
Don't expect it to be moved anytime soon. It's about adding a commitment to the service. If it's free, you load up data and if you swap to Android or something else, you'll never look at it again. For 5GB this is manageable but for 10 times the amount it can become a problem with non-costumers data just sitting there.
But for 99 cent is small enough it shouldn't be an issue for anyone who can buy an iPhone, but if the above happens, you'll cancel the sub and they can free up space.
I was hoping for more than 5GB of free storage tier now that Apple is dumping all iMessages into the icloud, most people will find themselves filling the free storage with just imessages unless that option can be turned off.
Maybe. But I think just getting you into the mindset of sending recurring revenue to Apple and also out of the mindset of "stuff comes free" is useful. Apple really wants those credit cards on file. And with Apple Pay and Tough ID the hurdle is some seamless at this point to pay Apple for stuff it isn't a big deal.
But since 5GB is free, that could easily be 10GB.
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The rate of filling is likely to accelerate if it is photos and you are using an increasingly larger format camera (like you keep upgrading your iPhone). Maybe it is time to get saucy and turn on 4K video as default.
I am no where near "in the know" for this stuff.. but I would be curious to see a breakdown of cost per GB in one of Apple's data centers for user iCloud storage. How many GB can each server rack hold? How many users to each server rack possible? Cost of each server rack? I'm sure there is a premium just as with everything else Apple, but would be interesting to see and give insight on what is potentially possible, storage-wise.
And then multiply all those server racks per building by Apple's numerous data centers around the world... that's a wholllllllle lotta hardware.
edit: spelng
And then multiply all those server racks per building by Apple's numerous data centers around the world... that's a wholllllllle lotta hardware.
edit: spelng
Yup. iMessages easily consume approx 2GB per device in our family (thanks to HD video). No way your avg customer will be able to backup device + iMessages with free tier.
(Maybe Apple is hoping HVEC will mitigate the issue?)
It looks like I was automatically upgraded:
I don't need that much storage. I truly don't. The only reason I was on a 1TB plan was my 500GB photos library which I recently shrunk down by exporting every video I've ever shot since 2001 to my NAS. Guess I can re-import those back into photos now and utilize all 2 Terabytes. The smaller plan doesn't work for me.
I don't need that much storage. I truly don't. The only reason I was on a 1TB plan was my 500GB photos library which I recently shrunk down by exporting every video I've ever shot since 2001 to my NAS. Guess I can re-import those back into photos now and utilize all 2 Terabytes. The smaller plan doesn't work for me.
Personally, the change is gonna be more efficient for me. I use iCloud backup with 4 (personal) iOS devices and iMessage uses 1GB on each device for basically just duplicate messages. This change means iMessage would only need 1GB of space on iCloud instead of 4GB (1GB per backed up device).
Also helps with setting up devices as new. My current iPhone 7 is still using the backup carried over from my original iPhone (2007).
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I don't think it will be necessary to combine accounts. I think it'll probably be more like your family has 200GB storage. Everyone still has individual accounts but their usage is now counted against the same storage quota.
Not all that different from mobile shared data plans.
As far as I remember that's what Craig said on stage, they're synchronising messages between devices so they should save space. And finally I don't need to delete a message on the iPhone after I removed it on the Watch.