Apple Ends Complimentary 20 GB Storage Plan for Former MobileMe Members

[bankshot]

Apple didn't do a good job of explaining iTunes ID vs. Apple ID over the years but I use a shared iTunes ID and individual Apple ID's. This way everyone gets their own contacts, calendar, Photostream, iCloud 5GB, etc. but we only need to purchase music, apps, etc. one time.

Not only did Apple do a poor job of explaining this, they did a poor job of implementing it. I want to share all of the things I highlighted in bold, while keeping actual "personal" things separate (bookmarks, email, per-device backups, etc). There are ways to share the first two, but the photo stream is locked to the primary iCloud account only. Thus in order to share it seamlessly, all family members must use the same primary account, giving up personal syncing of bookmarks and separate 5GB for device backups.

That's my biggest gripe with iCloud. Apple assumes one person per device and per iCloud account. There must not be many married people working there, because I'd think that photo stream sharing would be very popular among families. And no, the stupid Facebook-style shared photo streams doesn't cut it - that's not automatic like the primary photo stream.

I love that any photo I take automatically shows up on my wife's phone, and vice versa; and they all show up in my iPhoto library which is our central repository for family photos. But we give up the ability to keep our device backups separate, and thus the removal of the free 20 GB storage impacts us more than those who only have one device on their account.

 

[TsunamiTheClown]

I still use my @mac.com from back before me.com so I'm pretty sure they'll keep it going.

Hey great to hear thanks man.

 

[BaldiMac]

I believe its 1000 photos

As I said in a later post, you can create up to 100 shared photostreams with 5,000 pics each. So that is 501,000 photos. Which is about a terabyte of photo storage at 2.5 MB /photo.

and 25,000 songs on iTunes Match.

It is not unlimited iTunes media storage. iTunes Match lets me access 25,000 in the cloud. I have a library of over 35,000 tracks at last count.

I have to play games setting some of the tracks as "spoken word" so that iTunes Match skips over them and puts the other stuff in the cloud.

And, lest someone says something snarky about illegal music downloads, you can stop by my place and see the room dedicated the physical music media. Along with a healthy library of legal digitally downloaded music, I have an enormous collection of CDs, both from my own music fetish as well as inheritance from someone else even worse than me.

I'm not talking about iTunes Match. That's a paid service. I'm referring to the fact that any media that you purchase from iTunes is available for download or streaming through iCloud and does not count against your iCloud storage limit.

 

[rvinny]

Can I get some clarification? I have read, some posts, in here that each device gets a 5gb limit. I don't get that.

But, I only see a 5gb bucket of data to share between all of my devices, not 5gb for each. Is there a way to do that? I could pay for it but I honestly never used more than 7 - 8gb and so it doesn't seem necessary. Thanks!!

The 5GB is tied to your Apple ID. If you use the same Apple ID to log into multiple devices, then the 5GB is shared. If you use different Apple ID's per device, then each one gets 5GB.

If you are using multiple devices under the same ID, be sure to check your iCloud backups. Delete any old ones, especially a device you no longer use.

 

[stevielatphoto]

Dropbox gives you their lowest tier for FREE.

Apple gives you 5GB ONLY if you spend several hundred dollars on one of its devices. If you have multiple Apple devices, you get NO additional storage.

Plus, Apple's prices are way too expensive compared to Google Drive, MS's Skydrive, or Dropbox - basically double what the competition charges.

So, your point?

If you equate the thousands of dollars/pounds I've spent on Apple products in the last 20 years. I should have about 40 TBs of storage. So far I have given dropbox $99 and they have given me 100GB, sounds like a done deal !!!

 

[rick3000]

I have never trusted the cloud very much, especially recently. I am only using 4GB from iPad & iPhone automatics backups. If I need more space I don't mind paying, it is still cheaper than the $99 I was paying in the dotMac days.

As long as I can keep my @mac.com email addresses I am happy. Although, I do agree they should offer 5GB per device.

 

[Centris 650]

I started with iTools then went to .mac then to MobileMe. I've been pleased with the service Apple has provided over the years though I probably didn't take advantage of some of the iTools features like I should have. I've enjoyed the free storage space the past 2 years and I have started paying for the extra 20gb today. When you have 3 iPods, 4 iPads and 2 iPhones (soon to be 3) in the house you need a decent amount of space for backups. On top of that I use my iPad as my laptop and have a lot of iWork files stored on iCloud.

I payed $99 for .mac and MobileMe. $40 for iCloud seems like a bargin!

 

[jav6454]

Dropbox gives you their lowest tier for FREE

[...]

That was my point... apparently you were the only one to get it.

 

[OllyW]

As I said in a later post, you can create up to 100 shared photostreams with 5,000 pics each. So that is 501,000 photos. Which is about a terabyte of photo storage at 2.5 MB /photo.

I thought the photos in Photo Streams were only saved on the iCloud server for 30 days?

I don't think you can really compare that to the other online storage services being discussed in this thread.

 

[BaldiMac]

I thought the photos in Photo Streams were only saved on the iCloud server for 30 days?

I don't think you can really compare that to the other online storage services being discussed in this thread.

Nope. The 30 day limit only applies to My Photo Stream. Shared photo streams store photos indefinitely.

 

[phytonix]

5GB free is ridiculous for such a profitable company.

I already have 4GB of emails. Hello? I may even run out of email space. Gmail is 15GB free space. And I have to share the space with other Apps that use iCloud. I have to turn off iCloud backup, which was a big selling point: no more!

I am okay paying for more space, but the price has to be reasonable. Apple's price is high, and you can do less, and it is much less reliable.

 

[BaldiMac]

5GB free is ridiculous for such a profitable company.

Again, 5GB plus storage for 501,000 photos.

I already have 4GB of emails. Hello? I may even run out of email space. Gmail is 15GB free space.

Gmail is 15GB of ad supported space.

 

[phytonix]

Again, 5GB plus storage for 501,000 photos.

You have to try very hard to use that space. And it is very difficult to share with people who do not use iPhone, iPad or iPhoto. For sharing photos, Flickr is much better and you can easily share on Facebook etc. That additional space is only for photos only: very limited use.

Gmail is 15GB of ad supported space.

Yes but shouldn't Apple (try to) be better than Google? Especially for a new comer? With 5GB, most people will stick with Gmail.

 

[BaldiMac]

You have to try very hard to use that space.

And it is very difficult to share with people who do not use iPhone, iPad or iPhoto.

Not really, you just add there email address to the photo stream. They get a web link.

For sharing photos, Flickr is much better and you can easily share on Facebook etc. That additional space is only for photos only: very limited use.

Yep. My point was that Apple doesn't offer just 5GB of iCloud storage for free.

Yes but shouldn't Apple (try to) be better than Google?

For some people, free (or paid) is better than ad supported.

Especially for a new comer? With 5GB, most people will stick with Gmail.

Why would Apple care if you use another email provider?

 

[alent1234]

flickr is better since you can create photo sets
i turned off photo stream on my iphone because the 1000 photos take up almost a gb and i can't limit how many photos it keeps.

its like a scam by apple to upsell to higher capacity models

 

[OllyW]

Nope. The 30 day limit only applies to My Photo Stream. Shared photo streams store photos indefinitely.

Oh, that could come in useful.

 

[Coop1701]

I honestly think they should give you extra space for multiple devices tied to that itunes account.

Plus I would never leave Apple. But if you buy a MOTO X.., you get 50 gigs of space from Google Drive.

I honestly did not realize how much it would bother me until I had to delete backups this morning.

 

[kolemccarthy]

Beyond Disappointed

I'm disappointed with Apple's lack of standing behind their products. This being one of the instances that just doesn't make sense to me. Why would you take something away from people who rightfully paid for a service through your company. The users using their 25GB's weren't really "harming" the company in any way by not paying. Apple makes most of their money in hardware any way, why come after the users who are happily using your product.

It just leaves me with a sting and a disgusting after taste in my mouth which this new or should I say, old policy ending, is the direct cause of.

Google gives all users, 30GB's of space, FREE. I don't understand, Google is their direct competitor, why would they be so naive to expect customers to pay for something that they can get free somewhere else. Yes iCloud is it's own service, just as is the advantages and features you get with Gmail. They should broaden the iCloud given amount to at least 10GB's. All of their devices come with 8GB's or higher anyways, if you wanted to back up your device in the Cloud like they intended, why not give people at least 10GB's so they actually have the ability to do so.

This shouldn't be about how much money they can make off of a service, it should be about their customer care and a way to show their dedication to the customer base.

 

[hansonjohn590]

How about increasing the paltry 5 gb? I feel like im stuck in the 90's.

 

[ricosuave]

5 gigs is now comparative smaller since they offered the service. When iCloud first was introduced, we had the iPhone 4. Now a few generations later our pictures and videos are higher quality and larger in size. Also the competition is increasing it's offerings as well. I suspect Apple will increase it soon. Hopefully and increase tied to the number of devices per account.

Personally, for my needs I am now using
They start you off with 20 gigs and goes up from there. Plus they have a nice finder feature to roll back any version of the file. I know Dropbox has something similar, but it's built into the finder service.

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Oh, that could come in useful.

I was excited about this as well but the picture files are reduced and are not the original size.

 

[Cappy]

I was wondering if there were any stats for users who now have to pay for additional storage due to heavy usage - I consciously stayed within my limits.

I think my reasoning may have been based on the false kindness of this offer - it kind of reminds me of business models that rely on lulling people into living beyond their means.

Maybe even being encouraged to horde stuff and then the local 'authority' providing two years free storage knowing that it will be a service that is hard to back out of.

Same here.

I made it a point to keep my icloud usage below 5GB as I figured Apple wouldn't budge a second time. Sure, they can use my stats to say that people with the extra storage weren't using it but really the best thing for icloud storage is backups. Beyond that it's hard to trust and isn't well supported for developers and their apps.

By producing the iPhone Apple gave the mass market a reason to throw money Apple's way.

With iCloud they really have yet to do that. I know I don't quite fit into the genre of mass market user but I paid for a 20GB dropbox account for a few years until they decided to give it to me for free. It was worth it...icloud isn't.

 

[jettredmont]

Dropbox gives you their lowest tier for FREE.

Apple gives you 5GB ONLY if you spend several hundred dollars on one of its devices. If you have multiple Apple devices, you get NO additional storage.

BS. iCloud accounts are free to all comers. No need for a device.

To take full advantage of an iCloud account you need an iOS device of some sort. It is an add-on to the device purchase. At that point, it is still not a dropbox alternative, as it only supports data from specifically-coded iOS apps, and doesn't support general file downloads/etc. Not sure why this stupid comparison to dropbox (which I also use extensively) survived so long on this thread.

The only reasonable complaint in my opinion is that iCloud doesn't expand with the number of devices you own. But, as someone who has seven iOS devices amongst my family and five separate iCloud accounts (but one AppleID for music which we all share) registering a separate iCloud account for each device works just fine.

Other than that minor quibble, people should lose the sense of entitlement. Apple isn't Dropbox; iCloud isn't a file storage service. These are very different business models, very different user bases, very different use cases they support, and as one would expect they have very different pricing structures.

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Good point... however, considering that, maybe you should just pay $20/mo until you exceed 15GB

You can always upgrade your plan at basically no fault; the remainder of time on the old plan gets prorated back to you.

So, yes, never upgrade icloud storage until you are at the limit.

 

[Cappy]

flickr is better since you can create photo sets
i turned off photo stream on my iphone because the 1000 photos take up almost a gb and i can't limit how many photos it keeps.

its like a scam by apple to upsell to higher capacity models

I'm using ifttt to copy each photo I take over to flickr when I'm on wifi but I still find photostream simple and useful. Since I do this and I know flickr will keep my pics in full quality, I was able to disable my photos backup to iCloud. That was 1GB right there. If anything seems like a scam it would be why does apple keep a backup of photos when photo stream is enabled?

 

[ricosuave]

I'm using ifttt to copy each photo I take over to flickr when I'm on wifi but I still find photostream simple and useful. Since I do this and I know flickr will keep my pics in full quality, I was able to disable my photos backup to iCloud. That was 1GB right there. If anything seems like a scam it would be why does apple keep a backup of photos when photo stream is enabled?

That is a nice set up with ifttt. Have you found a way to keep flickr from renaming your picture files?

 

[Cappy]

BS. iCloud accounts are free to all comers. No need for a device.

To take full advantage of an iCloud account you need an iOS device of some sort. It is an add-on to the device purchase. At that point, it is still not a dropbox alternative, as it only supports data from specifically-coded iOS apps, and doesn't support general file downloads/etc. Not sure why this stupid comparison to dropbox (which I also use extensively) survived so long on this thread.

The only reasonable complaint in my opinion is that iCloud doesn't expand with the number of devices you own. But, as someone who has seven iOS devices amongst my family and five separate iCloud accounts (but one AppleID for music which we all share) registering a separate iCloud account for each device works just fine.

Other than that minor quibble, people should lose the sense of entitlement. Apple isn't Dropbox; iCloud isn't a file storage service. These are very different business models, very different user bases, very different use cases they support, and as one would expect they have very different pricing structures.

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You can always upgrade your plan at basically no fault; the remainder of time on the old plan gets prorated back to you.

So, yes, never upgrade icloud storage until you are at the limit.

As much as it seems like it would be nice for Apple to provide 5GB for each ios device simple business says this is a dumb idea.

Some people buy an ios device or two a year. It would be crazy for Apple to give away that much space over even a 2-3 year period.

Then what happens when people take devices back after purchasing them? Apple would need to implement something that ties into Find my iPhone registered device feature or some would be buying and taking back devices just to stock up on icloud storage.