Apple Highlights Five Perks for iPhone Users Who Pay for iCloud Storage

[MacRumors]

After launching new iPhones last month, Apple is promoting iCloud+ with a prominent banner on its home page, in a bid to boost its services revenue. In addition to more storage, all iCloud+ plans include five perks for iPhone users.

As a refresher, iCloud includes 5GB of storage for free. If you want extra storage, you need to subscribe to an iCloud+ plan. In the United States, prices range from $0.99 per month for 50GB of storage to $59.99 per month for 12TB of storage.

Here are the five perks included with all iCloud+ plans:

• Private Relay keeps your Safari browsing history entirely private from network providers, websites, and even Apple.
• Hide My Email generates unique, random email addresses whenever needed.
• HomeKit Secure Video allows you to capture and review home security footage in an end-to-end encrypted format.
• Custom Email Domain enables you to personalize your iCloud email address.
• Apple Invites app lets you create event invitations.

Some of these iCloud+ features are not available in all countries.

Apple's comparison chart for iCloud+ plans in the U.S. is shown below.

Article Link: Apple Highlights Five Perks for iPhone Users Who Pay for iCloud Storage

 

[jz0309]

Nah, I’m doing just fine with the 5GB, actually just using under a GB … YMMV

 

[dmk1974]

How about offering 500 GB for the $2.99 and adding a 1 TB plan for $5.99?

 

[dumastudetto]

Only Apple can do this because they control the full stack.

 

[Frixos]

I would love to see the sizes increase. Maybe... 10, 75, 250, 2.5, 7.5, 15.

And add the 1.25TB for 5.99:

How about offering 500 GB for the $2.99 and adding a 1 TB plan for $5.99?

 

[Dulcimer]

Only 2/5 are useful to me. What would be much more useful is having more tiers at different prices. 200GB to 2TB jump is asking a lot.

 

[Donkey Man]

No, thanks - stop pushing your services crap through nagging notifications, Apple - those who wish to pay will have done it already.

 

[Justin Cymbal]

Hide My Email generates unique, random email addresses whenever needed

I use this feature all the time for when I sign up for free trials (with various subscription services)

(or) companies that require you provide an email address….but you don’t want to give them your ACTUAL email address - for the purpose of being able to relinquish unwanted newsletter spam shall said company(s) refuse compliance with ‘unsubscribe’ initiations on my end

 

[HouseLannister]

The 99 cent option should be free or it should be 10 GB for every device on the account at minimum. 5 GB might work for some if all you are backing up is a single device and you don't use iCloud Drive, but backups alone for an iPhone and iPad can easily surpass 5 GB. With Google giving 2 TB free for the first year with Pixel Pro phones, Apple's stingy storage behavior is unacceptable.

 

[thesimpledrummer]

Homekit Secure Video would easily be a feature worth the price of iCloud storage ALONE, but they absolutely have nerfed it by not keeping up with competitors and limiting streaming and recording to 1080p.

Apple, please, I'm begging you, just give us 4k HKSV. Maybe even a pan and tilt API? Eufy and competition are making a killing selling separate cloud storage platforms for cameras that support HomeKit.

 

[k1121j]

I wonder what other feature I won’t use they will add next to justify a price increase.

 

[joeblow7777]

iCloud is the only Apple subscription service that I use. I have to say, only 5GB for free is pretty pathetic, but the prices for 50GB and 200GB (the tier I use) are very reasonable!

 

[joeblow7777]

With Google giving 2 TB free for the first year with Pixel Pro phones, Apple's stingy storage behavior is unacceptable.

What happens after the first year?

 

[klasma]

What happens after the first year?

It drops to 15GB, or costs $99 per year.

 

[Justin Cymbal]

How about offering 500 GB for the $2.99 and adding a 1 TB plan for $5.99?

Exactly. How many people are even on the 200gb plan these days?!

200gb is so outdated in today’s world for most individuals, ESPECIALLY families

Both my Dad & I are each using close to 300gb of our 2tb plan

I read MR comments regarding this issue all the time of the fact that there isn’t ANY plan between 200gb and 2000gb!!

1800gb (10 x) is SUCH a massive gap/difference that has been talked about on these forums FOR YEARS and yet 🍎 has yet to publicly acknowledge this issue and/or rectify it (in any way)

Pretty much every iCloud user’s storage needs continue to increase (not decrease) so it would be prudent for Apple to not only modernize the 200gb plan to say 500gb - for the same cost (or a dollar or two more) but also to continuously revisit their iCloud storage pricing models (on a regular 5yr OR multi-year basis) to allow their effective pricing and storage amounts to more closely resemble the current needs of customers - as demand for storage will only increase as users take more pictures (using ever higher quality iPhone cameras)

Storage costs also are continuously decreasing over time as technology progresses so Apple can (and should) price storage much more competitively than they have been doing.
Google’s cloud storage costs serve as the most effective barometer of a ballpark of what Apple SHOULD be charging - google has continuously lowered their pricing in recent years, while Apple has stayed the same for an unnecessarily long time - causing a very large discrepancy in Apple’s storage competitiveness with the current market

 

[AppleWarMachine]

how about a 4TB option for $19.99

 

[WarmWinterHat]

Exactly. How many people are even on the 200gb plan these days?!

200gb is so outdated in today’s world for most individuals, ESPECIALLY families

Both my Dad & I are each using close to 300gb of our 2tb plan

I read MR comments regarding this issue all the time of the fact that there isn’t ANY plan between 200gb and 2000gb!!

1800gb (10 x) is SUCH a massive gap/difference that has been talked about on these forums FOR YEARS and yet 🍎 has yet to publicly acknowledge this issue and/or rectify it (in any way)

Pretty much every iCloud user’s storage needs continue to increase (not decrease) so it would be prudent for Apple to not only modernize the 200gb plan to say 500gb - for the same cost (or a dollar or two more) but also to continuously revisit their iCloud storage pricing models (on a regular 5yr OR multi-year basis) to allow their effective pricing and storage amounts to more closely resemble the current needs of customers - as demand for storage will only increase as users take more pictures (using ever higher quality iPhone cameras)

Storage costs also are continuously decreasing over time as technology progresses so Apple can (and should) price storage much more competitively than they have been doing.
Google’s cloud storage costs serve as the most effective barometer of a ballpark of what Apple SHOULD be charging - google has continuously lowered their pricing in recent years, while Apple has stayed the same for an unnecessarily long time - causing a very large discrepancy in Apple’s storage competitiveness with the current market

From what I've read, 200gb is the most popular, and by quite a bit. It's enough for most anyone, IF you don't keep every single thing you do in the cloud, and don't shoot a lot of video that you never delete.

I'm not a data horder, and have my iMessage auto-delete after a year, and most large files are offloaded to my Mac and removed from my phone/iCloud...so I use about 80gb. Wife uses a Pixel, so no family plan for me.

All that said, there needs to be a 500gb tier.

 

[joshwithachance]

It's beyond time for them to add a 500GB and/or 1TB tier...

 

[turbineseaplane]

Ok ok you guys.
You've convinced us.

We'll bump it to 300GB
Contact new CEO John Ternus with further concerns.

-Tim

 

[il_teo77]

Curious that with the absence of real competition, as far as integration with the Os goes, the prices increase linearly with no discount whatsoever. 2-6-12 Tb all have the same “side benefits” and yet the storage price increases linearly instead of flattening out.
Explain to me again why the EU shouldn’t enforce some competition as far as iOS integration goes? There’s nothing remotely comparable in terms of cloud storage for iOS devices. Nothing that keeps Photos albums, faces, backups and the like. And, mind you, iCloud is reportedly “stupid” (all face recognition happens on device, as well as most privacy sensitive information and/or handling or said information) and yet no one outside Apple can provide it? There’s plenty of companies that could provide secure, encrypted storage of the data if they only could, and for a fraction of the price. And yet privacy, bla bla bla. If the data is mine, handled on device, and Apple cannot access it, why shouldn’t Apple allow third parties, at the same condition, to offer the same service? Or, better still, allow me to have an “on premise” compatible device doing the exact same (as time capsule was)? 120 usd a year for 1 tb of cloud storage, even factoring the services (which, again, are device dependent and not handled by the cloud) is absurd. Apple’s iCloud, per their definition and privacy orientation, is just some dumb disk in the sky…

 

[Madmic23]

I wish HomeKit Secure Video was a more reliable perk. I've used it for years, and it frequently misses events and recordings. I ended up replacing my Logitech HomeKit doorbell camera with a Tapo doorbell that does 24/7 recording to a local SD card. It also misses events, but at least I have the 24/7 video that I can scrub through to see what happened.

 

[Madmic23]

Curious that with the absence of real competition, as far as integration with the Os goes, the prices increase linearly with no discount whatsoever. 2-6-12 Tb all have the same “side benefits” and yet the storage price increases linearly instead of flattening out.
Explain to me again why the EU shouldn’t enforce some competition as far as iOS integration goes? There’s nothing remotely comparable in terms of cloud storage for iOS devices. Nothing that keeps Photos albums, faces, backups and the like. And, mind you, iCloud is reportedly “stupid” (all face recognition happens on device, as well as most privacy sensitive information and/or handling or said information) and yet no one outside Apple can provide it? There’s plenty of companies that could provide secure, encrypted storage of the data if they only could, and for a fraction of the price. And yet privacy, bla bla bla. If the data is mine, handled on device, and Apple cannot access it, why shouldn’t Apple allow third parties, at the same condition, to offer the same service? Or, better still, allow me to have an “on premise” compatible device doing the exact same (as time capsule was)? 120 usd a year for 1 tb of cloud storage, even factoring the services (which, again, are device dependent and not handled by the cloud) is absurd. Apple’s iCloud, per their definition and privacy orientation, is just some dumb disk in the sky…

For files and photos, you do have options. You can use Google Photos or Amazon photos to backup all of your photos and free up space on your phone. You can also use Google Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive, and those can even be accessed from the Files app.

But, those would be using other services.

If you want to use the existing Apple services but just use another companies storage solution for a cheaper price, that is an interesting idea.

I think it would be great if Apple would sell a "Personal iCloud", which could be a NAS drive in your home to store your iCloud Photo Library and other files. I'm sure their reason for not offering that is they would rather make the money from iCloud fees. They'd also likely be worried about quality of service, as your access would now depend on your own network and ISP. Also, if your house burned down or someone stole your NAS, you'd lose everything.

 

[satchmo]

Now if only iCloud+ could sync faster.

Photos taken on my iPhone have taken far too long to appear when I try to access on my iPad.

 

[tennisproha]

iCloud Private Relay has been great, but the email features really need to be better implemented. Hide My Email doesn't allow you to initiate emails and forwarding or replying can sometimes expose your real email in the body, unless you catch and delete it. Custom Email Domain only allows 5 email address aliases apparently so it's not an improvement over Hide My Email.

 

[now i see it]

I cancelled my iCloud subscription, discarded excess cruft, downgraded to the free 5GB offer and don't backup to iCloud. Wish I had done it years ago