Apple Intelligence Home Features Require 2TB iCloud+ Plan in iOS 27

[MacRumors]

Using Apple Intelligence camera features in the Home app will require an iCloud+ plan starting at 2TB, according to Apple. Apple shared the detail in its notes for the third macOS Golden Gate beta that was released today.

In iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27 Golden Gate, the Home app is able to generate written summaries for motion alerts from HomeKit Secure Video cameras. It's also able to group footage from separate cameras for an overview of activity and pull out noteworthy recordings, plus it supports natural language search.

Apple said at WWDC that some Apple Intelligence features would require an iCloud+ plan, but Apple didn't specify which tier users would need to subscribe to. For the Home features, users will need the 2TB iCloud+ plan or better. The 2TB plan includes 2TB of iCloud storage and it costs $9.99 per month.

HomeKit Secure Video cloud storage has always required a paid iCloud plan. The 50GB plan allows for one camera, while the 200GB plan supports up to five. The 2TB plan lets users add an unlimited number of HomeKit Secure Video cameras, and now it will also add the Apple Intelligence Home feature set. HomeKit video storage does not count against the storage limit of an iCloud+ plan, so the full 2TB stays available for photos and other data.

More on what's new in the Home app in iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27 can be found in our guide.

Article Link: Apple Intelligence Home Features Require 2TB iCloud+ Plan in iOS 27

 

[marblesbarkley]

I’m tired, man.

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

I’m tired, man.

Go to sleep?

 

[jz0309]

wow, sure glad that I have no use for the Home app, though those who do use it, that sucks big time.

 

[aries81]

Gotta milk it where you can.

 

[963852741]

120/year for ****? Get ****ed.

 

[storybylano]

Wow, Apple, don’t you have enough money already? Damn.

 

[JPack]

Now we know why Apple is developing a smart home camera.

 

[midkay]

Uh oh. Cue the angry comments in 3, 2...

 

[DEXTERITY]

this AI better end being next level or just wow lol

 

[gummybear2026]

Apple's AI pay-gate coming soon! What a joke.

 

[Apple_Jae]

My home security cameras were supported by Apple a VERY long time ago, but it's been years. This would be a cool feature if ANY of my home automation worked with Apple.

 

[t0rqx]

People laughing at my post few years ago, when I told them soon you will need to pay to restart your iPhone, because turning it off feeds them fewer data.

 

[GrumpyOldGuy52]

Using Apple Intelligence camera features in the Home app will require an iCloud+ plan starting at 2TB, according to Apple.

HomeKit video storage does not count against the storage limit of an iCloud+ plan, so the full 2TB stays available for photos and other data.

Then what is the rationale for requiring the plan? Other than showing "growth" to the stockholders, that is.

This is asinine. I've been chewing on the idea of going to Home Assistant, but it looks like Apple is going to force me to do it.

 

[capamac]

"AI" does have a very high energy, IT and water use cost associated with it, so it makes sense to charge. Even this $9/month plan probably isn't fully covering the "AI" cost, given that Ed Zitron argues the other LLM companies are providing "AI" to customers below actual cost, which is why they're primed to go under.

Plus, the "AI" features are fairly silly and useless. The whole thing is heavily over-hyped.

 

[terrywfoster]

I’m at a point that I can get out of HomeKit.

 

[citysnaps]

Almost everyone here vigorously claimed, multiple times, back in 2025 they'd remove Apple AI as soon as it was loaded/installed on their Apple devices.

And now people are going non-linear about one Apple AI feature (HomeKit video camera motion alerts) being a paid for iCloud+ option? Too funny.

 

[IceCool]

Does this include Apple One Premiere or no? It has 2TB of iCloud storage too.

 

[All Taken]

I’m tired, man.

John will be CEO soon and all will be well, right? This is just temporary. It will get better, right?

 

[tobybrut]

This actually makes sense. For those who didn’t know, it required a 2TB plan prior to Apple Intelligence features to have support for unlimited numbers of HomeKit cameras (there was an old limit of 5, but that was replaced with unlimited). Smaller plans had limitations of 1 or 2 cameras. Having a feature that stitches together multiple cameras makes sense for the 2TB plan since you needed that plan to have a lot of cameras in the first place.

 

[rjp1]

Opening up storage is the thing I’m most looking forward to regulators going after Apple for. It’s ridiculous we can’t self host or use Dropbox or any other storage provider.

 

[sublunar]

I think it was inevitable that they'd start to put some things behind an iCloud storage tier, like a cable subscription of old before streamers broke that model only to become the villains later on with ever increasing costs. For what it's worth, there's a point to this - I just think iCloud storage to some degree is useful for a variety of things - they could use it to sweeten the Apple Creator Studio bundle for instance.

I would say that One Drive is a major part of what makes Office 365 a good value - Apple should consider doing the same with the Creator Studio.

Of course, it also needs a Home Hub. Makes you wonder where the rumoured iMac G4 style device is up to and how it'll be priced considering what happened to the 3rd gen 4k Apple TV...

 

[1rottenapple]

Yup this is the play for them. Saw it a mile away. While the majority don't care for it they see the future recurring profits.

 

[Elcuria]

And the hits just keep on coming...

 

[DocMultimedia]

Does this include Apple One Premiere or no? It has 2TB of iCloud storage too.

I hope so. That's what I have.