Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Actually it’s the other way around — it’s Apple that’s pushing their luck. I subscribed to Apple TV when it was priced at 49 bucks, renewed when it increased to 69, and canceled when it went up to 99. In just a couple of years, the price doubled without doubling the perceived value — their loss.
Curious of what you WOULD consider a raise in perceived value. Apple TV+ has the highest ratio of quality content compared to how much they put out. Damn near all of their series are top notch, and they keep adding more, all while continuing the current ones. They haven’t had any controversial cancellations or anything like that. Their movie offerings are so-so, not very many, but its not like they’re just dumping tons of crap or anything, and even when they buy licenses to other movies to offer them for a limited time, it’ll be like 20 incredible movies, available for a month or two as an added bonus. I personally think the fact that they have the cheapest price while having so many good series is crazy. So it makes me curious what more they would have to do to make you think the value is there. What’s a fair and realistic change they need to do?

And this is coming from someone who had zero faith in Apple when they were entering the streaming game. What they've done is crazy.
 
I have Apple One Premier in Australia and it went from $42.95 a month to $49.95 a month. I still consider pretty good value for what I get. Unlike Netflix that costs me $25.99 a month in Australia and they really add nothing new. Disney+ however after the last price rise I have cancelled auto renew. It went from $139.99 a year to $179.99 a year and all they did was add nothing new and crack down on account sharing. It’s all pure greed.
 
Thinking of resubscribing to Apple Arcade but there's a good amount of Netflix games included in my streaming bundle. It's hard to justify paying another $9 CAD for a mobile gaming subscription.
 
Ive been trying the AppleTV+ 3 month free trial, and I’ve been impressed with the quality of the content - Foundation was great and scratches the itch left by The Expanse, and I’m really enjoying For All Mankind.

It’s been so good that I’m considering keeping the subscription after the trial. From Apple’s perspective, that must be great, right? That’s exactly why they offer trials.

Except that if the price increases now while I’m still considering it, that immediately causes a strong negative reaction and would likely sway my decision the other way.

That’s the risk of price increases.
 
wasn’t there a leaker that would confirm/deny by just saying “nope” or “yup”? who was that lol and where are they.

I’m curious what they’d say.
 
I’m not that bothered as I don’t subscribe to any of these, and I consider them throwaway type subs. But last time my iCloud Drive sub went up from 6.99 to 8.99 with absolutely no leeway for a long term subscriber. Most other companies offer grandfathered type plans to reward long term subscribers and don’t just randomly increase the subscriptions. Cloud storage is very different from content consumption subs where you can essentially just start and stop at will. Bugs me the absolute control that is imposed.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1Peace
Doesn’t matter. You just cancel and later you get multiple free months of whatever service you want. Everyone here knows that.

A bit trickier if you are subscribed to Apple One, where iCloud storage kinda locks you in monthly (or lose your backups and ability to sync photos).

Which is why I think the future of streaming services is probably a combination of higher prices, lower costs and bundles to discourage churn.
 
Many people think inflation and higher prices only happens to *them*. Not realizing it also affects tech companies like Apple. Apple's 600,000+ employees need to have yearly raises and better benefits - just as one of many examples of overhead costs Apple incurs. Apple as a company is certainly not immune to inflation.
The $4 RAM chips they sell as $200 upgrades should cover that. They should do what MS does with the xbox just the other way, the h/w side of the business supporting service.
 
The $4 RAM chips they sell as $200 upgrades should cover that. They should do what MS does with the xbox just the other way, the h/w side of the business supporting service.
Wouldn't that just open Apple up to more antitrust complaints? For example, we know Apple has enough cash to undercut Spotify and offer Apple Music for free or at a heavily discounted rate. But Apple is also in the business of making money, and I don't think it's really in anyone's long term interests that these services be money pits where Apple just throws billions in with no return.
 
Still a great deal for *instant* all-you-can-eat music in any genre, with Apple's library of more than 100 million stream on demand songs.

Many people think inflation and higher prices only happens to *them*. Not realizing it also affects tech companies like Apple. Apple's 600,000+ employees need to have yearly raises and better benefits - just as one of many examples of overhead costs Apple incurs. Apple as a company is certainly not immune to inflation.
I’m still torn on Apple Music versus owning CD’s or digital purchases. I keep flip flopping between both and cancelling Apple Music every couple months.

I can see it’s great especially for young people starting with nothing but long term its ultimately not great value if you consider most people will just listen to the same bands, so they are ultimately paying to permanently rent something that would cost them a few hundred to own instead.
 
  • Like
Reactions: turbineseaplane
Apple News is so exorbitantly priced and the app is a mess. It’s impossible to read a magazine as you would a magazine and you can’t separate “news” from “magazines” so magazine content always gets entangled in the news. I just don’t know what Apple had in mind when they created this mess.

Apple One does not save you money if you don’t want Arcade, Fitness+ and you don’t need to share with family members 🤷🏻‍♂️😁
 
I’m still torn on Apple Music versus owning CD’s or digital purchases. I keep flip flopping between both and cancelling Apple Music every couple months.

I can see it’s great especially for young people starting with nothing but long term its ultimately not great value if you consider most people will just listen to the same bands, so they are ultimately paying to permanently rent something that would cost them a few hundred to own instead.

I look at Apple's Music app and its 100+ Million song library as way to explore new music I'm not familiar with. As well as being able to listen albums of music going way back from when I was in high school. That's a huge range of music and genres. There's no way I'm going to purchase all of that at $10 to $20 per CD. That would work out to many thousands of dollars.

And out course the huge benefit is I can listen to Apple Music at home, in my car with Apple CarPlay, walking around the nieghborhood (iPhone and AirPods), on the train, or in the gym, or on vacation. All from a library of 100+ million songs, anywhere I happen to be.

That's the value proposition that works for me, and is pretty outstanding.
 
Apple News is so exorbitantly priced and the app is a mess. It’s impossible to read a magazine as you would a magazine and you can’t separate “news” from “magazines” so magazine content always gets entangled in the news. I just don’t know what Apple had in mind when they created this mess.

Apple One does not save you money if you don’t want Arcade, Fitness+ and you don’t need to share with family members 🤷🏻‍♂️😁

Being a news junkie, I gave Apple News a try. I didn't like it - it was too much - not cost, but organization. I much rather have separate news apps, around a dozen, from the news sources I read. For me it's far easier to navigate with separate news apps.
 
I’m still torn on Apple Music versus owning CD’s or digital purchases. I keep flip flopping between both and cancelling Apple Music every couple months.

I can see it’s great especially for young people starting with nothing but long term its ultimately not great value if you consider most people will just listen to the same bands, so they are ultimately paying to permanently rent something that would cost them a few hundred to own instead.

I've got some years (of life) that might be called wisdom (or insanity, depending on who passes judgement). ;)

Here's my best take...

Owning > Renting unless you are young and have nothing with which to start and little money to actually buy a good starter collection... which is basically the same proposition of buying a home vs. renting one... or buying a car vs. leasing one, etc.

If one gets on the "own" train, they eventually accumulate a good amount of their favorite music. Over a few decades, I've piled up about 15,000 songs, carefully made about 20 playlists of "favorites" and those playlists contain about 4K songs in total (about 26% of the library). Most of those get synched to my mobile devices so I don't pay forever rent for cloud storage either. I find that it takes only a few thousand favorite songs to never get that "stale" feeling via shuffling. So I am not regularly accumulating a lot of new ones- just enjoying the ones already owned. When I do hear a new one that I like (often via the free Pandora or also free Sonos Music stations), I'll seek it out and add it to the collection.

Where does new music come from vs. the cheap "rent for access to all" option? Holiday & birthday gift CDs are an easy way to add new without spending a nickel. An up to $20 gift is easy for just about anyone to give. The used CD market is robust and greatest hits collections at only a few dollars can add 10-20 best songs in one cheap buy. Occasional free music promotions for buying something else can also add new music. Etc.

4,000 favorites divided by- say- 20 "greatest hits" CDs = only 200 CDs. If given about 50 of them for free, that leaves 150 to buy. At typical used prices, that can be about $4 each. So that's $600. Now maybe one doesn't get everything they want from loaded (20 song) "greatest hits" collections, so they might buy another 100s CDs or similar... but round it up to maybe $1,000 or so and it's still not that many months until forever rent exceeds $1000. Example: while I know promotions make pricing vary, rounding to- say- about $10/month means $1000/10 = 100 months. That's only 8.4 years before renting becomes more expensive than buying IF the rent stays the same for the next 8 years (good luck with that.)

The youngster just getting going in adulthood probably has Mommy & Daddy's entire music collection already on hand... and those parents likely had to BUY most of their collection on disc. Friends share CDs. Relationships sometimes swap CDs or merge whole libraries that then persist when relationships end. The local library(s). Siblings. Etc. In other words, quite a big bank of great music can get the youngster off to a fairly loaded library start before they need to spend a nickel. If that gets them- say- half of the songs in their 300 CDs equivalent, they are probably accumulating another 150 CDs at about that $600 (if they want).

Once someone has a few thousand favorites, there's always something good to enjoy. And if they want a dash of "new", Pandora/Sonos/YouTube or even radio is always available to explore brand new for $0.

To try to absolutely rationalize forever rent, one usually has to play the extreme games... as if every CD is going to cost $20+ out of pocket and offer up examples of the most expensive box sets, etc... while ignoring the parent's probably very large collection, the used market, the library, relationship accumulations, etc. To me though, that's like rationalizing forever renting a home based upon some "expensive repair" they don't worry about (but will pay for in rent hikes) or property taxes they don't have to pay (but do pay because it's built into the rent), etc.

At some point, one has enough music and can turn off any new spend and enjoy what they have. And that brings us to the most important part: all of it doesn't immediately evaporate if the owner decides to pinch off that bit of their spending. Again, that's the same with renting a home or car too. If you decide to stop paying, you are homeless or car-less... unlike the owner who- after they own it- does not have to continue to pay to keep enjoying it.

Is there ANY argument for renting? Of course! Different situations can make it justifiable even over a long period of time. But in the broadest strokes for probably most people, owning is probably the better way to go. Some kind of world in which we rent/subscribe for all of the basics is a world where those providing such services ultimately accumulate all of the wealth and those renting/subscribing to everything one day find their cupboard (they don't even own) is bare. The "everything" proposition is enticing but just as easily fleeting when one turns off the money flow stream by choice... or by no choice.
 
Last edited:
Roll your own: buy a NAS and own your own cloud. You can then have any amount of storage and rent it to yourself for $0/month. And a NAS can do so many other useful things than only being a personal cloud.
I would still be on $0 for iCloud if my girlfriend didn't insist on backing up her phones to it and using iCloud Photos. I don't do either, I've got local backups and a 24TB media server. (Didn't even buy a NAS, it's an old Dull rack server I got for $50.)
 
  • Like
Reactions: HobeSoundDarryl
I've got some years (of life) that might be called wisdom (or insanity, depending on who passes judgement). ;)

Here's my best take...

Owning > Renting unless you are young and have nothing with which to start and little money to actually buy a good starter collection... which is basically the same proposition of buying a home vs. renting one... or buying a car vs. leasing one, etc.

If one gets on the "own" train, they eventually accumulate a good amount of their favorite music. Over a few decades, I've piled up about 15,000 songs, carefully made about 20 playlists of "favorites" and those playlists contain about 4K songs in total (about 26% of the library). Most of those get synched to my mobile devices so I don't pay forever rent for cloud storage either. I find that it takes only a few thousand favorite songs to never get that "stale" feeling via shuffling. So I am not regularly accumulating a lot of new ones- just enjoying the ones already owned. When I do hear a new one that I like (often via the free Pandora or also free Sonos Music stations), I'll seek it out and add it to the collection.

Where does new music come from vs. the cheap "rent for access to all" option? Holiday & birthday gift CDs are an easy way to add new without spending a nickel. An up to $20 gift is easy for just about anyone to give. The used CD market is robust and greatest hits collections at only a few dollars can add 10-20 best songs in one cheap buy. Occasional free music promotions for buying something else can also add new music. Etc.

4,000 favorites divided by- say- 20 "greatest hits" CDs = only 200 CDs. If given about 50 of them for free, that leaves 150 to buy. At typical used prices, that can be about $4 each. So that's $600. Now maybe one doesn't get everything they want from loaded (20 song) "greatest hits" collections, so they might buy another 100s CDs or similar... but round it up to maybe $1,000 or so and it's still not that many months until forever rent exceeds $1000. Example: while I know promotions make pricing vary, rounding to- say- about $10/month means $1000/10 = 100 months. That's only 8.4 years before renting becomes more expensive than buying IF the rent stays the same for the next 8 years (good luck with that.)

The youngster just getting going in adulthood probably has Mommy & Daddy's entire music collection already on hand... and those parents likely had to BUY most of their collection on disc. Friends share CDs. Relationships sometimes swap CDs or merge whole libraries that then persist when relationships end. The local library(s). Siblings. Etc. In other words, quite a big bank of great music can get the youngster off to a fairly loaded library start before they need to spend a nickel. If that gets them- say- half of the songs in their 300 CDs equivalent, they are probably accumulating another 150 CDs at about that $600 (if they want).

Once someone has a few thousand favorites, there's always something good to enjoy. And if they want a dash of "new", Pandora/Sonos/YouTube or even radio is always available to explore brand new for $0.

To try to absolutely rationalize forever rent, one usually has to play the extreme games... as if every CD is going to cost $20+ out of pocket and offer up examples of the most expensive box sets, etc... while ignoring the parent's probably very large collection, the used market, the library, relationship accumulations, etc. To me though, that's like rationalizing forever renting a home based upon some "expensive repair" they don't worry about (but will pay for in rent hikes) or property taxes they don't have to pay (but do pay because it's built into the rent), etc.

At some point, one has enough music and can turn off any new spend and enjoy what they have. And that brings us to the most important part: all of it doesn't immediately evaporate if the owner decides to pinch off that bit of their spending. Again, that's the same with renting a home or car too. If you decide to stop paying, you are homeless or car-less... unlike the owner who- after they own it- does not have to continue to pay to keep enjoying it.

Is there ANY argument for renting? Of course! Different situations can make it justifiable even over a long period of time. But in the broadest strokes for probably most people, owning is probably the better way to go. Some kind of world in which we rent/subscribe for all of the basics is a world where those providing such services ultimately accumulate all of the wealth and those renting/subscribing to everything one day find their cupboard (they don't even own) is bare. The "everything" proposition is enticing but just as easily fleeting when one turns off the money flow stream by choice... or by no choice.
Some very good points! You’ve made me want to cancel my Apple Music subscription again lol. There are some absolute bargains on Facebook market place. I recently bought 500 cds for $100!

One other argument for it I suppose is it’s all hi res audio which is something cds don’t deliver but again I suppose that depends on how good your hearing is!

My only negative for purchased music is that iTunes or the music doesn’t sync over the artwork very well even though I have it on my Mac
 
  • Like
Reactions: HobeSoundDarryl
The reason I don't is that I use Apple Photos

I have a TrueNAS build for Plex, file backups, Resilio Sync for some things, etc ... the Apple Photo syncing is the thing still

I'd like to just have them charge more linearly and offer something between 200gb and 2TB, which is too large of a gap

I'd love the ability to have iOS photos sync with other services (including your own provided ones). I think one could reasonably argue we should be able to.

Maybe it's possible?
I haven't looked into it in the last year+
I have been able to successfully switch to Synology Photos on my NAS.

It syncs the camera roll to the NAS in the background (can choose all the time or only over Wifi, and i think it optimizes for battery conditions too iirc). i can still use the iOS Photos app and my local device storage, then across all my devices Synology does the rest. Supports Live Photos as well, which was the key for me to make the full switch.

When phone is full, i can choose what to delete or just dump the entire camera roll and start over on device while everything in the past stays in the NAS.
 
  • Love
Reactions: turbineseaplane
Some very good points! You’ve made me want to cancel my Apple Music subscription again lol. There are some absolute bargains on Facebook market place. I recently bought 500 cds for $100!

One other argument for it I suppose is it’s all hi res audio which is something cds don’t deliver but again I suppose that depends on how good your hearing is!

My only negative for purchased music is that iTunes or the music doesn’t sync over the artwork very well even though I have it on my Mac

In the course of ripping a CD at a time, a person is not typically going to have 500 CDs to do (but wow, if that was some good music- WHAT A BARGAIN (that you fully own now)). Instead, they buy a new CD or 3 at a time or maybe get 5 or 10 as gifts... or at least that's how it went for me. Since it's not one gigantic job like 500 CDs but often just 1+ new CD, I've simply searched the internet to find a BIG size version of the cover (I favor a size of 1500X1500 at 150dpi myself), correct any not square (to perfect squares) and then assign them to the new songs just ripped. Repeat when I bought another CD. And just keep doing the same as I buy CDs.

In a few cases, some of my CDs were OLD ones and a big version of the cover could not be found. In particular, some 1990's Rhino Greatest Hits/Compilations no longer had big-size images of the art, so I just made my own. In some cases, I scanned it on a scanner. In other cases, I considered taking a picture of it with an iDevice. And still in others, I just chose a generic image that fit the type of music (like a 1500x1500 British flag for 60's British Invasion "greatest hits" compilations). Again, it's no heavy load unless one is trying to rip a LOT of discs in one sitting. So today, about all of my 15K songs have large-size covers (or substitutions of my choosing) associated with them.

It's been the same with ripping movies from discs. That's also been an overtime proposition and I hand pick the "thumbnail" in a large size and also tag them with apps like Meta-Z and Subler. That would be quite a heavy chore if I was doing hundreds of movies in one sitting but the practicality of accumulating a collection is often maybe a few a month. If someone was doing 1 each week of each, they would have 52 CDs and 52 movies in one year... and 520 CDs and 520 movies in 10 years. It's quite easy work ONCE to do a disc or two (or even 4) each week.

Way to go on getting 500 CDS for only 20¢ each. Over many years, I've usually paid the "bargain" of only a couple of bucks for each one. I thought I was towards "killing it" at maybe $3-$4 each. 20¢ is incredible... but also quite illustrative for others who might read this thread that the path to ownership is NOT $20/disc, etc. Digital is digital. If you can rip a song from a used disc that may have passed through 10 owners since it was new, you are ripping it as good as the very first owner. Yard sales, flea markets, pawn shops, plenty of online used sources, etc. can let one "own" a lot of music for not much money.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: JamesMay82
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.