Some iCloud Storage Plans Unavailable to Purchase Today, Likely Due to Server Issues

[nutmac]

Um... either I'm completely wooshing on this one or you're horrible at math.

$0.99/50GB= $0.0198 per GB
$2.99/200GB= $0.01495 per GB
$9.99/1000GB = $0.00999 per GB
$19.99/2000GB = $0.00999 per GB



At $0.06 per GB this would be the cost:
200GB = $12.00
1TB = $60.00
2TB = $120.00

As for your wish of $0.06 per GB, SURPRISE it's not more than $0.02 right now. Why would you want to pay 3x?

Math is important. Use it responsibly.
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Shame on you for not even bothering to check his math.

Sorry, it's price of GB per year.

 

[Shirasaki]

Apple support seems useless sometimes >.<

When you ask questions they are not prepared, they are useless.

 

[Aniruddh]

Dang it, I was hoping for a price drop. At the very least, Apple needs to do Mac Pro like price adjustment.

Current:

• 50GB @ $0.99/month ($0.24 per GB)
• 200GB @ $2.99/month ($0.18 per GB)
  
• 1TB @ $9.99/month ($0.12 per GB)
  
• 2TB @ $19.99/month ($0.12 per GB)

My wish is $0.06 per GB across the board:

• 200GB @ $0.99/month ($0.06 per GB)
• 1TB @ $4.99/month ($0.06 per GB)
• 2TB @ $9.99/month ($0.06 per GB)

Better yet, offer flexible $0.99/month per 200GB used, with family sharing.

In case anyone's wondering, Dropbox is $0.10 per GB and Google Drive varies between $0.20 and $0.10 per GB. And neither offer flexible pay-as-you-use pricing, nor family sharing.

Current pricing isn't bad, IMO. Unlike Google, Apple isn't the infrastructure owner for their cloud space. They lease it from AWS.

 

[markiv810]

I doubt that Apple will ever increase the free tier, and if they do, they won't increase it much.

Here's why: By ensuring people have to pay $1 a month to use more than 5GB, they are making sure only those who are actively using their iCloud storage will be taking up more than 5GB of space.

Think about it: They give out 50GB free, and you have Joe Schmoe sign up, upload his 40GB photo collection, then switch to Android a year later and never use iCloud again. Now Apple has 40GB of data that'll stick around on their servers forever since the 50GB tier is free.

By charging $1 a month, Apple will recover the space when Joe stops paying for it. It's an easy way to ensure long gone users don't take up many petabytes of space. $1 a month is something pretty much anyone can pay, but most people will stop paying it if they're not using it.

It's a similar reason big cities charge for street parking; it's not so much about making money but about controlling usage of a limited resource.

Exactly, Apple can but won't increase the capacity in free tier, on purchase of an Apple device iPhone/iPad Apple should give storage plans free of cost that suffice the backing of the particular device. For example if one purchases an iPad with 128 GB storage capacity, free storage of at least 128 GB should be available to the user.

 

[gsmornot]

You think that's bad? I had to go from $2.99/mo 200GB to $9.99/mo 1TB because I'm using barely over 200GB of data. I culled down my photos and videos over the course of last year, but ran over on data again towards the end of the year so I just upgraded. I have nearly 800GB of space I don't use and what's worse is that I can't even share that with my wife or anyone else on my iCloud Family. I have to pay extra for my wife's storage, and she only needs 50GB! It's ridiculous.

I wrote in this post about a week ago what I hope Apple does going forward, given the pricing trends over time. Hopefully this "glitch" today is a sign that they're working on some changes ahead of WWDC. In that post I put the prices I hope to see for this autumn, and here they are again. These are my "Apple Adjusted" numbers. Of course I'd love to see lower, but given we're talking about Apple, I think this is more realistic (aside from them maybe never increasing the free tier because they're tightwads).

• 20GB free (5GB isn't even enough to really try it out any more)
• 100GB for $0.99/mo
  
• 500GB for $3.99/mo
• 1TB for $7.99/mo
• 2TB for $14.99/mo

Sounds good to me. I buy 3 plans that most likely would fit within the 20GB tier and one plan that needs the 100GB.
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Current pricing isn't bad, IMO. Unlike Google, Apple isn't the infrastructure owner for their cloud space. They lease it from AWS.

...and Microsoft Azure

 

[Tech198]

Current pricing isn't bad, IMO. Unlike Google, Apple isn't the infrastructure owner for their cloud space. They lease it from AWS.

Just about everything is using Amazon Web Services.. The other half is hosted on places like Sourceforge.

 

[BuckeyeShaw]

Then maybe all of his math shouldn't have been in "/month". Absolutely no mention of year. I was simply going on the math and details/numbers he provided. I'm not a mind reader.

If this is what you are losing sleep over I think you need a hobby.

 

[mrt209]

Just got an email from Apple:

Dear Mrt209,

You recently received an email incorrectly stating that your iCloud storage plan has been discontinued. Your 50 GB iCloud storage plan is not affected and will continue to renew automatically.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. If you have any questions, please contact us.

Regards,

Apple Support