John Gruber commented on Jason Snell’s post this morning lamenting on how he feels that Apple is a hardware and software company, and not a services company. Gruber said:
I think it’s even worse than that. I think Apple’s (Cook’s?) interest in increasing revenue from Services is keeping them from doing what’s right — increasing the base iCloud storage from 5 GB to something more reasonable.
I just don’t want to believe that Apple is keeping us at a minuscule 5 GB limit merely to increase services revenue. The problem is that we don’t seem to have any other reasonable explanation for the limitation. I have a 200 GB limit on my iCloud account that I pay for monthly, so I guess if that is the reason, it’s working.
We’ve been saying it for years now, but it’s time for a significant increase to the base iCloud storage.
5 GB per iOS & Mac device purchased always seemed fair to me.
The minimum should be enough that you do not have to pay to back up your first apple device. Maybe abolish GB limits altogether and just say your first device backs up for free, additional devices are $1 per month.
That’s exactly the reason. I’m sure if Apple could get away with taking a cut of Uber and Lyft sales from iOS apps they would too.
I’ve always assumed that first tier was a way to get you to sign up for Apple Pay. It is only a dollar per month, but it gets you to enter your credit card. It certainly worked on me – whenever I sign up older family members, I sign them up.
I don’t think Apple makes enough from iCloud storage to even care. They know how much storage the average account uses… If that ever hits a threshold, then they’ll increase the minimum.
I pay for the 200GB tier, because I have several Apple products. The “Dekstop and Documents” feature of iCloud is indispensable now that iOS has the Files app.
Maybe Google One will put some upward pressure on Apple’s tiers when it finally rolls out. Maybe.
iCloud backup using very little space. Apple would give us less than 5 GB. If that’s the case.
??? No way.
Backup includes photos, music, movies, books — it can add up fast. I know my mother needs to pay for extra storage because she takes so many pictures. My spouse keeps her ebook library on her ipad – including lots of graphic novels – and that blows well past the 5gb limit.
I always assumed the 5GB tier was for basic iCloud data – contacts, calendars, reminders, notes, keychain and similar. It’s not intended for media or full iDevice backups, so saying the 5GB doesn’t cover enough of that doesn’t make sense.
When you have no clue what you’re talking about you should stop & educate yourself on iCloud backup. There are useful articles about it on Apple site.
Seems to me the reason is fairly simple (I’m lazy, someone has probably already mentioned this) as well as a fairly cook solution: cover the massive infrastructure cost without eating into the bottom line. I don’t agree with it, but I can’t really think of anything else. The major problem is that the current system throws a massive wrench into the supposed “it just works” ethos. It doesn’t just work because it’s not enough storage and leads to a frustrating UX. Among the things that apple consistently gets wrong, this is probably in the top ten.
If apple were smart about it, they would just match the amount of iCloud storage to the amount of local storage (intelligently to avoid abuse) on a per user basis. My guess is that the bulk of the consumer base doesn’t need that much storage.
Apple Pay has nothing to do with paying for additional iCloud storage.
The mastermind (in keeping iCloud ridiculous free storage) should be Phil Schiller, no?
Or even Eddy Cue? Isn’t he oversee iCloud?
“??? No way.
Backup includes photos, music, movies, books”
It’s clear you’ve never used iCloud backup because it won’t backup those things. Those things are on your iCloud storage, not back up, so it doesn’t make sense to back them up again to have 2 copies.
For example, my 64 GB. iPad Air 2 is almost full but my iCloud backup for it is only 3 GB.
You win the senseless pedantry contest. Enjoy your lack of a prize.
IOS has always had a screwy backup system, in which different parts of your data are treated differently and given different names (and some of your data, like sent emails, are infuriatingly never backed up at all).
However, if you say yes when asked if you want to use Icloud on your new device, then your data (in all its forms) is backed up (regardless of what bullshit names the OS gives the various parts of the process) as long as you have less than 5gb of it. If you have more than 5gb of data, then it whines at you until you turn off icloud backups or you fork over $1 per month.
What it should do is back up your first device no matter how much data you have on it.
Judging by AWS costs, that “massive” infrastructure cost is $0.023/GB. So giving 100 GB away would cost $2.30 at AWS rates. And that includes Amazon’s operating margin in there. At the premium prices (and margins) Apple charges for the hardware, they could fit that in. Apple can’t even claim they are in line with the market as Google and Samsung both give 15 GB for free.
First prize for senseless pedantry with a bonus prize for gratuitous insult slinging.
eta: I know what the word backup means in ordinary common speech. It appears you only know what the word means in the special universe of IOS terminology. Perhaps you should rethink who needs to educate themselves about how to converse with their fellow humans before slinging insults.
What I said still true, isn’t it?
“When you have no clue what you’re talking about you should stop & educate yourself..”
It would benefit your life immensely if you do that first instead of being defensive & trying to be sarcastic.
It’s my single biggest issue with Apple, by far. I can’t do a full iCloud backup of my 64gb iPhone. That to me is ridiculous. A full backup of that isn’t even very big, it would only be a couple GB more than the current limit.
Data centers and large internet pipes are not costless to run. I prefer Apple’s approach of charging $/month openly and directly to Google and Amazon hiding the charge by taking from you somewhere else without your knowledge/permission.
Worst value of any cloud service by far. They should be ashamed.
Amazon and Google don’t
count photos as part of your storage limits.
Oh, indeed!
2.3×1.3B. So nearly 3B annually. Yes they COULD and SHOULD toss it in, but I can see why a guy like cook would want to pass that cost on.
IIRC, iCloud *will* backup your photos if you’re not using iCloud Photo Library. It just has an optimization to skip it for iCloud Photo Library users.
But, yes, I agree that “free backup”, the way iOS is structured, wouldn’t currently be that useful for a lot of people.
Well, we can do an estimate. Do we think 10% of iOS users pay for iCloud storage?
If so, we have something like 10-100 million users paying at least a $1/month. That’s quite a bit of money. I don’t agree this can’t factor into the calculation.
Google only “doesn’t count” your photos if you let them recompress and possibly downsize your photos to be smaller. If you want your original-quality, original-size photos, you use your Google storage (or you buy a Pixel and shoot everything on the Pixel camera).
what happens to your data when you remove a device? Apple just nukes it arbitrarily?
so somebody taking a crapton of large 4K movies should never have to pay for cloud storage? odd thought
i cant do a full backup of my 64GB iPhone. keep in mind apps dont need or use your backup space, because they already live on the App Store backend.
what do you call then Dropbox’s policy of only 2GB, and then charges $10/mo? meanwhile, Apple give you 5GB, and then charges start at $1/mo.
To me Apple is a better value by far. I paid the $1/mo, won’t pay Dropbox $10/mo.
Raising it to 15 GB, which is basically industry standard for high end devices, would cost $130M. That’s a lot of money to you and me, but peanuts to Apple. It’s about $0.75 per iPhone sold annually.
Dropbox only gives you 2GB free, then you pay $10/mo and up.
with Apple i pay $1 a month for 50GB, which i share on my Family Plan. we’re only using two-thirds of it, two devices each. as a result I could buy the smaller-capacity iPhone X.
it’s a buck. if you cant pay a buck a month for backups, youre not serious about your data. and a buck is much nicer than $10.
Dropbox only makes money from selling storage. Apple makes money from selling high end devices that require storage. Also, the fact that it’s only 5 GB total, rather than even 5 GB per device is asinine and shows it’s a pure nickel and dime cash grab.
Nothing should happen. Sorry if my initial reply wasn’t clear. Every device purchased new should come with 5 GBs on iCloud that is yours forever. Buy an iPhone every year… 5 GBs added every year.
Given how iOS devices at all levels are, rightfully, advertised and touted as tools for creating and consuming high-bandwidth content, that sounds a bit limited. There’s a reason that minimum storage capacity on these devices has increased. iCloud storage hasn’t kept pace.