Tim Hardwick, MacRumors:
The new plans include 100GB storage for $1.99 a month, 200GB for $2.99 a month, and 2TB for $9.99 a month (down from $19.99). The free 15GB for non-paying users remains. There’s also a new family option for divvying up a single storage plan amongst up to five members.
And Apple:
Apple’s iCloud monthly storage plans aren’t so different: they start with 5GB free storage for non-paying users, then offer 50GB for $0.99, 200GB for $2.99, and 2TB for $9.99.
To me, 5GB might as well be zero. The smallest configuration for Apple’s most popular phone, the iPhone X, is 64GB. What does that 5GB offer for a 64GB phone? It seems paltry. To me, this is stingy and bad optics.
At the very least, I think Apple should match Google’s free 15GB and unlimited free photo storage. Even better, raise that bar. As is, this feels like nickel and diming people who are spending as much as $1,000 for a phone.
First of all, let’s face it, Google caters to the “free” crowd. They always have. Their biggest problem is that a vast majority of their user base wouldn’t pay for anything.
The other thing.. if you can afford a $1000 phone, you can surely afford $1 a month to back it up, that is, if your data was important.
I do agree, the free tier should be more than 5GB though. 5 years ago, that was a reasonable backup limit, today, it really isn’t. I think Apple should up the plans…
25 free
100 $10/yr or $1/mo
500 $25/yr or $3/mo
5TB $100/yr or $10/mo
Unlimited $250/yr or $25/mo
If you, as a customer, don’t want to be the product you have to pay for these services. It’s nice that Apple’s paid tiers line up with others, though.
What does 5GB offer? It allows a 64GB phone to be backed up. Remember that Apps are not backed up, just their location on the phone, after a restore they are downloaded from the Store or a linked computer. Music and Video is not backed up, again, it lives on the store and can be re-downloaded at any time, just it’s existance on the phone. The only things backed up are mostly also synced to the cloud, calendars, contacts, notes, settings.
i can‘t recount how often i see people just clicking that „your ios device has not been backed up, because there‘s not enough space“-dialogue away. even on my mother’s – who is not a power user, and never buys apps or takes photos with it – 32gb ipad. for her it‘s just an annoying message, she gets every other day (and has probably never read beyond the „could not back up“).
sure, you could probably dial the size of the backups down in settings, but even for a „tech-savy“ person that reads error-messages, it‘s an uphill-battle that you eventually lose – so i just pay my 1$ idiot‘s-fee every month. for most user‘s though, it‘s just an error message that leaves a vague discomforting feeling, but that you just ignore and click away, microsoft-windows-style.
I think 5 GB is okay BUT iCloud Backup should not count toward the storage space used. At the very least, iCloud Backup should be free as long as the device’s AppleCare warranty coverage is in good standing.
You’re misunderstanding how iCloud back ups work for some reason (tho you write on an Apple tech blog, so I don’t understand why this is). A 64GB phone doesnt need 64GB for backups because it’s never a 1:1 backup of the entire volume’s contents. All your apps space don’t get backed up as the apps live in iTunes store already. And if you use iCloud Music Library and iCloud Photo Library those dont get backed up either. I have three iOS devices backing up to my account and they use a combined total of 3 GB. My 64GB iPhone X uses only 1.7GB of that.
50GB cloud storage is 99-cents a month, and as a power user that’s enough for all of my stuff, which is mostly Photos. Your milage may vary of course, but the data is cheap and the same price as Google’s.
The people saying that backing up your phone seldom takes more than 5gb are missing the point.
Someone who accepts the defaults and sets their device up the way IOS’s activation process nudges them to do so will be using that measly 5gb for their photos and videos as well as their data, and even a modest amount of picture taking will blow through that free allowance really fast in this era of 12mp cameras and super HD video.
Out of the box, without paying extra, Icloud ought to keep the data on your phone (which includes your photos!) safe in the event your phone is broken/lost/stolen. Back when the camera on most iphones took 5mp pictures, 5gb might have been sufficient. Today? Nowhere near enough.
It does not allow even one phone to be backed up. And when you throw in the fact that it is 5 GB per account, people with more than 1 device get left out in the cold.
“The other thing.. if you can afford a $1000 phone, you can surely afford $1 a month to back it up, that is, if your data was important.”
Flip it around. If you’re making >60% gross margin on a $1000 phone, you can afford to give more than 5 GB in free cloud storage.
iCloud Photo Library counts against your storage limit.