“It does appear that you might need an iCloud Drive more than ever with the new macOS,” Gene Steinberg writes for The Tech Night Owl. “That’s because of a third feature that uses iCloud, where the contents of your Desktop and Documents folders are shared. For me, that’s 250GB, which may be on the low side for those engaged in audio and video work.”
“So that means many of you are forced to upgrade your iCloud storage. Unfortunately, Apple gives you just 5GB free, but there are several packages with more storage, a lot more storage after a recent change,” Steinberg writes. “I’ve opted not to share my work folders for now. It would cost me $9.99 a month for 1TB. Instead, I’ve opted for the 99 cents a month package, 50GB, sufficient for my music and photo libraries. I already have two external backup drives for all my stuff, plus an account with CrashPlan for online backups.”
“Well, ahead of the arrival of macOS Sierra, presumably in late September or some time in October, Apple has updated its iCloud Drive plans. No, you do not get more free storage, and the rates are otherwise unchanged, but there’s a new 2TB tier for $19.99 a month or, as the title states, $239.88 per year,” Steinberg writes. “Now that might seem a tad costly, but it’s not, at least it’s not if you consider one of Apple’s main rivals in the cloud storage business, and that’s Google.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: It depends on what you’re doing with it.
Apple’s full list of iCloud storage plans and pricing is here.
SEE ALSO:
Apple adds new 2TB iCloud storage tier for $19.99 per month – August 31, 2016
Last paragraph: “new 2GB tier” should be new 2TB tier.
It’s such a rip off, it’s shocking.
I can’t see how 50GB for a $1 per month is a rip-off. Even that most expensive plan is still just $20, and that allows you to back up several macs (2TB is more than any standard Mac has on built-in hard drive, except perhaps for the Mac Pro).
As soon as you realize that Cook’s goal is not to delight customers but to accumulate as much cash as possible in foreign banks, this sort of thing makes sense.
Let us not forget; unlike practically every other cloud service, which makes good part of the revenue by selling ads (and user data) to the highest bidder, Apple sells none of customer data, nor any ad space.
With that in mind, those iCloud rates seem quite cheap.
Undertow – did you even think before you typed, or is that the kind of drivel that runs around in your brain all day? Unless you understand what you are talking about, leave the adult subjects to others.
On to the subject at hand. Storage fees are the cost of doing business. We will see fluctuation in pricing from all of the contenders, and prices will drop over time. Apple pricing is fair, and it does reflect the lack of advertising subsidies. Nothing sinister here.
ckh:
It’s highly unlikely that you are older than me, so I believe you can, as they say, go f@$% yourself.
Adults know that the goal of all companies is to make a profit. That’s reasonable.
What Cook is doing is not reasonable, not in the least. If you can’t see that then you’re blind.
So go right ahead. Pay premium price for lackluster survives. All you’re doing is putting more money in foreign banks and paying Cook to coast on Jobs’ residual goodwill.
Yeah, because when Jobs was in charge all Apple products were sold at break even prices.
If you owned a business and saw how much it costs to set up a 2TB syncing system with up to 5 computers locally, plus its maintenance, you would see how Apple is giving it away. You are getting not just the space, but maintenance, and the service. It’s laughably cheap.
Just turn off the Desktop and Documents folders sharing. I, for one, don’t want those files uploaded anywhere.
The link goes to the wrong page : Read more in the full article here. Here is another summary about double taxing EU income
CORRECT ARTICLE LINK:
http://www.technightowl.com/2016/09/is-icloud-worth-239-88-per-year/
Seems to me that as cost of storage goes down, so would Apple’s pricing. Is there a site where one could find the pricing history of icloud to see if that is indeed the case? For example, I would expect that within a year or 2, they would drop the lowest tier, drop the 1TB to $7.99, 2 TB to $14.99, and add a 3TB maybe for $21.99. I’d be curious to see their history on this.
Okay, so a simple duck duck go search yielded these results of the previous plan updated in just September of last year:
5GB: Free
20GB: $0.99/month
200GB: $3.99/month
500GB: $9.99/month
1TB: $19.99/month
However, I would LOVE to see them implement a family plan
NO. 😛
Dropbox had a breach that exposed tens of millions of user’s passwords.
Apple is an even bigger target for hackers.
So; do I want to be a big part of a single online databox and risk my data being part of a giant data breach?
Dropbox is also not encrypted.
its kind of expensive..
i like to have my files stored locally… if for nothing but the transfer rate reasons..
try and work with large files off of the cloud… not there yet..
When you’re talking about iCloud, it’s really hard to compare to other services. You’re not just getting the raw storage for the fee, your’e getting the deep system integration with all of your various Apple devices. That’s worth the price of admission for me.
yes, yes ! i see that end of it!
but imagine having huge video files and image files or any kind of large file in the cloud only.. interacting with them wont be practical unless they are downloaded on your local drive.
simple a transfer rate issue..
once download speeds match those of local transfer rate.. then its a complete different ball game.
My bandwidth does not allow for that yet… but im sure some day it will .
in the mean while… i like to keep my files localy…. and also for those times that i have no access to internet.
If using it for an office, 5 computers sharing that data, plus all the syncing of it for the usual items like Calendar, etc. plus perhaps even each computer say using Chronosync to sync its local drive with the iCloud drive, $20 a month is an amazing bargain, esp. if you see how much all of that could cost paying some IT company to set it up for you, and maintain it.
i see your point, as a back up, centralization and accecibility by all divices its great.
but to interact with the files … not so much..
at the end of the the day large files need to be downloaded first…before interacted with.
but that day shall come too 🙂
i like to see Apple sell me a subscription where i get reasonable cloud storage, New iphone every year…. and streaming music .. all in one package… for 120/month…
id go for it.
other tiers can include selective software and upgrades or other devices .
pretty much pay a subscription fee at different tire levels and have the latest and greatest of Apples offerings !
You are not “forced” to do anything as there are many third party alternatives.
Most people who are using the 2TB plan are likely using it for video projects and will be moving terabytes worth of data back and forth every few weeks.
Yea, that’s not free.
No way is it worth that much.
No.
I have the .99 iCloud Drive service. I thought it was great until a few months back. I recently had my files deleted due to technical issues. The best I could surmise is while remoting into other work machines, and logged into my work pc, it was having issues guessing which profile was correct. Unfortunately this went on for a while. I’m not sure exactly, but somewhere around 20 files were deleted.
Additionally, I’d love to see sync settings that allow me to sync all, or only selected folders to my computer. If I have 2 terabytes of data, I don’t want it synced across multiple machines. I want one for work, one for home etc….
By the same reasoning, one should ask “Is Google’s Drive/Cloud storage worth $1,199.88?”
The idiots who write these sort of ‘analysis” articles, neglect to compare that what Apple is charging $239.88 per year for, Google wants $1,199.88 per year for…”
I’m not a Google fan myself, but this logic is slightly flawed, because Google doesn’t offer a 2TB option. The 1TB option is identical to Apple’s pricing, but this $1,199.88 you mention is for 10TB. Still a much bigger ripoff of course, which was the point you were making…
Forget it. Apple has always had a hard on for memory pricing, just look at the disparity when you configure Mac’s memory, as compared to the same, identical memory prices on OWC’s site (when you used to be able to upgrade and install memory). And the premium you pay to get the next level of memory on iPhones, iPads. If you think Apple is going to reduce pricing for cloud storage, it is doubtful. If anything, they will increase pricing eventually. Just create you own cloud storage. It is easy, and cheap and you have ultimate control. This isn’t slamming Apple, but just a historical fact.
Historically, Apple has been reducing pricing on iCloud storage, or increasing storage for the same price – so your assumption that Apple will ‘certainly’ increase pricing is not supported by historical fact.
So, your ‘historical fact’ is complete incorrect.
Everything increases in price over time. Period.
Apparently Apple thinks like Brussels when it comes to exorbitant rates.
The right question to ask is “Are there people willing to pay that much?”
The answer to that question is “yes” and Apple is going to make a ton of money off of this 🙂
How about fixing the like for “read more” of the article?
Guys lets remember that apple is still building its own server centers, when that is done I believe that the prices will come down.
Office 365 is such a far better deal, including the Office apps as it does, plus 1 Tb of storage. I just wish there were a way to use that storage with Apple products, which of course Apple has no interest in implementing.
Absolutely not, not as it’s been presented.
Apple must think we are idiots. If they charge us more for a service, are we supposed to believe we are getting more?
Thanks for nothin’.
This site sadly is filled with many such idiots, paying full price for what should be free, and defending the indefensible, because, well, Apple.
As a rule of thumb, if your comment gets a low star rating you can consider it to be spot on.
Common sense in an open forum like this is a thing of the past.